What's the state of the railroad where you live?

[turbo]

I mentioned the Maine Central Railroad in chat, and that got me to browsing through "Along Old Canada Road" - a history of the upper Kennebec Valley told through antique picture post-cards. Much of the infrastructure in this area would not have been possible without a thriving railroad. Now it's long-gone.

When I was a kid, my older cousin lived in a trailer park on the edge of the freight-yard, and we spent many, many hours out there. There were 'humps", spurs off to the two mills in town, and a wonderful turntable with which to get the engines turned around. Back then, if you ordered an appliance, furniture, etc from Sears or Montgomery Ward, you'd get a call from the depot, and have to get to the freight office with a truck to pick up your item (crated, of course). My father has an old Fairbanks scale that I believe came out of that depot when MCRR dropped their consumer freight business after trucking got de-regulated.

All the crossings here were unguarded with simple crossing signs and no lights, bells, or barriers, so the trains showed to a crawl to approach them and used their horns liberally. Pretty primitive system. In my home town of Moscow, the rail lines were abandoned, but remnants of them and the trestle still remained. Wyman dam could not have been built without a steady supply of equipment and materials, all brought in by rail. The cofferdams for the trestle across the Kennebec still remain over 80 years later. Pretty good construction, to withstand 80+ years of spring floods.

Anyway, there were mills in all these little towns, and they often got materials by rail and almost all shipped by rail. Industry started flagging here in the 70's, in part due to obsolescence and foreign competition and rail traffic fell. Enter Timothy Mellon and Guilford Rail. No sooner had he bought the Maine Central than he started decommissioning yards, abandoning tracks, scrapping steel and selling off rolling stock, removing any real viability for the mills that the railroad once served. The mills couldn't be easily sold and re-tasked without reliable shipping, and they stand empty for the most part. Trestles that weren't destroyed and scrapped during decommissioning were re-decked by local snowmobile and ATV clubs so the members could use the old rail-beds as trails.

The nearest location that currently has rail service is the paper mill in Madison, and the tracks on that spur through Fairfield are in such horrible shape that trains have to creep along to avoid derailing. People would be shocked to watch a train go through the stretch near the Bear Mountain road, with cars rocking from side to side. Lots of deferred maintenance on Guilford's part.

I fear that the development of containerized modules that can be transported by truck, rail, ship came too late for this region, and might have kept some of these old mills viable in one form or another. Is rail freight in such bad or deteriorating condition elsewhere in the US?

 

[Norman]

I have a buddy who works for Norfolk Southern and he seems to indicate they are doing pretty well. I don't know how much of their business is freight, so that may not be what you are looking for.

Where I grew up (Green Bay, Wisconsin) sounds a little similar to your area. Paper (largely) drives the economy. Not a single person on my mothers side of my family has not worked in a paper mill in some form - both my Dad and brother work in a mill. I know their mill (fairly new, very small one), relies on trucking for all product going out. Not sure if it eventually hits rails or not. But I do know that the railyard in Green Bay is not nearly as busy as it was 20 years ago. At least that is the way it seems to me. Coal still comes by ship to most of the big mills which are all along the Fox River. But all of the mills still use their rails sometimes it seems.

 

[turbo]

In this region, the bulk of the rail freight is confined to the two paper mills in the next two towns to the south. Incoming freight is often paper additives, fillers, etc, and outgoing is finished paper. Wood comes in by truck, though once the railroad maintained a fleet of pulp-cars for that purpose. The pulp mill that I worked at as a chemist got regular shipments of liquid chlorine by tanker-car. Luckily, that mill has gone over to bleaching with oxygen. Chlorine tankers are disasters waiting to happen, especially on poorly maintained tracks.

 

[jtbell]

Two CSX routes merge outside of town, and then diverge again just after passing the center of town. My house and the college where I work are both near the shared section of track. Train horns and rumbling engines are part of the background noise here, with probably 15-20 trains going through per day. There are coal trains between the mountains of Kentucky and West Virginia and power plants in the "downstate" areas of Georgia and South Carolina, trains hauling timber and wood chips, and various mixed carload trains. The last passenger trains were in the early 1970s, long before my time here.

Most of them go right on through, because only one business in or near town uses rail shipments, a factory that makes containers and other household items out of plastic. Textiles used to be the big industry here, and you can still see where spurs ran into textile mills, but the mills closed 15-20 years ago and those tracks have been removed.

