Opinions differ on potential impact as Waterville rail yard is sold to CSX
CSX Corp., the freight rail system whose tracks cross nearly every state east of the Mississippi River, is buying Pan Am Railways, extending its network into northern New England.
Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel
Change could be coming to the sprawling yard, however, given the impending purchase of its parent company.
Pan Am, formerly known as Guilford Transportation Industries, bought Maine Central Railroad in 1983. Pan Am’s sale to CSX has statewide implications.
“The Waterville shops have a very strong reputation, and I think it would certainly be very positive for Waterville, and I think for the state of Maine, if they remained open,” said George O’Keefe, economic development director for the town of Rumford and a longtime follower of the locomotive industry. “We’re not in a place where we have too much of that. There’s enough and we can make it work.”