Dragon Cement deal fires Maine rail line revival
Shortline rail operator Maine Switching Services has signed a lease agreement to restart operations on a coastal Maine branch line. The post Dragon Cement deal fires Maine rail line revival appeared first on FreightWaves.
Cumberland & Knox Railroad parent Maine Switching Services has signed a lease agreement with the Maine Department of Transportation to restart operations on the Rockland Branch on the southern Maine coast.
Headquartered in Unity, Maine, the company, a unit of Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad of Maine, in a release said that operations on the 56-mile branch between Portland and Thomaston will commence immediately utilizing MSS power, as the CKRR works to activate signals for freight service. It will interchange with Class I carrier CSX at Brunswick, Maine.
The railroad will serve longtime branch customer Dragon Cement Products of Thomaston, which is resuming rail freight transportation. The line was operated by the Maine Central from 1901 to 1987, and by a succession of operators until 2024 when Finger Lakes Railway subsidiary Midcoast Rail Service filed for abandonment after Dragon shuttered its plant.
The new agreement comes as Heidelberg Materials of Germany, one of the world’s largest building materials producers, closes on its acquisition of Giant Cement Holding Inc., which owns the Thomaston property, and continues to evaluate its strategic importance. The railroad said “it is meeting with other former freight customers on the corridor to find ways of making their businesses succeed utilizing rail.”
“As a small business established in Maine, we are dedicated to supporting industrial and economic growth along the Rockland corridor,” said MSS President Joe Feero, in the release.
The new operator also wants to revive passenger excursions; the branch’s last regular passenger train ran in 1959.
Maine Switching Services serves paper mills in Rumford and Skowhegan, Maine, and provides locomotive and railcar repairs. It currently operates trains on the state-owned Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad corridor.
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The post Dragon Cement deal fires Maine rail line revival appeared first on FreightWaves.
