PL-1 Job Central Connecticut PAS Pan Am Southern

So...visiting my family in CT this weekend and got in some Canal Line surveying. Tracks have been freshly pulled up in a couple isolated spots of the OOS section in Southington, new since my last visit in June. . .

-- ...in front of BJ's Wholesale Club to the (paved over in 2015) Spring St. grade crossing. Unclear how far back since the weeds are tall, but rail hardware completely removed, most ties remaining but a few pulled up and tossed aside, ground pretty thoroughly churned up so work was recent.

-- ...a *few* sticks of rail lifted and tossed aside between the Aircraft Rd. and W. Queen St. grade crossings. Looks almost like one of those symbolic breaks to mark the new end-of-track, unless they're coming back in the near future to remove more.

Tracks are still fully intact behind Souithington Plaza, and from Spring St. to end of PAS ownership at the I-84 overpass...creating two decent-sized discontinuous chunks left behind. Paved-over Spring St. crossing no longer has any crossbucks signs (though the one heading eastbound towards Queen St. has been missing for years), but the fairly new late-90's vintage advance warning signs still remain...weird.


That makes end of operable track a couple car lengths beyond the W. Queen grade crossing, which makes sense given the interest A. Duie Pyle expressed 1-2 years ago in possibly building a spur across the W. Queen/Newell St. intersection. But I don't know if there's been any movement in an interim trail lease over the PAS section, as all the recent trail gap infill planning news of late has been on the CDOT/CDEEP-owned portions south of the I-84 overpass and north of Robertson Airport. PAS has long maintained they want that property off the books before they allow any infill north of I-84 (even to Spring St.), and the property definitely hasn't transacted to the state yet so it's curious that there'd be any hardware renewal (even spotty as it is).

FWIW...Pyle keeps expanding like gangbusters. Building got yet another recent renovation (mostly a cosmetic spruce-up to match their new logo/color scheme), all their New England locations have a brand-spanking-new fleet of trucks, and the trailer yard is absolutely packed with activity even on Labor Day Weekend. I haven't heard any recent rumors about that siding still being a going concern. Hasn't made the news, and it certainly would have if they were actively pursuing it because the W. Queen grade crossing would need realignment to hop across Newell into their lot with all the town hearings and whatnot that would entail. But certainly looks like Pyle's reaching a critical mass at that location, so if rail access were desired by them a couple years ago they probably have greater need for it now. At very least they're going to keep taking over still more underutilized parking lots around that Aircraft/Newell/W. Queen block as trailer storage gets tighter and tighter in the main lot.


Might do some more 'fanning today, since I haven't gotten a direct look at Plainville Yard yet. Saw PL-1 canned on the Highland near the Route 10 grade crossing behind the ex-GE/now-UHaul property for several hours Friday (maybe an overfull yard?), but otherwise a typically quiet holiday weekend for the RR in Plainville as you'd expect.

Pyle specializes in less than truckload and single truck haulage. I can't see what use they could have for rail to dock at all?

Pyle specializes in warehousing which does offer rail to truck crossdock services. Several of their warehouse sites have rail sidings. Not sure if that's the case here however.

Yeah but they have two in Westfield already.

Maybe Pyle wants another transload/warehouse operation for central or southern Connecticut. They could have a location to serve east of Hudson/NYC. Southington might be close enough to do it, yet the real estate, and operating expense might be enough cheaper.

Engineer Spike wrote:Maybe Pyle wants another transload/warehouse operation for central or southern Connecticut. They could have a location to serve east of Hudson/NYC. Southington might be close enough to do it, yet the real estate, and operating expense might be enough cheaper.

Any which way the exact point where they lifted the rails signifies that Pyle...and not the extant siding at the ex-Pratt & Whitney plant...is the line in the sand for where PAS is maintaining the line going forward. They chose to keep maintaining two sets of active crossing protection at Birch St. (state highway) and W. Queen while chopping the crossbucks-only crossings at Aircraft Rd. and Spring St. by lifting some rail. If pure cost savings were the goal they would've done away with all 4 crossings past Amerigas to get out from the minor overhead of having to be on-call for the active crossing equipment. And they've brush-cut between Birch & Aircraft in the last few years keeping a completely clear ROW through the Quinnipiac River watershed while it's gotten decidedly overgrown and washed out behind Southington Plaza. So something more than running round a freakishly long Amerigas train is compelling them to keep a toehold on that 1700 ft. of track past the Birch crossing...but start stripping hardware and allow crossings to be paved over on the last half-mile to I-84 where 23 years have proven beyond shadow of doubt that the ex-Levitz Furniture/industrial park and Pratt & Whitney sidings are 100.00% devoid of any future prospects.

You could probably draw a line from whatever few cents it's costing them to maintain this trackage but not that trackage with the (admittedly low) odds of Pyle having some interest, and come out ahead on the side of holding out for Pyle future considerations. Granted the net-positive value here is at a microtransaction's scale visible only in an electron microscope, but crunch the numbers and they probably do see the value. Pyle's going to get negatively impacted by the decade-long (if we're lucky) "84mageddon" construction project in downtown Hartford just like every other major shipper in Central CT, and the available truck detours around that mess offer little solace when everyone will be reprogramming their GPS's to slam the same detours. The business uncertainty of how to cope in advance with that for a full decade could keep options like a local rail siding open to them. Again...a veritable microtransaction's impact on the railroad for the odds it'll actually happen, but just enough uncertainty to be worth spending a few pennies to keep the crossing protection to W. Queen active and the ROW clear + washout-free.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote: Might do some more 'fanning today, since I haven't gotten a direct look at Plainville Yard yet. Saw PL-1 canned on the Highland near the Route 10 grade crossing behind the ex-GE/now-UHaul property for several hours Friday (maybe an overfull yard?), but otherwise a typically quiet holiday weekend for the RR in Plainville as you'd expect.

Are you sure that wasn't PLED waiting for departure? I have seen this on Tuesday and Friday in the past.

Lee

That was PLED-07 that was put together with 3 units and waiting for a crew to take it north on Tuesday 11/7.
PL-1 had made the train up.

Cue the Queen hit Another One Bites the Dust (and Pan Am should get out the check book):

http://www.wfsb.com/story/37023289/trai ... plainville

Looks like it has blocked RT. 372 & 10. Doesn't look like anything went over from initial reports. Maybe PLED picked the east wye switch coming out on the main. Anyway a couple of major streets in the center of Plainville are blocked.

J. Lang

Sunday's (12/17) POSE had to wait at Dover for two hours for a pilot engineer
to arrive from Portland, as the was not qualified into Lawrence.

I made a new topic on the Naugy Intermodal Yard: viewtopic.php?f=55&t=166661" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Four pages on just that, seemed to merit it!

The 1st post in that thread is now an orphan.

Driving over the Plainville Yard today on rt 72 and the building next to the yard on the left hand side appears to have had a fire. I am curious if sparks from the engine going by could have caused it. Has anyone heard anything about it?

Darn coal fired locomotives. Should've switched to bunker C a long time ago.