Iron Horse Roundup for September 2012

Ontario Northland GP38-2 #1805 seen heading north at Huntsville, ON with The Northlander in March 2011 WD Shaw photo

CANADA- After announcing upcoming cutbacks in service earlier this year, Ontario Northland's Northalnder made its final scheduled run from Toronto to Cochrane, ON this week.

Critics predict 1,000 employees face layoffs in remote, economically strapped communities served by Ontario Northland, the provincial Crown-owned rail service.

As people wept and reminisced on the Northlander's last run, several regional mayors and MPPs vowed to maintain full-steam ahead lobbying of the province to restore rail service and stop undermining far north residents, industries and tourism.

At Cochrane's busy station -- where Polar Bear Express trains to the northernmost Moosonee terminus still operate for locals and tourists -- passengers joined Mayor Peter Politis on the last morning train after a protest rally. A similar afternoon rally was held in North Bay.

In a news release inviting final riders, Politis criticized the government for ignoring "all pleas for reasoning, all rationale on environmental impacts and all exclamations by Northerners for respect of their way of life and their right to determine their futures for themselves."

Some northerners rode converted one-level former GO Transit coaches south on business, to visit families and doctors in the centre of Ontario's universe. Trains were also popular with Toronto-area cottage-owners seeking to avoid traffic gridlock

Some northerners rode converted one-level former GO Transit coaches south on business, to visit families and doctors in the centre of Ontario's universe. Trains were also popular with Toronto-area cottage-owners seeking to avoid traffic gridlock.

This March, the government announced it would wind down its Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC), citing $100 million annual subsidizes plus stagnant ridership.

The province of Ontario, which owns the Ontario Northland, publicly announced 12 years ago that they were seeking to divest themselves of the railroad. Canadian National had reportedly expressed an interest in acquiring the line, but talks ultimately fell through. While the Northlander will be discontinued, the Cochrane-Moosonee Polar Bear Express shall continue operating.

The Ontario Northland Railway also operates rail freight service between Cohrane and Moosonee. The company also operates ferry and motorcoach service in the northern part of the Province as well as the telecommunications firm Ontera. The provincial government had also recently announced they were looking to sell off Ontera to a private bidder.

PAKISTAN- With Pakistan's rail network crumbling and in disarray Pakistan's Railway Minister has decided none of that is as important as weighing on on the Innocence of Muslims controversey by offering a $100,000 bounty on the head of the California filmmakerearlier this month.

Despite international condemnation, Pakistan's railways minister says he isn't backing down from his $100,000 bounty offer to anyone who kills the maker of the anti-Islam film Innocence of Muslims.

Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, the slight, silver-haired minister, says he was angry when he saw the video and that he's a man of great faith, passionately devoted to the Prophet Muhammad.

Bilour says he could not tolerate any insult to Muhammad and felt he had to do something about it. At a news conference last Saturday, he made the $100,000 bounty offer to anyone — including Taliban and al-Qaida members — who kills the maker of the video, who has been identified as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.

Nakoula was detained Thursday in California and is being held on charges that he violated his probation regulations

"I thought the U.S. and Europe would make some law prohibiting any insult to any prophet but that did not happen," Bilour says. "Since they did not make the law then I thought this is the way to stop it."

Pakistan's government and Bilour's own secular political party have distanced themselves from the Cabinet minister. Bilour says he doesn't care.

"I said it in my personal capacity, and not as a member of the government, and because of the fact that I have political vision and I think that was important," Bilour says.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani Taliban have embraced him. Bilour's bounty offer has also garnered support from some Islamist politicians in Pakistan, such as Hafiz Hussain Ahmed. Ahmed says he's a political opponent of Bilour's, but he agrees that if someone ridicules the prophet, the punishment is death.

But Muhammad Malik, senior editor of Dunya News, one of the leading news channels in Pakistan, sees things with a more jaundiced eye. He says Bilour's offer is a desperate attempt to get publicity, that as the minister of Pakistan's decrepit railway system, Bilour has been a failure.