Driving towards Columbia about 50 miles away, the "back road" that runs more or less parallel to the Interstate has one of those CSX routes alongside it most of the way. A handful of industries between here and Columbia have rail service, mostly connected with the wood and paper industries as far as I can tell.

 

[turbo]

Thanks, jt! It seems that the decline of our wood products industries paralleled the loss of your area's textile mills. Trouble is, once the local yards, spurs and sidings are removed, it can be hard to do anything else with a former mill so it remains an eyesore and potential fire-hazard while it deteriorates. Most of the "good-fit" industries here are related to wood products, but without rail, shipping becomes problematic unless your product has a lot of value-added. One company that is bucking the trend built a mill in this town to produce high-end hardwood flooring, and now they are in the midst of expanding their plant by perhaps 50% or so. All their freight comes and goes on tractor-trailers, so they wisely sited their plant along Route 201, which never gets "posted" during frost/mud season and allows the state-maximum load limits for the trucks. Unfortunately for the labor-market, their operation is very automated, and not as labor-intensive as the older mills that used to be here. Still, that plant is a bright spot in a very bleak region.

 

[Andre]

There are three active railroad types in my town Zoetermeer. The most impressive is the high speed line for the http://www.ceno-travel.com/treinreis-thalys-weekendje-parijs-met-hotel.html from Amsterdam to Paris in three hours

Then there is the regular train connection from The Hague to Utrecht

[PLAIN]http://www.science.uva.nl/research/amstel/dws/praktijk2/content/images/ns_trein.jpg

Finally have the right rail, a tram system for commuters to the Hague with some two dozens of stations in Zoetermeer alone.

[URL]http://www.freewebs.com/randstadrail/Trams_01.jpg[/URL]

Obviously the train is a rather prominent way of travel in the Netherlands.

 

[turbo]

Obviously the train is a rather prominent way of travel in the Netherlands.

As befits a small, densely-populated country. The only passenger-rail in Maine (apart from novelty-excursion lines) is the Amtrak Downeaster, and it only serves the southern cities. It's primarily a way for people to live in the Portland area and commute to Boston.

When I was a kid, my mother kept lobbying my father to take me on a passenger-train ride across northern Maine on the Canadian Pacific, but he never had the money or time to pull it off. He worked 6-7 days a week with all the overtime he could manage, just to get by.

 

[Monique]

As Andre mentioned, the trains are used a lot for commuting in the Netherlands. I think the state of the railroad is very good. Most of the tracks are well guarded, with light/sound indications and a physical beam that prevents access to the tracks when a train is coming. When you sit in the train, there is very little noise.

My major annoyance is that most trains are completely sealed: there are no windows to open, combined with failing air-conditioning or heating this can lead to uncomfortably hot or cold situations. Also, it can be really crowded because so many people commute by train each day. I sometimes get a bit claustrophobic when I have to stand in a crowded train for 30 minutes, without a place to move or a window to open. I rather wait 10 minutes for the next train in those situations

A major drawback of the rails is that at many locations the system is heated by gas-based systems. Last winter they turned on the heating too late, causing the tracks to become covered in snow, which caused a fail in the system because they couldn't light the gas anymore It took a week to correct that problem, which meant train travel was virtually impossible. I think they have started changing those gas-based systems to electrically-heated ones now.

 

[turbo]

I envy you Nederlanders for that system, though. It would be horrendously expensive to create commuter rail systems in this rural state, but it would make life a lot more pleasant for many. We don't even have bus systems except a few intra-city lines.

 

[Evo]

The us is mostly freight trains. I really miss listening to the trains coming through at night. A favorite childhood memory.

Too many people fly in the US, too impatient to take trains if it involved long distances. Commuter trains are still the thing in Chicago. Each neighborhood in the suburbs has a small commuter train station to take people to and from the city.

 

[turbo]

The us is mostly freight trains. I really miss listening to the trains coming through at night. A favorite childhood memory.

Too many people fly in the US, too impatient to take trains if it involved long distances. Commuter trains are still the thing in Chicago. Each neighborhood in the suburbs has a small commuter train station to take people to and from the city.

I would have loved to have had commuter-rail access when I was consulting. Use the time on the train to work on my projects and don't worry about getting stranded at airports (Continental was BAD for that) for supposedly weather-caused cancellations. The only ways in and out of Maine were roads and airports.

