CSX Acquisition of Pan Am Railways

I'm thinking that CSX and PAR fully anticipated the reclassification. My guess is that they filed as a Minor transaction because they knew that if they filed as Significant the STB would never roll it back to Minor, whereas if they filed as Minor they had a shot at it staying that way. I can't imagine that CSX would walk away from a 9-figure transaction (that probably has payback terms in case it doesn't go through) because the STB wants them to file a 1040-A rather than 1040-EZ.

A couple of folks here have called it "major". It's not; Major is when Class I's start buying each other. The note the STB had on their homepage the other day said that the CP-KCS deal is the first Major transaction to knock on their door in 20 years.

So far as competitive concerns in Maine go, we have exactly 2 meaningful rail lines going into New Hampshire: the PAR line the Downeaster uses, and the SLR / old Grand Trunk way up north. There are two others, one being the dead MEC Mountain Division and the other the branch in Kittery that only comes as far as the Naval Shipyard down there. Anything else we have is headed for Canada, and in fact the SLR is most useful for traffic heading that way since it's so far north. So, there isn't a ton of rail competition available now and Maine customers will really have the same CSX/PAS choice they've had for years.

An interesting entry in the local paper today listed a recent real estate filings by the Boston and Maine and the Vermont and Massachusetts for a number of Franklin County towns.

The Mass Registry of Deeds holds the 2021 filing which essentially cleans/clears up the original quit claim deed from 2007 ostensibly helping to clear some of the legal path for the hoped for sale of PAR etc to CSX.

Upon looking at the 2021 document I discovered that among other things David Fink is the President of the B&M and the V&M.

Taking a peak at the original 2007 quit claim document transferring various B&M and V&M properties from to PAS , 175 pages, it appears to include all the relative val plans in case you wanted to know exactly what PAS consists of.

What's also interesting is that many of the older transfers are also listed - at least back to 1919 (if not earlier) - there's a lot of historic detail that can be retrieved from the site (https://www.masslandrecords.com/) - not just for Franklin County, but for all of Massachusetts.

Let's just hope it goes to crap for CSX and one of the companies they have a majority stake in comes too take it over. Who is that you say? P&L Transportation, Inc., who runs the Paducah & Louisville, Appalachian and Ohio Railroad, and Evansville Western. I would love to see some university painted engines in the Northeast.

Just curious— aside from paint scheme, what do you see as the advantage of having a csx majority owned short line being the purchaser? I’m concerned that such a purchaser would not have sufficient to capital to improve the lousy condition of much of the property

The P&L and even the Indiana Railroad really do good bringing back or getting new business, even though CSX has a stake in their companies. Indiana Railroad went from coal being their biggest commodity to a fledging intermodal business. Paducah and Louisville also relied a lot on coal and now are spreading out with other commodities. The new Scotty gravel train is a example of this. My friend Jim Pearson took this photo of the train.
https://www.jimpearsonphotography.com/p ... outhbound/

I see— they are customer friendly. That’s good.
Whoever the ultimate buyer of the east end turns out to be—csx or another party, one thing that has been learned so far is that NS has a strangle hold over Hill Yard to the Willows so there are hard limits to csx interchange at barbers and business around Ayer unless a deal is cut with NS.

This is an exercise in frustration really... It’s strange to me the railfan perspective on the deal is “anyone but CSX” or that they are coming in and being an aggressor.... the reality is that major shippers are extremely excited about this deal and are anxious to get new connections and new markets going. Sad really it’s been hung up and naysayed by a few small fish and politicians, but rest assured those who ship and support large portions of the economy up this way are really excited about this.

Of course they are. They are going from Pan Am to CSX. What's the equivalent? Going from commuting everyday in a used Yugo to a new Mercedes? It's like night and day. Pan Am has gotten it's share of deserved and undeserved negativity over the years, and there are those who have been saying that Pan Am is doing a much better job lately, but you can't compare the two. This is a game changer for rail freight in New England. I don't think you could have a better result than a massive Class 1 buying out PAR and it just happens to be CSX.

The rail fan part of me is excited about what the csx transaction would mean for Worcester to Ayer— making it again a well maintained, critical and busy link

It’s strange to me the railfan perspective on the deal is “anyone but CSX” or that they are coming in and being an aggressor....

That might be one railfans perspective, but certainly not all. There are multiple types of railfans. I’m a railfan, I’m excited about what CSX owning and running the PAR system could do for it.

It might be a good thing for east Ayer to Maine also might not be for Ayer west . The west end will be losing at least one train. I would think that in five years there will only be local service and a train to Gardner for P&W traffic. I would think CSX would try to quote cheaper rate on traffic to NS by the way of the B&A route than by the northern route. They have no reason to keep the northern route and have to split the revenue with two other railroads. Also I would expect the companies would rather have to deal with only two railroads than three. If some thing went wrong with there shipment it is easier to deal with two company to find out what happen to the shipment. This show how bad the companies feel about Pamam service.

It has been weeks since I read the stb filing, but were not there provisions in there that limited the ability of csx to route everything through barbers?

And the grain trains will likely stay on the west end too.

I think the west end will end up better off than under the conrail era when it was essentially moribund. Unless and until either NS, some buyer or taxpayers put up big $ to clear and reinforce the tunnel, the B&M west end will be at a severe competitive disadvantage. This will be the case no matter who buys the RR

My point is where is the outcry of shippers against this? Crickets although I guess now there is time to file comments

It will be interesting to see the plans that CSX has for the property if they eventually take ownership. Besides the Worcester main I hope they would upgrade the 43+ miles from Barbers all the way to LJ. If they could get that stretch up to class 3, they would be able to run 40mph from Royal Junction to Barbers. CSX would get immediate productivity returns for both the road crews and the locomotive fleet.
CSX has the MoW equipment and knowhow to get that completed in a full maintenance season. A complete rebuild is not needed. Brush cutting, drainage work, culvert cleaning, joint maintenance, tie replacement and ballast would be needed for the entire length. There is already some CWR on the Stoney Brook and a well thought out plan implemented over 3-5 years would reap the above-mentioned productivity gains and show customers CSX is serious about their business.
With much talk on this thread about IM at Waterville, what is the track condition north of Royal Junction. We all know further north up to Keag is a POS.