This just in:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/23/us-genessewyoming-railamerica-idUSBRE86M0EF20120723
http://news.yahoo.com/genesee-wyoming-pay-1-39b-railamerica-115358867--finance.html?_esi=1
This is really good news. G&W is one of the best managed transportation companies going. No doubt they will breathe life back into some of the regional lines that have floundered over the last decade.
Will they Merge CORP into PNWR?
Or will they divest of it?
Tiger IV grants were awarded to reopen Siskiyous pass, but CORP has, to my understanding withered with the shutdown and the economy.
That’s the one that I’m most curious about anyway. It’s the only location I’m aware of where a RailAmerica Property and a G&W property directly interchange.
One question is, will they merge all the shortline railroads that cris-cross in Indiana and Kentucky into one big railroad…
ALSO
Does the transaction include partner company Florida East coast?
If they do combine lines they now will own the former Pennsylvania line from Pittsburgh to Chicago, now divided between the Chicago, Fort Wayne & Eastern (Rail America) and Ohio Central (G&W). Interesting, the CFW&E will probably get any traffic from all G&W lines in the East going to Chicago, it may see a lot more trains.
(Actually, it looks as though the only connection between Ohio Central and the CFW&E will be via the Indiana and Ohio (RailAmerica) line, mostly the old DT&I).
Not quite. The PRR they own out of Columbus is the old Panhandle line that runs toward Pittsburgh and the line out of Chicago runs via Fort Wayne to Crestline. Two separate lines that don’t connect. Also, the line out of Columbus doesn’t go all the way to Pittsburgh anymore, I believe.
The CF&E is not owned by Rail America, it is leased. Part of the lease agreement includes some large paper barriers that would prevent the moves you are proposing to have much, if any, profit. It has been described as the lease from hell.
Yes, the lease, which I didn’t even consider, severely restricts the CF&E, the traffic they can handle overhead, and also restricts the number of trains that NS can run across the line via trackage rights that NS holds. It’s long been rumored that a connection between NS and the CF&E is going to be built at Bucyrus to reroute the traffic running out of Chicago to the Heartland Corridor, bypassing choke points at Fostoria and Bellevue.
The old PRR line east of Columbus has been abandoned, I believe, from Mingo Junction, OH, to the Pittsburgh area.
The CF&E is a vastly under utilized property. Owned by CSX and leased to CF&E there are severe limits on overhead traffic. A few years ago the line was in horrible shape with something like 30 slow orders from County (Hobart) to Ft Wayne after an FRA inspection. Trains literally crawled across the line at 10mph in places.
NS entered into an agreement with CF&E to fund some ballast and work on the line and in return started running a couple of trains daily. Then the Great Recession hit and trains were eliminated and the capacity issues were not quite as severe.
Train counts have crept back up on the NS and at some point the CF&E will become an important link for them. Noticed yesterday that ballast had been dropped here in Valpo on the line.
Ed
RailAmerica’s Toledo Peoria & Western interchanges directly with Genesee & Wyoming’s Tazewell & Peoria RR at East Peoria.
On a related note, I wonder if G&W will keep the historic TP&W name or change it to something like “Peoria & Indiana?”
My dad Grew up in Fairbury Il and TP&W always interested him even though he was not a railfan. So I hope they don’t change it.
That’s funny, I grew up about 30 miles from there on the ATSF Transcon and my neighbor had relatives in Fairbury, one was named Warnie Strauch, it is an area with a lot of Mennonites and even those who aren’t are socially awkward, very much Rated G. I spent a summer when I was in college as a foreman de-tasseling corn in El Paso and a lot of the crew were kids from over there, Gridley etc., and even the HS kids acted like 10 year olds.
I actually think that it will be good for TP&W (and other short lines) if RailAmerica goes away, they tried to sell the west end of the line, from Peoria to Lomax, to a scrapper so as not to compete with their own trackage rights on BNSF, the STB caught on and was not amused:
We take seriously the Congressional directive that we facilitate entry into the rail business, see, e.g., 49 U.S.C. 10101(7), and for that reason we do not revoke exemptions lightly. But the main purpose of the entry provisions of the statute is to promote the availability of rail service. Here, it is clear to us that the actions taken by Respondents reflect instead a scheme to use our processes to obtain active rail assets with a view toward dismantling and selling them. Therefore, we are revoking the exemptions that permitted this scheme to proceed.
Actually, TP&W wasn’t trying to close that line because it was competing with its BNSF trackage rights (regardless how the STB understands it).
Shortly after RailAmerica’s purchase, rehabilitation funds were sought from the State of Illinois but rejected. So negotations began with the Keokuk Junction Railway on a possible sale of the West End (at least west of Mapleton). When that fell through (KJRY balked at TP&W’s price), TP&W made a deal with BNSF to shift Fort Madison interchange (mostly intermodal) to Galesburg.
