Pan Am Railways operates hundreds of miles of railroad track in Maine.
A Pan Am Railways engine pulls railroad cars over a trestle as cars pass below on Front Street in Waterville. The railway operates New England’s largest railyard (in South Portland) and the region’s largest rail car and locomotive repair center (in Waterville). David Leaming/Morning Sentinel
They operate the largest railyard in New England: Rigby Yard in South Portland.
They operate New England’s largest locomotive and rail car repair center: the aptly named Waterville Shop in Waterville.
They employ hundreds of Mainers: train conductors, locomotive engineers, track repairmen, electricians, welders, structural engineers and signal maintainers.
They serve some of Maine’s most important and iconic businesses: the shipyards in Kittery and Bath, Sappi Fine Paper, Poland Spring Water, J.D. Irving and Irving Oil, Dragon Cement, Sprague Energy and Casco Bay Steel, just to name a few.
The last time this railroad changed hands was in 1983 when Pan Am’s parent company, Guilford Transportation Industries, bought the Boston & Maine Railroad. That transaction was front-page news, both in Maine and nationally. The NBC Nightly News even did a segment on it.
It’s surprising, then, the Press Herald and its sister newspapers haven’t written a single word about Florida-based CSX Transportation buying Pan Am Railways: a deal that transportation experts say could bring both positive and negative changes to the freight transportation landscape in Maine, as well as the potential for significant job losses if CSX opts to close Waterville Shop and send that work to their larger and newer facility in Selkirk, New York.
I realize it’s 2020 and we’re all a bit more distracted than usual, but this is still big news and someone should write about it.
Adrian Dowling
South Portland
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