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good news because the paper industry, a long- time source of heavy traffic for MMA prede- cessors, is contracting due to worldwide com- petitive pressures. Fortress did not acquire MMA’s ragtag fleet


of aged General Electric locomotives, but Florida East Coast’s purchase of two dozen General Electric ES44C4s could allow it to re- tire not only its 11 EMD SD70M-2s but possi- bly some of its remaining ex-Union Pacific SD40-2s or four-motor EMD’s. It’s not hard to imagine that surplus FEC power could be sent north to the new railroad. CMQR will operate the former Canadian


Pacific main line between St. Jean, Québec, and Brownville Junction, Maine, and has trackage rights over CPR between St. Jean and CPR’s St. Luc yard in Montréal. Combined with Irving’s New Brunswick Southern and Eastern Maine Railway former CPR trackage between Brownville Junction and Saint John, this is the shortest route between Montréal and a Maritimes port. It remains to be seen whether Central Maine & Québec will be able to buck the line’s losing record and turn it into a winner.


NJ Transit


WEINSTEIN IS OUT, HAKIM IS IN: Em- battled NJ Transit Executive Director James Weinstein retired effective March 1, 2014 and has been succeeded by Veronique Hakim. Weinstein came under fire after Hurricane Sandy caused $120 million in damage when equipment was flooded by the storm surge and has been criticized for Transit’s perform- ance moving passengers to and from the Super Bowl. “Ronnie” Hakim comes to Tran- sit after four years as executive director of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, where she was able to trim expenses by $10 million a year while maintaining service. Hakim also had a 23-year career with the New York Met- ropolitan Transportation Authority.


Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern


DETAILS OF PURCHASE EMERGE: In a filing with the Surface Transportation Board, Genesee & Wyoming’s new Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern (RPCE) has outlined the major pro- visions of its purchase of the former Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern (DME) lines west of Tracy, Minn., from Canadian Pacific. The deal protects CPR’s ability to build DME’s pro- posed expansion into Wyoming’s Powder River Basin coal fields as DME (CPR) will re- tain the exclusive right to handle all coal traf- fic “to, from, and over” RPCE through the end of 2030. DME (CPR) will also receive trackage rights between Tracy, Minn., and Wolsey, S.D., which will permit DME to continue oper- ating through grain trains with BNSF Rail- way out of Florence, Minn., and ballast trains to points on DME east of Tracy.


RCPE says it will run two through trains a


day into and out of Tracy, three trains a week between Huron and Mankato for Union Pacif- ic interchange, two locals on the Black Hills and Huron Subdivisions and one serving the branches out of Huron. The railroad expects to hire about 180 of the current 215 employees currently working the lines.


Liberty Liner Returns to Service in Pennsylvania


THE ROCKHILL TROLLEY MUSEUM of Rockhill Furnace, Penn., has returned its historic Liberty Liner streamlined interurban trainset to operation. Two of these trains, known as the Electroliners, were constructed in 1941 by the St. Louis Car Co. for the Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee Railroad, which provided high speed electric service between Chicago and Milwau- kee until 1963. The four-car, bidirectional trains were specially designed to provide the most modern comforts of the time yet could operate in the tight confines of the Chicago elevated sys- tem and with automobile traffic on the streets of Milwaukee. The trains were studied by the de- signers of the original Japanese Shinkansen “Bullet” high speed trains in the early 1960s and may have influenced some of their features.


Both Electroliners were sold in 1963 to the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Co. (com- monly known as the Red Arrow Lines) of Upper Darby, Penn., which renamed them Liberty Lin- ers. The trains were refurbished and modified for use with high-level platforms and returned to operation on PSTC’s Norristown division in January 1964; they ran in regular service until 1978. The Museum’s parent Railways To Yesterday purchased train No. 803-804, named Inde- pendence Hall, in 1982 and moved it to Rockhill Furnace, where it was returned to operation. The Liberty Liner ran until 1996, when it was taken out of service due to problems with the con- trol system. Museum volunteers again restored it to operation in 2011 for a special event, but electrical problems sidelined the train again in 2012. (Liberty Liner No. 801-802 was acquired by the Illinois Railway Museum and restored in its original North Shore configuration as an Electroliner. IRM [www.irm.org] plans to restore it to operating condition by 2016.) Thanks to a substantial donation, replacement control system components for Rockhill’s trainset were assembled and more than a dozen volunteers from several museum departments worked as a team over the past four months to return the train to operation once again. The Lib- erty Liner made its ceremonial roll-out and first trip (above) on the evening of February 15, 2014, at an annual gathering of volunteers from many East Coast trolley museums. The Liberty Liner will be maintained in operable condition and will be operated on special oc-


casions. Emphasis is being placed on the trainset’s mechanical condition, but the group hopes to clean it up cosmetically as funds become available. Donations are being accepted to help defray the cost of restoring and maintaining this historic piece of equipment. You’ll find more informa- tion on the Liberty Liner and the Rockhill Trolley Museum at www.rockhilltrolley.org.


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BILL MONAGHAN


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