TP&W had gained trackage rights on BN’s Galesburg-Peoria line in a 1995 deal to keep it out of the BNSF merger case. But BN/SF remained in control of pricing to and from Peoria since TP&W merely acted as “haulage agent.” TP&W received a flat per car rate rather than a negotiated rate division.
Intermodal business was shifted to the Galesburg interchange February 19, 2001. For this traffic, TP&W received a rate division. Reportedly, BNSF never changed the Fort Madison rate! Traffic was combined with TP&W’s “Galesburg Job.”
This shift required TP&W to seek overhead trackage rights on P&PU between P&PU Jct. in East Peoria and the BNSF connection at S. Darst St. in Peoria. P&PU agreed but restricted movements to intermodal (in exchange for lower fees to use P&PU trackage, TP&W had given up in 1995 long dormant rights to interchange with BN
The STB understands it fine, what you say about the BNSF merger may be true but isn’t the whole story. Most of the traffic TPW handles via the BNSF is (or was at the time) imported auto parts in containers for the Diamond Star (Mitsubishi) plant in Normal that TPW interchanges with NS. RailAmerica was afraid that Pioneer RailCorp (KJ) would be able to work out an agreement with BNSF to completely bypass RailAmerica for this traffic. On top of that the track on the west end was in horrible shape, unable to handle container trains except at slow speeds, and RailAmerica didn’t want to pay to fix it up. The solution was to seek trackage rights and scrap the rail, and who cares about the customers on the line.
The STB understands it fine, what you say about the BNSF merger may be true but isn’t the whole story. Most of the traffic TPW handles via the BNSF is (or was at the time) imported auto parts in containers for the Diamond Star (Mitsubishi) plant in Normal that TPW interchanges with NS. RailAmerica was afraid that Pioneer RailCorp (KJ) would be able to work out an agreement with BNSF to completely bypass RailAmerica for this traffic. On top of that the track on the west end was in horrible shape, unable to handle container trains except at slow speeds, and RailAmerica didn’t want to pay to fix it up.
There is no truth to that. Such a scenario is contradictory anyway.
BNSF had a partnership with TP&W to market intermodal traffic through East Peoria, Ill. and Remington, Ind. terminals. When Logistics Park opened in August 2002, this partnership was on its last legs. Union Pacific’s Global III, which opened a year later, didn’t help either. The Remington, Ind. facility closed in October 2003 and the BNSF-TP&W intermodal partnership ended in January 2004.
KJRY would never have been able to convince BNSF to give them this business. For one thing, KJRY lacked facilities to load and unload containers (P&PU had shut down its facility in early 2000).
Through careful research and shipper support, KJRY convinced the STB that TP&W (and SF&L before it) had failed in their common carrier duties and so the sale was reversed. By early 2004, TP&W began backtracking on a desire to abandon or sell the line because of a not-yet-public plan by AmerenCILCO to “build out” from its Duck Creek Station to the TP&W at Rawalts (just east of Canton), thus giving the railroad lucrative access to a coal-fired power plant.
The STB ruled based on information given to it by the parties to this case. SF&L was less-than-truthful and
No, you are confusing two issues, the cars went to Normal over the ex-NKP line and were unloaded at the DSM plant in Normal. When that plant opened in 1986 TPW was still part of the Santa Fe, that is how they got the traffic from the west coast. I was a student at ISU in Normal until1992, I saw the stack cars in the yard out west of town.
No, you are confusing two issues, the cars went to Normal over the ex-NKP line and were unloaded at the DSM plant in Normal. When that plant opened in 1986 TPW was still part of the Santa Fe, that is how they got the traffic from the west coast. I was a student at ISU in Normal until1992, I saw the stack cars in the yard out west of town.
DSM opened in late 1988 and containers received via the West Coast/ATSF were unloaded at East Peoria then driven down I-74 the remaining 35 miles. The stack cars you saw was Caterpillar-related business handled by NW/NS between P&PU’s East Peoria Yard (Creve Coeur, actually) and Norfolk, Va.
So what is the bottom line; how much money? Is fortress going to use these proceeds for leveraging more funds to upgrade the FEC track?
Here’s a report by G&W I found, click on the PDF for details on the proposal, including a map of the combined operation.
A small clarification on the abandonment of the PRR line between Pittsburgh and Mingo Junction. The line is still active from Mingo Junction to Weirton WV to service the Weirton Steel plant. Also the line running from Weirton to Newell along the Ohio River is still in service. The former PRR main line is abandoned from Weirton to near Pittsburgh. Unfortunately I do not know the exact point of the abandonment near Pittsburgh.
Although I now live in Texas I am from Follansbee WV and very familiar with the Weirton/Steubenville Ohio area. It is a shame that the beautiful double track bridge across the Ohio has been single tracked.