CSX Acquisition of Pan Am Railways

Can this have anything to do with this?

R&P is reporting that Norfolk Southern is downgrading the "Gateway to New England" D&H line between Binghamton and Harrisburg. Norfolk Southern is seeking a better route into New England from the south.

https://railsandports.com/2021/02/ns-si ... inghamton/

Uhhhhh what.... removing signals is a cost reduction strategy not a divesting one.... this is completely made up.

Also, how would they create a corridor to the south....? There are CSX lines and the NEC soooooooooo I'm lost here. The article even admits there is 'no specific information' so I guess when there is no news, you can just create news?

Then again, the author of the article lends no surprises here.

Turning off CTC and intermediate signals across 4 CTC islands (one of which around Scranton is 30 mile stretch) on a line whose 136 miles are mostly dark territory already dispatched by Track Authority doesn't necessarily constitute downgrading of the line. North of Scranton there are only 2 daily pairs of road trains operating and one pair, the 11Z/12Z running between Roanoke and Binghamton, is frequently so heavy as to warrant DPU operation. There are a number of customers in the Scranton - Wilkes Barre area including an intermodal terminal that handles an average of 50 EMP/JBHU containers (to/from Chicago) each day as well as interchange with a few shortlines such as the R&N, DL, and L&S. South of Scranton, besides 11Z/12Z, a daily local out of Scranton handles. Net: the Binghamton - Sunbury line probably handles 25,000+ tons of traffic daily and > 100,000 cars annually. I would be surprised if NS wanted to get rid of this line and I'm not sure what alternative route there is. NS has operated a number of important secondary mainlines as dark territory in its network. And here are 6 more NS routes for which NS is seeking to de-signal:

From the 12/28/20 edition of the Federal Register:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documen ... nal-system
- TCS from milepost (MP) V 327 (PD Junction) to V 381.8 (Maben) on the Princeton-Deepwater line of the Pocahontas Division.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR- ... -00763.htm
- ABS system which includes the control point (CP) at BV&E Junction, 20 automatic signals on the H Line, and all 9 automatic signals on the J-Line.

From the 1/25/21 edition of the Federal Register:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR- ... -01425.pdf
- TCS on the T and TC lines, milepost (MP) 0.0T to MP 40.0T and MP 40.0TC to MP 87.0TC, from Andover to Bulls Gap on the Blue Ridge Division.
- ABS system on the W line, milepost (MP) W54.8, Inman, to MP W65.6, Spartanburg, on the Coastal Division.
- TCS on the NA West End line, milepost (MP) 801, Birmingham, Alabama, to MP 840 and MP NA 95, control point (CP) Parish, to MP NA 5, CP Lee, on the Alabama Division.
- TCS on the S line, from milepost (MP) S146.0, control point (CP) Craggy, at Murphy Junction, to MP S228, CP New Line, at Morristown, on the Gulf Division

BTW, I don't know operational details but NS is now having Pan Am Southern use its bi-PTC SD60E units as leaders on the 11R/16R carload freights to/from Binghamton to permit NS/PAS to expedite traffic to/from P&W at Gardner and Ayer shippers, presumably by-passing E Deerfield yard classification.

Attached is a photo from Saturday 2/6/21 of an NS SD60E leading a sizeable carload freight that originated at Ayer in MBTA ACSES PTC territory. Crew operating the train was the Fitchburg FI-1 local crew.

SD60Es have been the leaders on the 22K/23K intermodal trains for a couple of months now.

Net: it's getting harder to see Pan Am led road trains on PAS west of Ayer, except for the EDRJ/RJED trains.

EDPO/POED are still daily trains and usually are C40s.

I cannot fathom that NS is discontinuing all of the CTC islands that CP spent years putting in. The line is already TWC besides these, talk about trying to save a nickel. They obviously see no future growth in the line whatsover.

I am regretting the day that I celebrated them buying the D&H South End. If the current CP leadership still owned it things would be different. This along with many of the other PSR moves have damaged that railroad to a degree that will be very difficult to unwind. Glad I sold all of my NSC stock last year as I have lost all respect for that company. If they retreated from New England I would not shed a tear at this point.