I don't mind hearing trains at night, but a word to the wise: For travelers who might contemplate a stop in Cumberland, MD, if you opt for the Holiday Inn, insist on being put in a room at the front of the hotel and bring ear-plugs. That hotel backs onto a really busy (all night long) switching yard and there is nothing more annoying than listening to string after string of empty coal-cars getting humped. CLANGETY-CLANG all night long.

 

[Loren Booda]

North of D.C. to Boston there is Acela, fast, but not by world standards. Otherwise the trains are decades behind, and are pretty noisy.

 

[turbo]

North of D.C. to Boston there is Acela, fast, but not by world standards. Otherwise the trains are decades behind, and are pretty noisy.

Upgrading tracks meant for freight might be a real hurdle to getting fast commuters on-line.

 

[Loren Booda]

Upgrading tracks meant for freight might be a real hurdle to getting fast commuters on-line.

I hadn't thought of that, but it makes good sense. Too bad our forefathers hadn't been more foresighted!

 

[skeptic2]

If we want true high speed rail, passenger trains won't be able to run on freight rail tracks as they do now. High speed rail needs higher precision track, banked curves and no grade level highway crossings. These are some of the reasons for the high cost of high speed rail.

 

[turbo]

If we want true high speed rail, passenger trains won't be able to run on freight rail tracks as they do now. High speed rail needs higher precision track, banked curves and no grade level highway crossings. These are some of the reasons for the high cost of high speed rail.

All true. I'm lamenting the demise of low-speed freight rail in rural Maine, because it is diminishing the possibilities for future development.

 

[Astronuc]

I take Amtrak to Washington from NY since it's cheaper and faster than flying! I also take the regional since it's only 30 minutes less than Acela and about half the cost or less.

As for freight was have 3 majors, CSX, NS and CP. CSX and NS split Conrail several years ago, while CP bought the regional D&H.

Through 1987 and 1988, Guilford was trying to merge it's three railroads into it's Springfield Terminal subsidiary. Railroad unions were not supportive of this move, as GTI sought to reduce crew size, and introduce other conditions that the unions felt were harmful. B&M and MEC were soon merged into ST (not without striking and arbitration), but the D&H offered much resistance to GTI. At the time, D&H still had five-person crews - Guilford sought to reduce this to two or three person crews. As a result of difficulties involved with merging D&H into ST, Guilford declared D&H bankrupt and effectively left the D&H on the doorstep of New York State.

Ref: http://www.trainweb.org/eastpenn/sunbury.html

The rest of the country had gone to two or three man crews since the demise of the caboose and use of digital safety systems and improved remote control systems in the 1980s.

The mainlines are good shape. Continuously welded rail is the standard. Reinforced concrete ties are in place on the local mainline, but wood ties are still used on the freight online-line. Segmented rail still appears on the secondary and branch lines.

 

[turbo]

I take Amtrak to Washington from NY since it's cheaper and faster than flying! I also take the regional since it's only 30 minutes less than Acela and about half the cost or less.

As for freight was have 3 majors, CSX, NS and CP. CSX and NS split Conrail several years ago, while CP bought the regional D&H.

Ref: http://www.trainweb.org/eastpenn/sunbury.html

The rest of the country had gone to two or three man crews since the demise of the caboose and use of digital safety systems and improved remote control systems in the 1980s.

The mainlines are good shape. Continuously welded rail is the standard. Reinforced concrete ties are in place on the local mainline, but wood ties are still used on the freight online-line. Segmented rail still appears on the secondary and branch lines.

Segmented rail on wood ties is pretty standard here. A lot of the older rail-guys that I know claim that the demise of cabooses increased damages due to derailments, and track-side fires. I don't know how true all that was, because lots of crew-members lost their jobs when cabooses were discontinued, so employees had a vested interest in protecting the "old ways".

 

[turbo]

BTW, is the prognosis for D&H any better than "defunct" and "bankrupt"? There ought to be some business prospects for a N-S line between large Canadian and US cities. (hope)

 

[Astronuc]

BTW, is the prognosis for D&H any better than "defunct" and "bankrupt"? There ought to be some business prospects for a N-S line between large Canadian and US cities. (hope)

As far as I know, the D&H lines are generating revenue, and they give CP a direct link to the US markets.

 

[turbo]

As far as I know, the D&H lines are generating revenue, and they give CP a direct link to the US markets.

