(The following story by Tux Turkel appeared on the Portland Press Herald website on February 12.)
PORTLAND, Maine — A group of anonymous Maine companies is pushing for legislation to help improve the quality, availability and dependability of rail freight service to their factories and mills.
The newly formed Maine Rail Consumer Cooperative won’t identify its members, won’t publicly discuss problems with any specific rail carrier and wants a law passed to let members anonymously report performance problems to the state.
“They have a great fear of being retaliated against when they complain publicly about rail service,” said Tony Buxton, an attorney representing the group.
Buxton also declined to identify a specific railroad. But Stephen Ward, the state’s Public Advocate, was willing to say publicly what others acknow- ledge privately.
“I think Guilford is the focus of the bill,” Ward said, referring to Guilford Rail System, the Massachusetts-based transportation company that owns extensive sections of track in Maine.
David Fink, Guilford Rail System’s vice president, testified earlier this month in Augusta against the bill. Fink couldn’t be reached for comment on this story, following repeated phone calls over two days.
In southern Maine, Guilford has been in the news for years for its ongoing battle with Amtrak over how fast Downeaster trains can run on the Portland-to-Boston passenger route. But Guilford also operates freight lines that serve major paper mills in the state, including Georgia-Pacific in Old Town, MeadWestvaco in Rumford and Sappi Fine Paper in Skowhegan and Westbrook. Any service concerns that these and other mills might have, regardless of which railroad serves them, tend to be handled with far less publicity than the Amtrak fight.
Ward, who represents consumers in electric and telephone matters, knows little about railroads. But the bill proposed by the customer group would make him a legal intervenor to help solve railroad service problems. In that way, private railroads would be treated a bit like public utilities.
Freight trains aren’t as prominent as they once were in Maine, when factory work dominated the economy. But in testimony at a hearing earlier this month before the Legislature’s Utility and Energy Committee, Buxton stressed the importance of rail service in preserving manufacturing jobs. He charged that the loss of some of these jobs over the past decade was caused by the lack of dependable rail service in Maine.
“It is indisputable,” he said, “that Maine rail freight service is inferior to that enjoyed by most of the rest of the United States. . .”
In his testimony, Buxton listed 10 specific problems, but identified no railroads. The troubles he cited included deliveries that don’t arrive on time, or at all, or arrive in poor quality. He also noted ongoing shortages of crews and locomotives.
Buxton related the story of a paper mill manager who came within a few hours of shutting down his round-the-clock operation because rail cars containing raw material were late. He told about a mill engaged in a dispute over rail car rental fees that found a train blocking the mill yard for a day while the crew went “on break.”
To address these and other concerns, the Maine Rail Consumer Cooperative wants to make it unlawful for a railroad to discriminate in providing service to customers. It also wants the state to track deliveries and shipments and gather information about the performance of railroads.
To prevent retaliation, the group wants the reporting protected from the Maine Freedom of Information Act, keeping consumer names confidential. Language modeled after federal “whistleblower” statutes would protect from retaliation anyone who complained about service quality. The attorney general would enforce this statute.
The bill is causing a stir among those who follow the rail industry in Maine.
Chalmers “Chop” Hardenbergh, who publishes the Atlantic Northeast Rails & Ports newsletter, said this is the first time in New England that a group has formed to complain about rail service. It’s also unprecedented, he said, for a customer group to seek state help with an industry typically under federal juris- diction.
Hardenbergh testified at the hearing. He identified Guilford as the leading target of the bill. He displayed a letter written in 2002 by Georgia-Pacific to a top Guilford executive. The letter complained that problems with receiving raw materials and switching troubles had put the mill at risk of shutting down.
The letter was copied to 20 lawmakers. After the publicity, Hardenbergh said, service improved. But public criticism of Guilford is rare, he said. When he writes stories about Guilford for his newsletter, Hardenbergh said, his sources are cautious.
“People are afraid when I call up customers of Guilford,” he said. “They say, ‘Please don’t use my name.’ ”
The bill’s future is uncertain. A work session scheduled for last Thursday to amend the proposal was postponed by the snow- storm.
The bill’s lead sponsor, Rep. Randy Hotham, R-Dixfield, said it may be too expensive to set up the kind of reporting system the consumer co-op initially envisioned. He will propose a less-costly way for the Public Advocate or the Maine Department of Transportation to collect information and give the state some feel for the extent of the problem.
Hotham, who works for MeadWestvaco, said he is convinced that Maine manufacturers and farmers would make greater use of rail freight if service was improved. As Buxton did, Hotham declined to identify Guilford as the focus of the bill. He also said he doesn’t know who is in the rail co-op and hasn’t asked Buxton.
Asked why a matter involving freight trains was being steered toward state officials who typically worry about electricity and phone service, Hotham said:
“We’re trying to enable some branch of state government to get involved in an industry that’s federally regulated. So we had to be innovative.”