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  • Pan Am Railways (PAR) Maintenance of Way (MoW) Activity

  • Guilford Rail System changed its name to Pan Am Railways in 2006. Discussion relating to the current operations of the Boston & Maine, the Maine Central, and the Springfield Terminal railroads (as well as the Delaware & Hudson while it was under Guilford control until 1988). Official site can be found here: PANAMRAILWAYS.COM.
Guilford Rail System changed its name to Pan Am Railways in 2006. Discussion relating to the current operations of the Boston & Maine, the Maine Central, and the Springfield Terminal railroads (as well as the Delaware & Hudson while it was under Guilford control until 1988). Official site can be found here: PANAMRAILWAYS.COM.

Moderator: MEC407

 #1512822  by 690
 
The Penney side, although the ROW exists to extend it on either side, but obviously there's a crossing right next to Blake. And it makes sense that the curves are being hit, those are, generally speaking, the worst spots. The long stretches from Belgrade to Winthrop, and Monmouth to Lewiston aren't nearly as bad, but still are in pretty rough shape, and the mainline through New Gloucester is real rough, especially just west of Penney.
 #1512886  by gokeefe
 
Thinking this over again I would say Poland Spring is probably the more compelling rationale. The paper traffic resurgence is somewhat more recent than the bottled water containers. Waterville is the intermodal terminal for PS. This capital improvement program dovetails nicely with their needs. It also takes great advantage of capital improvements made from Royal Junction south to leverage meaningful operational improvements to the north.

It is notable to me that at long last the watershed from the passenger rail investments has finally reached the freight only territory.
 #1512908  by 690
 
No... notice how the signal territory stops at Leeds Junction? I'm going to go with paper coming off the branch. They've had plenty of time to do improvements for the water, that's not a new thing (and in fact they did, by getting Wtvl - 185 back up to 25 several years ago). Paper traffic pays the bills a lot better than the water traffic, and given how close they were to losing most of it just a couple years ago, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you want to sustain what's left, you need to provide more reliable service. Tie that into rumors that Nine Dragons is/will be paying for track upgrades on the Rumford Branch, and I'm confident that this is for paper traffic.

Also the fact that the track sucks, and it needs to be replaced.
 #1512929  by newpylong
 
I agree with 690, service to the branch is the money maker, and needs serious attention. I'd be willing to bet that the pair of trains that traverse it daily bring in more revenue alone than all the PS water out of Waterville for a week.

Was going to ask the obvious question about when the white elephant in the room - the branch itself, would get some TLC and who would pay for it. Getting that back to 25 would be a game changer.
 #1513015  by 690
 
Without a doubt, especially since Pan Am is also charging for every car that gets spotted at Rileys and Rumford as well. However, the thing about doing work on the branch is that the FRA will have to be involved with any increases in speed, as Pan Am (perhaps shortsightedly) dropped the speed in the timetable to Class I, or 10 mph. They've avoided this issue by keeping the timetable speed east of Waterville at 25, but again, this issue comes into play for the mainline west of Waterville, which was dropped to 25, and is one of the likely reasons that despite the improvements being made, all the crossings being rebuilt are only being rebuilt to Class II standards.
 #1513156  by gokeefe
 
690 wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2019 12:11 pmHowever, the thing about doing work on the branch is that the FRA will have to be involved with any increases in speed, as Pan Am (perhaps shortsightedly) dropped the speed in the timetable to Class I, or 10 mph.
With regards to this and what you mentioned about the main line my impression is that Pan Am simply doesn't consider Class 3 to be worth it. If the Rumford Branch could be upgraded (and permanently maintained) at Class 2 that would be a huge step forward.
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