A New Hampshire-based company wants to lease and operate a dormant freight rail line connecting Bangor and Bucksport.
TransloadX has started the process of taking over operation of that branch, and another between Augusta and Waterville, from current owner CSX, according to a filing made with the federal Surface Transportation Board last week. That would require board approval.
The Bucksport branch has gone mostly unused since the closure of the Verso Paper mill in 2014. With the mill site now largely dormant, there has been little expectation that service along the 18.8-mile corridor would ever be revived.
The filing is also the second sign of interest in long-vacant industrial facilities in Bucksport along the Penobscot River in recent weeks.
The owner of a former oil terminal recently filed to modify an old lease for pier space into the river at the former Sprague North oil terminal on River Road, meaning it could be rebuilt; a sale of the property is expected to close in the coming days, according to listing agent Thomas Dunham, who declined to name the buyer. The rail line abuts the property.
“Our goal is to work collaboratively through private investment and public-
private partnerships to rebuild rail infrastructure, attract new rail-served industries, and
strengthen Maine’s industrial and logistics economy,” TransloadX co-owner Michael Milanoski said in a Monday statement.
The company offers “integrated solutions” for logistics, railroad operation, real estate development and transloading, or transferring freight from one form of transportation to another, according to its website. It runs a transloading facility in Framingham, Mass., connecting rail, trucking, and marine shipping from the port of Boston.
Parts of the Bucksport line are missing rails or have washed out, and there’s currently no major company along it with a need for freight service. TransloadX plans to use transloading and “last-mile delivery solutions” to improve freight access where restoring rails will take some investment, it said.
The town was unaware of the latest filing, according to its economic development director, Rich Rotella.
He had been contacted by TransloadX in January during its due diligence period after being selected to reactivate and run several CSX lines in Maine, including the Bucksport branch, Rotella said.
Last summer, the company inquired about reactivating the line to serve another business that was interested in the Sprague North property, he said, but that fell through.
CSX has said it would need more diverse users in Bucksport to make reopening financially feasible, according to Rotella.
CSX bought Pan Am Railways lines across Maine, including the Bucksport line, in 2022, saying at the time it did not plan any changes to routes or services. The Bucksport line ran occasionally after the mill closure to carry out contaminated soil from the former HoltraChem plant in Orrington.
CSX had 481 miles of track in Maine in 2024, according to a company fact sheet. It mostly ships forest and paper products.
The 18.3-mile Augusta branch’s major recent customers have been a feed company, a steel company and a scrapyard, according to Nate Moulton, director of the state office of freight and business logistics. The line has been out of service for at least two years, he said, and customers have transferred freight from trains to trucks out of Waterville since then.
Rail is an effective way to move large amounts of heavy materials long distances, he said, and the department views a potential increase in freight options as a positive. He declined to comment on the specifics of the TransloadX filing.
“We always think [lines] reopening is generally a good thing, and it’s good for competition and it’s good for Maine business,” Moulton said.
TransloadX and CSX have executed a letter of intent and are finalizing terms for the company to lease the two lines to continue providing freight rail service over them, according to the March filing with the Surface Transportation Board, which regulates railroads. The terms of that lease are expected to be finalized in April.
If the board approves and the process is completed, TransloadX “will become the Class III short line railroad operator of the Lines and assume all of CSX’s common carrier obligations to service the customers located along the Lines and to develop new rail-served business,” according to the filing.
Class III rail carriers are the smallest category of operators defined by the federal board, with annual operating revenue of less than $40.4 million; short line railroads are smaller regional lines that connect to larger freight networks.