An entity calling itself East Broad Top Connecting Railroad filed a notice of exemption with STB today to lease and operate the East Broad Top RR. According to the notice, the Connecting Railroad will perform common carrier freight service on the line. .
It doesn’t appear that the Connecting Railroad intends to itself provide any tourist service over the line. Reading between the lines, I suspect that the underlying agreement gives the line owner (East Broad Top Railroad Preservation Association) the right to restore tourist operation (currently suspended), but that’s not expressly stated in the notice.
According to the Trains NewsWire story, the East Broad Top Connecting was set up to handle standard gauge freight on the dual gauge trackage in the Mt. Union area. Would the STB get involved in narrow gauge tourist operations?(As long as they don’t start running tourist trains on the dual gauge portion)
In response to Midland Mike and Lone Geep, take a look at the line description, mileposts and maps contained in the notice of exemption, which specifically describes the line segment being leased. In respone to Lone Geep, if EBTCR purchased additional trackage for common carrier use, they would have to include it in this notice for exemption, or in another one. They would not have to disclose it if it were purchased only for tourist or private railroad use, since those uses aren’t subject to STB jurisdiction.
In response to Midland Mike’s question on whether STB would get involved in tourist operations, the answer is “no” (as long as it isn’t common carrier service). There was actually a fairly recent STB case that addressed this, although not in any great length - Finance Docket No. 35459, V&S Ry - Petition for Declaratory Order. In the highly unlikely event anyone wants to look at stuff from this case, I’ve provided three links below. The first two are submissions made on behalf of the tourist rail industry by the two industry trade associations, ARM and TRAIN (now ATRRM). The third is the STB decision (see pp 10-11 and fn 17). Just some light, bedtime reading.
From the top of page 4 of the STB filing that Falcon48 linked above [emphasis added - PDN]:
“Applicant anticipates that about half of its traffic will be empty railroad cars moving to or from a car repair shop that EBTCR is establishing on the Line and that the other half of its traffic will be freight moving to or from customers that EBTCR hopes to attract to the Line through its marketing efforts. EBTCR does not anticipate that the existing tourist passenger operations conducted by EBTPA will have any impact on its ability to provide rail freight service.”
Pretty sloppy exhibits, though - the map in Exhb. A is at too large of a scale and not labeled or clear as to the limits of this transaction - merely some dark shading (reminiscent of a child’s crayoning); Exhb. B - Certification isn’t dated other than “2013”; and the ‘acknowledgement’ on the last page of Exhb. C is blank as to the affiant’s position, and also lacks a specific date in December 2013. They seem to be equating “exemption” with “no need to observe or comply with the required or customary formalities”, which doesn’t look too good (might also led to questions about the validity of the notice, too . . . [:-^] ).
It looks to me like the original map was color coded with a highlighter. The colors don’t reproduce on the STB website (which is a relic of the dark ages of cyberspace).
I agree the notice is sloppy. Most people who do regularly do notices like this have learned to not go into any more detail than they have to.&nbs
Concur with all of your (Falcon48’s) comments - it’ll pass muster unless/ until someone challenges it, and then it could probably be cured (fixed) by an amended filing anyway. But still - if no one’s paying attention to the details of an important filing like this now, that’s hardly reassuring for future transactions.
Gee - Sounds vaguely familiar[swg]…at least the crayon part. National Society of Professional Surveyors pondering a comment or two the next time sunset review comes up at an ExParte hearing at STB. At least the STB can now scan in color. If they had a visual communications course in law school, chances are most would skip it
Having read the application from a layman’s point of view…
I am wondering (and believe me it’s just wondering) if the Connecting Railway is an entity of sorts the PA has set up for the purposes of revenue generation for the PA and its tourist operation. The way the application reads to me (from my non-technical point of view) it seems as if there is quite likely an underlying business plan for the application.
If so, it might work, again IMHO, to PA’s benefit as a tourist operation going forward.
I’m most definitely not an expert. The above is more along the lines of an inquiring mind looking behind the application.
Mud, Paul and others I’m sure know a lot more about this kind of thing than I. If the PA and CR got a good STB savvy lawyer to file, there’s got to be more to this than meets the eye. What about Mr Salone too??
I don’t know anything about Mr. Salone. John Heffner (the lawyer who filed the notice) often does STB legal work for short line railroads. But it doesn’t look like he spent much time (i.e., billable hours) on the filing, which is probably why it’s so sloppy). Looks like a 1-2 hour job.