So if EDPO and POED continue to run daily, are these NS train extensions to/from Ayer basically daily ED-8 / ED-9 trains (which had only run rarely of late)? So EDPO/POED now get to skip Ayer/Fitchburg/Gardner each day? Sounds like a win - win for traffic velocity. Lastly do those blue trash containers go to/from CSX at RJ? If so , PAS is using NS assets to realize revenue through hauling CSX traffic. Wonder if these PAS ops changes came from the CSX - NS - PAR acquisition negotiations?

The report arguably says that “traffic” rather than NS is seeking a more attractive route from the south. Reading it this way, the authors could mean shippers are choosing csx’s superior route from the south and NS is effectively giving up trying to compete. If the authors intended to mean ns is supposedly seeking a superior route, that seems to me like crazy talk bc, as noted above, one doesn’t exist on the ns system. There isn’t even a better route that could conceivably be purchased. The only better route is the csx River line. The options for an alleged ns “more attractive route” appear limited to circuitous routes via Ohio or in to NJ then back up the southern tier (a line which we already know they hate). Perhaps a car float from Norfolk to New England. Hahaha. This move by NS seems extremely short sighted

F74265A wrote: ↑Sun Feb 07, 2021 10:43 am The only better route is the csx River line.

Exactly. Trackage rights on CSX could be the thing that seals the CSX-PAR deal.

How do you get from PAS to the river line? Go out to Rotterdam and change ends to head back East? Even if NS could get access to the River Line, how does that really help them? They'd have to go through the congested North Jersey terminal and then would still need to go out to Harrisburg. Is that really any quicker than going via Binghamton?

Removing the signals on the D&H's south end is just a nickel and dime part of their present slash and burn policy. If anything I would think that they would abandon the southern tier from Bingo to Buffalo and route all of their NE traffic from the west south from Cleveland to the Pittsburg line to Harrisburg. Anyway they seem to be on a real downward spiral.

Number of trains vs tonnage hauled are two different things. Maybe they have a pair of trains on this line, but they are usually fully DPU. And yes-- the NS flavor of PSR is really cutting to the bone, and let shareholders, the board and the STB speak for Squires.. if they want to oust him based on what's going on they will, but we saw this with CSX at first.

At some point they'll relaunch growth mode whether this regime or the next, and relatively speaking these miles vs tons doesn't make a lot of sense to maintain a signal system and/or siding capacity. It's a PSR model 101... right size the operation to the volume. But dropping the line entirely and redrawing the map I don't see that... I'm thinking the piece is alluding to rumors that surface every so often about NS routing trains over RBNM and getting from Scranton to Reading.

Before NS had its own line to reach PAS, that could have been a consideration, but in this case why would you divest now just to swap to another line? That's a lot of effort, and you need to pass the sniff test with your investors. At some point too NS will look to expand their intermodal franchise, and the actual extension of Mechanicville into the Crescent Corridor (IE adding a dedicated pair of north-south trains), not just having a fancy map with dots connected, is what we'll see.

The story is not yet told for this line, sorry to see it dipped in traffic but again no one could foresee the PSR fad for NS that is playing out, so hopefully we are through that sooner rather than later.

If Buffalo to Bing were abandoned, why keep the nkp Cleveland to Buffalo? Is there material Canadian interchange for ns at Buffalo?

They do have an Intermodal terminal and auto ramp in Buffalo. I'm sure there must be some Canadian interchange there also.

I don’t think the NS Sunbury line has seen a dip in traffic - it’s likely grown especially with increased container business, frac sand, Massachusetts trash being added. What has happened is the # of road freights has been cut in half with 2 pair of medium sized trains (with one pair running trackage rights on R&N) becoming a pair of heavy freights that run 100% on NS track. Good news for NS and it’s clean sheet work.

Read a report that EDPO is only running twice a week.....allegedly 11R and 16 R are running through to Ayer with NS power. Bypassing E. Deerfield? Any truth to this.....it does appear there has been a major change in operations on PAS. I get all of this from the internet from my armchair in California and have zero first hand knowledge.