Good to know. Quebec and northern Maine have a lot of resources in common, and our products are often comparable. I wish that the Maine Central Railroad had hung on a bit longer, but that might be wishful thinking considering the market of the 70s. If CP had grabbed the MCRR right-of ways and maintained the north-south lines, northern Maine might well have a decent incentive for lumber/timber businesses to locate/expand here. There is is a lumber mill in Moose River that is operating on a shoe-string and trying to stay afloat hoping for an up-turn in the housing market. It is the largest Maine sawmill still operating in this crap environment. It would sure be nice if that company had affordable bulk shipping to keep costs down.

Right now, that mill is scraping by at a loss (so the owner can maintain his skilled work-force) and has to pay trucking both north and south. Rail shipping might save that wonderful guy a lot of money.

 

[Moonbear]

There's a freight line still through here, mainly for the coal cars. Other than that, a lot of the old rail lines are being converted into "rail trails" for hiking/biking type activities. I wish there were more commuter trains. There are a lot of trips that are not really far enough to justify flying, but a bit too far to want to drive. With the state of technology where it is, I envy the east coasters who can hop on an Acela train and travel between NYC and D.C. while connected to cell phones and internet the whole way to not lose work time. Or, just to be able to arrive at your destination rested rather than driving and to do so hassle-free (i.e., you don't have to worry about segregating your liquids from solids in your luggage/carry-on bags).

 

[jtbell]

Upgrading tracks meant for freight might be a real hurdle to getting fast commuters on-line.

It's not only a track quality issue, there are issues with track capacity. Fast passenger trains and long slow freight trains don't mix well on the same tracks. Most freight lines except the busiest ones are single-track with passing sidings. If it's a local / suburban passenger service and there aren't too many freight trains, the freight can be shifted to run at night while the passenger trains run during the day. Otherwise you have to build a lot of new passing tracks or even double-track the entire line.

Utah started passenger rail service a few years ago between Salt Lake City and Ogden. They had to build a completely separate track for passenger service (single track with passing sidings) alongside the freight track that already existed.

This is also an issue for long-distance passenger trains. Amtrak wants to upgrade San Antonio - Los Angeles service from three times a week to daily. Union Pacific doesn't want to reduce freight capacity on that route, so they want Amtrak to pay for track improvements.

 

[turbo]

On the possibility of upgrading current track (Portland to Boston) or installing a parallel track to allow the Downeaster to upgrade to high-speed.

http://www.pressherald.com/archive/advocates-eye-funds-for-faster-downeaster_2009-04-16.html

 

[skeptic2]

Segmented rail on wood ties is pretty standard here. A lot of the older rail-guys that I know claim that the demise of cabooses increased damages due to derailments, and track-side fires. I don't know how true all that was, because lots of crew-members lost their jobs when cabooses were discontinued, so employees had a vested interest in protecting the "old ways".

The cabooses were replaced with End Of Train devices (EOTs). There is an compressed air line of about 90 psi that runs from the engine to the end of the train. This compressed air line releases the brakes on all the cars. The EOT monitors the air pressure and periodically transmits the pressure reading to the cab. Should a car become uncoupled, the uncoupled cars will automatically brake and the EOT sends a message to the cab that it has lost air pressure.

Maine is kind of unique in that there are almost no major railroads in Maine. Norfolk Southern does have some track rights in the southern part of the state. The rest of the railroads are known as shortlines. Also the State of Maine just finished purchasing a large segment of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railroad. It does seem that in Maine the railroads are not flourishing. That is not true in other parts of the country.

 

[turbo]

Also the State of Maine just finished purchasing a large segment of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railroad. It does seem that in Maine the railroads are not flourishing. That is not true in other parts of the country.

Yes, the state bought the segment from Millinocket to Madawaska, presumably to protect the viability of the large paper mill in Madawaska. MM&A proposed abandoning the line, then it was floated that the state would buy the line and MM&A would operate it under contract. The last I heard was that a different contractor would be given the contract to operate the line.

http://www.thegovmonitor.com/world_news/united_states/maine-to-purchase-montreal-maine-and-atlantic-railway-40826.html

 

[DaveC426913]

omg. For a second, I thought that the old https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=2910201" thread had been brought back from the dead...

 

[turbo]

omg. For a second, I thought that the old https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=2910201" thread had been brought back from the dead...

Yum. Brains!

 

[jtbell]

The cabooses were replaced with End Of Train devices (EOTs).

Otherwise knows as FREDs (Flashing Rear End Devices).

 

[DaveC426913]

The cabooses were replaced with End Of Train devices (EOTs).

One caboose; two cabeese.