I was not able to open the STB link last night, but now I have. I see they are applying on the 4 mile segment, that would correspond to the line up to that bridge in question across the Aughwick. The odd part is that the standard (dual) gauge only went about half that distance. Perhaps they want the option to extend SG that far. They make a nebulous statement that the freight operation will not interfere with the tourist train. If the Aughwick bridge was unsalvageable, then the two operations would be physically separated. However, if the bridge is usable, then they might run some NG trains into Mt. Union on weekends when the freight is on days-off.
I visited the EBT about 20 years ago, and the entire line, other than the 5 mile operating section, was overgrown with 4" dia trees growing between the rails. Trees were growing up thru holes in hopper cars sitting in the Mt. Union yard. Looking at the latest Google Earth image (8/2012), the forest continued to grow. I would think that 50+ year old tree growth would require the remaining track to be dismantled, the stumps pulled, and the subgrade to be re-compacted. I hope they are up to the task.
I, like many others, rode this “tourist” RR many years ago…Perhaps, 50 yrs. ago…If the intention is to haul “freight”…where to…? The usable line doesn’t connect to any other RR…Or has that changed.
I realize there happens to be many miles of track still in place, however like someone else said…Trees, and all kinds of growth must cover most of the line now. Can’t imagine “where to” this operation would haul “freight”…
Of course I’d like to see it in operation again.
I remember when we rode it those many years ago…it was in the “President’s” car with the whicker chairs…at the end of the train. I’m calculating the date by remembering we drove a 59 Chevy convertible to the location. [8D]
Northern end in Mount Union does connect to NS. Years ago, another outfit called the “Mount Union Connecting RR” was going to work freight that end of the line, with intentions of extending dual gauge track to an industrial park just outside of town. Besides buying an old Plymouth engine and cleaning up some trees, nothing really came to it that I know of.
I think they did get a few cars in on the standard gauge trackage right off the NS interchange for unloading at a ramp that was built, but NS did the spotting. But don’t quote me on that… just stuff I read off the internet in the previous 10-15 years.
Well, this is interesting. The attached request for EBT Connecting to hold the proceeding in “abeyance” and the STB decision granting it (shown by the rubber stamp approval on the request) was published on the STB’s website today. Supposedly, the request is to allow EBTC to submit a copy of the operating agreement “within the next several business days.” .
On its face, it all looks pretty innocuous, But i wonder if something else is going on. I can’t recall ever seeing anything like this in what appears to be a simple, uncontested notice of exemption acquisition proceeding. It’s really not necessary. The notice of exemption, when it becomes effective, is merely “permissive”. It’s a little like a marriage license. It permits the parties to close the transaction on or after the effective date of the exemption, but doesn’t require them to do so. There’s no requirement that the underlying agreements be in place before the notice of exemption becomes effective (or, in a proceeding like this, that they be filed with STB). Many notices of exemption like this have become effective before the agreements are made (and, in some cases, the agreements never do get made). Nothing happens until the agreements are made. And, if they are never made, nothing ever happens. So, why hold this notice of exemption in “abeyance”? Curious and curiouser. We’ll see.
Note the mention of “Scott Zimmerman” in the letter. Anyone know who he is or what his connection is to EBT?
The more I see of this the more I think that the EBTPA and EBTCR are setting up as two operating entities under the EBTPA umbrella (perhaps for purposes of increased revenue generation for EBTPA)
I know it’s guessing on my part but I can’t see why they would go to all this trouble otherwise. They would have to stay within federal legislation covering common carriers and tourist roads and perhaps this exemption application is one part of the ‘on the surface’ indicator of same.
I’m guessing it’s what they have to do to ‘play by the rules’.
I’ll be really interested to see the result of this process over time.
Perhaps he too was curious about the arrangements and relationship here, and wanted to see some documentation to support and clarify it to get a ‘comfort factor’ with it all before advising the board members or deciding how to process it internally, make a staff recommendation, etc.
The talk of " maybe " extending the standard gauge is puzzling. Unless the Narrow gauge tie upgrades on the proposed extension of standard gauge included standard gauge cross ties then that work is all for naught. Crossties can be very expensive at 20+ per 100 ft… Used rail can probably be less especially for only one rail.
Now i know where I had seen Zimmerman’s name before. But, if he’s not at STB anymore, the agency wouldn’t pay much attention to him just because he was “curious” and wanted to see more documentation. More likely, he’s a lawyer in private practice and he’s representing someone who’s involved in or affected by this transaction. We’ll see.