Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Files For Chapter 11

[jeffhergert]

AVRNUT

I would not be at all surprised to see Irving Transportation take over the line. It would be the most logical choice. They already own New Brunswick & Southern Railroad, Maine Northern Railroad and Eastern Maine Railroad. They are currently leasing the old Bangor & Aroostook line that goes through Brownville Junction. They have a huge presence here in Maine including some sizeable timber acreage holdings, fuel storage depots, a branch office in Bangor, a couple hundred service stations, over a dozen full facility truck stops & probably much more. They have been one of MMA's major customers for oil & wood products transport. Seems to me it would be something they would be interested in, as the line from Lac Megantic connects up at Brownville with the old BAR line that Irving is already leasing from the State of Maine.

Carl

Railway Age is reporting that Irving's railroad subsidiary is negotiating with Maine about a possible acquisition of the MM&A.  The report said the subsidiary (I think without going back to look it was the NB&S) is also one of MM&A's creditors.

Jeff

[Shrike Arghast]

I believe that, no matter what, the MMA route will remain open. In that vein, I'm almost more curious to see how Trains itself responds to the disaster.

Just recently, we've seen a bevy of articles and opinion pieces extolling the virtues of shipping oil via rail, and the likely death throes of the Keystone XL project. The most recent one even mocked Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for taking a hard line against oil-by-train. Trains has been both universally opposed to the pipeline and universally supportive of oil-by-rail. There's a kind of self-serving logic in that, so I was prepared to give them a pass...

... until what happened Lac-Megantic. Now, I'm not divine -- I don't know if that was a 'wake-up moment for a nation' or a 'turning point' or whatever. But it seems to me that just a month ago we were reading an article actively promoting how carrying oil by rail was far safer than via pipeline. In terms of simple numbers, that may still be true... but I can't remember the last time an American or Canadian oil pipeline blew up and killed 47 people completely uninvolved with either its operation or function, and decimated an entire downtown. Up until that point, a massive oil disaster on rails had been a 'what if' scenario, and the editing staff at trains were free to thumb their noses at the various scenarios. Now that one has played out, I'd hope the happy-go-lucky OIL ON RAILS IS EVERYTHING GRAND! coverage would cease.

In either this coming issue or the next, I'd like to see the magazine make some kind of a mea culpa, or, in the very least, attempt to balance what has hitherto been a one-sided 'debate' on the topic. Frankly, in the least, the worst Canadian train disaster in 139 years (I believe?) probably warrants a serious chunk of the content. I understand due to publishing delay that it hasn't been possible thus far, but I also expect it to be addressed at some point. This is BIG news, and Trains has been successively beating this 'oil-on-rails' drum for almost two years now. With 47-people dead, and an entire railroad bankrupted almost in an instant, it's time for the associated cheerleaders oil-on-rails to lower their caps, hang their heads, and perhaps offer a little introspective thought.