Model Railroad/Paper Railroad: Portland, Bangor & Northern (PB&N)

[David Collins]

The Portland, Bangor and Northern (my model railroad) was created in 2020 in Far Northeastern Pennsylvania with ownership split by two railroads, Norfolk Southern and CSX. Both railroads wanted to use the NS owned Portland Secondary, however with several industries, a grain elevator, and an interchange with a Class 3 Shortline (The Lackawanna). The two decided to create the PB&N.

The PB&N is sort of run like how Conrail Shared Assets work, except there's a few differences:

The PB&N charters locomotives for the two railroads based on how much tonnage is to be carried.

The PB&N does NOT use a special GPS in it's locomotives, unlike Conrail Shared Assets, where locomotives in Industrial Trackage use them, therefore allowing other railroads' locomotives on their trackage.

The PB&N does NOT have it's own signal/track maintainer force. This where things get tricky, The majority owner in the line is NS, who interchanges with the LRR in Bangor and services the (fictional) power plant in Portland, therefore, NS is responsible for the track maintenance and signals too. However, in areas where CSX services industries, such as the paper mill and the Cargill grain elevator, CSX is responsible for the trackage (mainly switches) within a quarter of a mile radius of the industries it serves.


Regular locomotives that can be seen working around the railroad are:

CSX SD40-3 #4046
NS SD60M #6775
CSX SD50-2 #8557
NS SD80MAC #7205


More to come soon

[AARR]

Looking forward to it