New freight railroad proposed for New Brunswick's Acadian Peninsula

I was looking around on the net this morning and I came across this, I've heard about it several times in the past year and well I decided to give it a shot and look this over and give it some thought. So rather than writting for an hour I decided copy and paste this isn't my work; here is the link to the orgional post I'm assuming was written by John Godfrey on the American Rails forum. http://american-rails-forums.com/viewtopic.php?p=2389&sid=fa8d21caddb078e7f9504c0cb5715bd5

"September 14, 2007 NEW BRUNSWICK, Canada - Canadian entrepreneur Peter Swire is pushing a proposal to build a new freight railroad on the Acadian Peninsula in New Brunswick, the Atlantic Northeast Rails & Ports Bulletin reported. The Acadian Railway would service the same areas once served by Canadian National's Caraquet Subdivision. It would begin in Bathurst and proceed approximately 53 miles to Caraquet, N.B., and then another 11 miles to Pokemouche Junction. There the line would split, with one route heading approximately 27 miles to Tracadie and another about seven miles to Shippigan.

CN abandoned all but the first 4.3 miles of the line in 1989. The portion from Gloucester Junction (just outside Bathurst) to Shippigan was originally the Caraquet Railway, completed in 1886. The line from Tracadie to Pokemouche Junction was originally the Gulf Shore Railway, completed in 1887. The largest physical structure will be the construction of a new bridge crossing the Pokemouche River. A rail connection to Lameque Island will be handled through a rail barge. There would also be a small station (head office) and an intermodal transload facility in Caraquet's Industrial Complex.

The Acadian Railway has not requested any form of capital or operating subsidies from the government. Swire anticipates over 10,000 carloads of traffic in the first year. He said the railway already has sufficient shipper commitment (verbal and written, but not contractual) to use the line. From the onset of operations, there will be five-day-per-week service over the entire system. Swire plans to provide an outbound daily service to the various peat producers. The Acadian Railway would also provide regular service for inbound semi-finished steel products and outbound fabricated goods.

The province has amended its Short Line Railway Act to permit the construction of new railways. Until the amendment in March 2007, the act only addressed the operation of current provincial railways, those whose operations did not cross the provincial boundary. Under the act, as amended, Acadian must enter an agreement with the Minister of Transportation "for the purpose of establishing and ensuring safe and efficient short line railway operations within the Province." After the New Brunswick Department of Transportation and Acadian have entered the agreement governing how the railway will operate, NBDOT will request Transport Canada to inspect the track, signals, and equipment of Acadian before it begins operation.

Once Transport Canada has reported to NBDOT that Acadian's operation will be safe, and Acadian has fulfilled the other regulations, it may begin operation. The former right-of-way is in the ownership of the province and managed by the Department of Natural Resources. According to Swire, since the project will generate a great number of jobs, it is believed that the existing rail trail will be converted back to a railway.

He anticipates providing trail users with an alternative. Swire hopes that groundbreaking will take place in the first half of 2008. Swire, 50, advised two shortline Ontario railways in the 1980s: Trillium Railways' Port Colborne operation and a planned 48-mile freight operation over the former CN Uxbridge Subdivision, now owned by GO Transit. For a brief period of time in the mid-1990s, Swire served as officer and director of a railway holding company based in Florida. John Godfrey"