Malik also points out that Bilour also owns a theater in his home district of Peshawar. Beside western diplomatic missions, cinemas in Pakistan were also reportedly subject to protests from angry mobs rioting over The Innocence of Muslims.

Newly acquired Montreal, Maine & Atlantic C39-8 #8202 leads Iowa, Chicago & Eastern SD40-2#6450 and MM&A B23-7 #2003 lead a westbound mixed freight and empty oil tank train through Brookport, Quebec on September 6, 2012. Frank Jolin photo

MONTREAL MAINE & ATLANTIC- Two years after laying off nearly half og its workforce and selling more than 230 miles of track to the state of Maine, the Montreal Maine & Atlantic is experiencing a rebound of traffic, hiring additional crews as well as purchasing and leasing locomotives.

In July, the Montreal Maine & Atlantic purchased a pair of former Norfolk Southern (nee Conrail) six-axle GE C39-8s- six axle equivalents to the B39-8s the MM&A already has on roster. The units were being stored in eastern Pennsylvania on the New Hope & Ivyland where they were to be refurbished for a proposed luxury train called the Greenbrier Express. However, plans for the service changed from operating an independent trainset to attaching a few luxury cars on already existing Amtrak trains out of Washington DC.

In addidtion to the newer, burly six-axle GE's, the MM&A has also been borrowing SD40-2s from the Canadian Pacific and Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern. The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic has also been posting openings for conductors and engineers on their website as well as the jobs board of the Railroad Retirement Bureau page.

Earlier this year, the JD Irving refinery in East St John, NB began refining crude oil from the Bakken oil shale in North Dakota and Saskatchewan. The lack of any significant east-west oil pipelines in the USA or Canada means that shipping the oil by rail was the next logical choice. From the Bakken shale, the line either moves by BNSF to Chicago or Canadian Pacific to Montreal- from Chicago, the oil is shipped via CSX as far east as Rotterdam Jct where it is handed off the Pan Am Railroad where it makes its way through New England to the New Brunswick Southern at Mattawamkeag, ME for the final leg of its journey to E. St Johns.

The other option is for the oil to travel as far east as Montreal on the Canadian Pacific where it's handed off to the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic where it travels across southern Quebec and the north woods of Maine before the MM&A hands the oil off to the NBSR. The empties are routed back via the MM&A or Pan-Am as well.

A trio of Gulf, Colorado and San Saba GP15-1s pass through Lometa, TX with a trainload of frac sand in January 2011. Ryan R/Jim R photo

TEXAS- The 68-mile central Texas shortline Gulf, Colorado and San Saba has filed for bankruptcy over the summer. Faced with a court-ordered liquidation of the railroad's assets, Gulf, Colorado & San Saba owner Richard McClure sought to avoid such a scenario by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a company is protected from its creditors while it continues operating under the supervision of a court appointed trustee.

The bankruptcy filing by the GCSR came just before the sale of the company was to take place on the steps of the San Saba Courthouse. The sale was the result of a $1.7 million court judgement against it by BNSF railroad.

GCSR owner, Richard McClure, told the Brady Standard Herald the bankruptcy filing was a strategic business decision that would allow them to reorganize and pay off debt.

Locally, customers of the railroad have met to to review how the bankruptcy potentially affects their businesses, and what steps they might need to take to ensure the continuation of rail service to the area.

McClure told the Brady Standard Herald there would be virtually no change in service to the area during the bankruptcy.

The GCSR started up in the 1992 after purchasing the former Santa Fe branchline between Brady and Lometa, TX. Although traffic was initially agricultiral products, in recent years drilling around the Eagle Ford Shale has picked up and the line has seen a dramatic increase in sand for use in hydrofracking.

Despite the increase in traffic, the line is reportedly suffering from deferred maintainence, a lack of capacity at their Brady, TX yard and problems paying the bills. One unsourced review on Yahoo dated May 2011 claimed the company was months behind on a $60,000 bill.