"Up North" Gawking (District 1 sightings)

How often is the interchange happening?

this give some idea of the frequency

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-t6bopIdlo

5-6 days a week on the CSX side of things. Sometimes more, sometimes less depending on if things get screwed up on CSX or Irving. Although, last week the eastbound only had one empty for CP and no cars at Mattawamkeag I want to say on Saturday, so the power was left at NMJ.

For comparison, at the height of the Irving to CSX (by way of PAR/Keag) haulage service, they were running a 3 sided job and it usually was in the 50-60 car range.

Its also worth noting that they have been doing a live interchange at Mattawamkeag as of lately, then taking the McAdam/Saint John cars to Bancroft to be left for the road jobs, while the MNR traffic is backhauled to BVJ, and 909 was been getting recrewed at Knights by 910, which takes the job to Millinocket and back overnight, for the following days 909 to take back over. The new/old service facility at Millinocket has made that rotation possible.

video of a recent live interchange of two large trains
big time railroading has clearly returned to eastern ME

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgfnW9lYSuw

Also clearly they've outgrown the current interchange. Needing to shove 100 cars out of the way at any time is less than ideal.

What's old is new again.... they should align the 907/908 jobs to meet CSX and/or add a siding east of Mattawamkeag for interchange.

Another question, does CSX have track age rights to vanceboro? MEC did and as far I can tell those would have carried to GRS/PAR and to CSX.

I am not sure how aligning jobs which run as needed 1-2 times a week, and which haven't existed as a regular road job in over a year, are supposed to fix the congestion issue.

Even with the fluctuations in traffic off of CPKC, Irving is still able to fit the CSX and MNR traffic into the 10K foot train length limits. And even then, if traffic is left behind it is normally picked up by the weekend fiber extras (907/908) which are being used to meet the increased fiber demands of Woodland and Irving Pulp & Paper.

Patterson is adamant about not adding more trains, due to the current traffic levels and the fact that the traffic can still be baled into 120/121. Recently they stopped using Kirby as CSX's parking lot which will help out on the Irving end of things. They have started setting cars off at Bancroft instead and backhauling the MNR's. Once Knights siding is completed in the next month (Progress has been delayed due to the winter rain/wind storms), the MNR's will be set off there. It would make sense for 909 to backhaul the NBSR's and MNR's there for 120 to pick up. Plus eventually the cautionary limits are going to be pushed out to there, so the conductor could drive one of the company trucks out there to assist in switching. Plus EMR could fix the blocking issues coming off CPKC out there, vs tying up Brownville Jct.

For CSX bound traffic, at this point Hardy Pond would make sense since its empty, and would separate the MNR and NBSR traffic, where as 909 would have to dig what they need to get, at Knights. And 909 has to pass by there anyway. And if a 121 couldn't make it all the way to BVJ, they could always do a recrew at Lake View after the set out which is close enough one of the yard trucks could be used.

As for the trackage rights, I don't think those have been utilized since MEC stopped running the Vanceboro local. So I would be surprised if they even existed, especially considering how Irving only wants Irving crews & power on Irving track. Not to mention how Irving uses a different rules set (Canadian Rail Operating Rules aka CROR), with (for the most part) entirely different names/phrases than the NORAC system Pan Am/CSX uses. That would mean either Irving would have to switch to NORAC, or GCOR which is likely what CSX will start pushing for the Pan Am lines, which with how integrated CROR is on Irving, I doubt that will happen. Or plan B. would be CSX would have to train a select number of crews on CROR, which has its own host of issues. As far as I can remember it was always Irving crews who did the Mattawamkeag-Kirby interchange transfers. Even if CSX had trackage rights to Vanceboro, what would be the point in using them for the purposes of the interchange? They are just going to run into the same capacity issues they have now. Bancroft has like 80-100 cars worth of capacity. And track 2 at Vanceboro is only like 65 cars and the backtrack is 30 or so. Track 2 is used for customs kickers while the backtrack is extremely light rail, maybe 60 pounds if not less and it requires stretchers to go into/out of. McAdam is the other option, although it has been pretty full (I haven't been over in a few months), and normally they like to store fiber cars there, so its not really a good spot for an interchange. NBSR intended on reconfiguring the tracks so they would have two tracks I want to say from the defect detector to somewhere east of the main rd. However that project and the siding extension got canned once the intermodal died off. The ties and other materials from McAdam ended up on MNR. But that would require CSX to find crews qualified to enter Canada. Which thats what prevented a number of the guys east of Waterville from leaving to work for Irving.

And there is the rumored expansion of the csx yard tracks south toward Winn

Which if that does turn out to be true, which it looks like it will with the land clearing going on, it wouldn't make sense for CSX to want to run east of town. The short term solution to ease some of the backlog might be to add a Sunday job for east of NMJ.

I researched this some years ago and I’m pretty sure that the mec trackage rights keag to vanceboro were long ago given up

I figured as much, I know they were still around when CP sold the line to Irving. But I think MEC stopped serving Vanceboro I want to say in 1978(?) which was about the time the local traffic dried up (Pulp loading operations at Forest City & Kingman, Lumber Mill at Bancroft, and the company which either took or loaded birch logs at Danforth). I could be wrong, but somewhere I think I have seen fuel cars being unloaded at Vanceboro, but I could be confusing the location with Mattawamkeag.
I am guessing once JDI got the railroad, any trackage rights which existed were nullified.

A lot of time the 'lifelong' rights get handed down but just fantasizing on my part... the real problem is that you have perfectly good yards at McAdam and NMJ capable of handling traffic but NBSR would not be allowed to run on CSX (union wise) and CSX probably wouldn't want to qualify people that far east. At least CSX has access to capital if they want to improve the interchange, but there are certainly better ways to do it than plug up more tracks at Keag.

CN9634 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 7:15 pm A lot of time the 'lifelong' rights get handed down but just fantasizing on my part... the real problem is that you have perfectly good yards at McAdam and NMJ capable of handling traffic but NBSR would not be allowed to run on CSX (union wise) and CSX probably wouldn't want to qualify people that far east. At least CSX has access to capital if they want to improve the interchange, but there are certainly better ways to do it than plug up more tracks at Keag.

In the short term, there will be congestion considering the length of the existing yard tracks. But considering the clearing work has been done for 1-1.5 miles and I am guessing it will run right to the east end ladder once landowner disputes are resolved, there shouldn't be any issues with congestion if they are really installing more than one track, at 1+ mile a piece. I am throwing a wild guess out at this point, but I am guessing they will push the main over in a few spots and extend the two existing tracks west on top of adding 1 if not more tracks on the river side to give them 2-4 tracks in total. Which seems appropriate considering the width of the clear cut.

As for the MEC rights, would the STB have documentation of those on file?