Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway’s supposed inefficiency will be discussed when the federal agency that resolves freight rail issues meets in Presque Isle next month to hear the carrier’s request to abandon about 240 miles of tracks vital to the state’s economy.
At U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud’s request, Surface Transportation Board officials, who Michaud said seldom meet outside Washington, D.C., have agreed to hold a field hearing at 9 a.m. Monday, May 10, at the Presque Isle District Court building.
“Their job is to look at the abandonment application and see if [MM&A] can prove that they are losing money,” Michaud said Friday. “I expect that MM&A will be able to make that case, but the other issue, why they are losing money, is that they are not dependable.
“It is hard for some shippers to say that because their only mode of transportation is the railroad,” Michaud said, adding that some shippers feared repercussions from MM&A officials for speaking out.
Robert C. Grindrod, MM&A president and chief executive officer, acknowledged that the railroad has had problems and said he wouldn’t have a problem discussing them publicly. He said there would be no repercussions for shippers that raised concerns.
“I hope that the meeting on the 10th is focused on developing solutions,” Grindrod said Friday. “We have had a long enough period to point fingers at each other and say that all of this is somebody else’s fault.”
Michaud said he also hoped that rail users would tell the Surface Transportation Board why the rail line is vital to the state.
As a last resort, MM&A sought federal approval in February to abandon the tracks, most of which run from Madawaska to Millinocket, by summer. The Hermon-based company says it has been losing $4 million to $5 million a year on the lines due to the recession and housing industry collapse.
Shippers have complained that the carrier frequently blows shipping deadlines and mismanages cargoes, forcing shippers to hire trucks, often on the fly, to make their own deadlines.
Besides blaming the economy and housing downturn, Grindrod cited safety concerns: tracks so worn out from failed maintenance by MM&A’s predecessors that their top safe speed is 10 mph; a lack of shipping volume; and bad weather, which frequently limits the size of trains.
“There are occasions when people on both sides, the railroad and the shipper, make mistakes,” Grindrod said. “That is going to happen in any kind of operation like this.”
The Legislature will meet Monday to discuss a proposed $85 million bond package that contains $17 million to buy and rehabilitate the threatened lines.
Gov. John Baldacci and state Transportation Commissioner David Cole continued work Friday on securing votes to pass the bond package and developing a public-private partnership between the state and 22 major businesses that use the lines, officials said.
Federal Railroad Administration administrator Joseph C. Szabo told 22 stakeholders during a meeting in Bangor on Thursday that such a partnership would likely gain federal dollars for railroad revitalization.
State Rep. Richard Cleary, D-Houlton, said he expected the issue would haunt legislators until Monday. He invited residents to attend a meeting at 10 a.m. today at his office, at 28 Market Square in Houlton, where he will encourage them to call or visit state legislators this weekend who voted against the bond.
He explained that with a Louisiana-Pacific mill that relies on freight rail in his district, he had to vote in favor of the bond.
“It is vital to the mill there to have rail service,” Cleary said, expressing fears of a “trickle-down theory” of other, lesser businesses being harmed if the mill had layoffs forced by the rail shutdown.
“Once the rail is gone, I fear, it is not going to come back and I fear for future economic development of the area,” he said.
As many as 1,722 jobs could be lost immediately if the rail line goes down, regional economic development officials said.
A draft, preliminary study done by Surface Transportation Board officials released Friday said that the abandonment of the rail lines could divert onto Maine’s highways as many as an additional 73,344 truck trips per year, consuming an additional 3.3 million gallons of fuel annually.
The draft review, which estimated it would take four trucks to replace every rail car, found that the diversion of rail traffic onto trucks would appear to be “within the level of traffic allowed by area roads.”
The draft also recommended steps to reduce the effect of the rail salvage operation that would follow any abandonment.