Monday, December 12, 2011

Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Plans Sale of Isolated Route

(Via Trains.com newsletter)

MILLINOCKET, Maine — Montreal, Maine & Atlantic has reached a tentative deal to sell the last of its track in northern Maine, the Bangor (Maine) Daily News has reported. MM&A plans to sell its 25-mile route between Madawaska, Maine, and St. Leonard, N.B., to Eastern Maine Railway, an affiliate of J.D. Irving’s New Brunswick Southern Railway.

“We have an isolated piece of railroad there that doesn’t seem to be generating a lot of traffic,” said Robert C. Grindrod, MM&A’s president and CEO. “There seemed to be little or no prospect of regaining traffic from Twin Rivers,” a paper mill in Madawaska.

MM&A sold 233 route-miles of track north of Millinocket to the state of Maine, which in turn has leased it to Eastern Maine Railway. MM&A had proposed abandoning the route on account of diminishing traffic. The 25-mile route east of Madawaska connected the Twin Rivers mill to an interchange with Canadian National. But Twin Rivers, upset with what it said was inadequate service, began trucking its paper into Canada for transloading into railcars on Canadian National.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

ST/Guilford/Pan Am GP9 #52 Second Heritage Unit

Photos are starting to show up of the recent "heritage" repaint out of the Pan Am Waterville shops.  This time, it is ST #52 in dark green Maine Central livery.  ST #77 was the first unit to be painted in a retro scheme, the classic maroon and gold Boston & Maine version.  Word is there will be a third as well.  I wonder how many mis-posts there will be of these engines as "BM" and "MEC", instead of Springfield Terminal?

Monday, December 5, 2011

Pan Am Railways Plans Expansion of ‘Heritage’ Locomotive Program

(Via Trains.com newsletter)

NORTH BILLERICA, Mass. — Pan Am Railways plans to roll out a GP9 in Maine Central paint before week’s end, the second locomotive to commemorate its predecessors. The company painted a GP9 in the “Minute Man” colors of predecessor Boston & Maine earlier this year.

Cynthia Scarano, the railroad’s executive vice president, told TRAINS the company decided to paint the locomotives in the historic schemes because “the railfans are really big on this kind of stuff. We thought it would be nice to bring out some of those old schemes to show on the railroad.”

Pan Am is choosing GP9s for its “heritage” program because the locomotives are in need of repainting. The railroad’s Waterville, Maine, shop is applying the new liveries.

New Commuter Train Station Opening in Connecticut

(Via Trains.com newsletter)

FAIRFIELD, Conn. — Metro-North Railroad will begin service to the new Fairfield Metro Station on its New Haven Line on Dec. 5. Located midway between the Fairfield and Bridgeport, Conn., stations, it was built by the Connecticut Department of Transportation and the Town of Fairfield. Metro-North provides train service in Connecticut under contract to the Connecticut Department of Transportation.

The station has two high-level platforms with full-length canopies that can accommodate 12 passenger cars each. Other station facilities include elevators, ticket vending machines, benches, shelters, and an enclosed pedestrian overpass. Fairfield Metro is the first new station on the New Haven Line since State Street Station opened in New Haven in 2002.

The New Haven Line carried 37.3 million passengers in 2010, a 2.8 percent increase over the previous year.