OT-1 At Brewer - a photo on Flickriver

OT-1 At Brewer

            Pan Am OT-1 flags Elm Street in South Brewer, ME on 9/14/2020.

The Bucksport Branch/Industrial Track was once a busy line serving many small customers and oil dealers in Brewer and Bucksport, along with a paper mill in Brewer, a chemical plant in Orrington known as Sobins, the massive paper mill in Bucksport and for a short time even copper ore was loaded in Bucksport from the Callahan Mine in Blue Hill, which was shipped to PA and Gaspe.

Like most branches in the state, traffic slowly died off from the 60's to 2000's. Eventually all business, but the Verso mill in Bucksport ceased. 

Bucksport continued until 2014, when Verso shut the mill down and sold it to AIM Recycling for demolition. AIM for a short time shipped the scrap by rail, until a derailment in 2017 closed the line just outside Bucksport Yard.

After the derailment, the only traffic beyond Orrington, was some storage moves between 2019 and 2021. 

Until late 2023, the Bangor-Orrington section of the railroad was operated 1-2 times a week, moving loads of "Dirty Dirt" from the Holtrachem superfund site. The superfund clean up started around 2015, as a result of decades of previous owners dumping waste, full of contaminates as well as mercury, around the site and in the Penobscot River. It wasn't uncommon for sometimes as many as 20-40 cars, to be moved from the site per week for many years.

However, in 2023 things began to slow down and it appears the clean up has stalled completely with little work being done since. 

Despite CSX doing a tie job, which was never finished in 2023, the branch is essentially out of service with washouts and fallen trees from storms in 2023, that have not been cleaned up yet.

For now the future of the line is unknown, with no online customers and despite rumors of a new business looking to locate in Bucksport, there doesn't appear to be any new traffic sources popping up.

Unfortunately, despite having the opportunity to chase several times, this was the only chase I did on the branch, consisting of just a few shots of this light power set.

Pan Am Railways
Train: OT-1
9/14/2020
South Brewer, ME
ST District 1 Bucksport Branch/Industrial Track

Taken in: United States / Maine / Brewer / South Brewer (show map)

Taken on: September 14, 2020

Tags:

EMD

MEC

GP40

9/14/2020

OT-1

Pan

Railways

Train

South

Brewer

Maine

District

Bucksport

Branch

Industrial

Track

310

350

Fallen

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