(The following story by Franco Ordonez appeared on the Boston Globe website on January 15.)
BOSTON — A struggling family-run railroad has charged that the town of Milford is obstructing its chance to pull itself out of financial despair and has taken the town to federal court.
Grafton and Upton Railroad Co., owned and operated by the Lucey family of Worcester, has filed an injunction against the town seeking a court order allowing the railroad to lease its 5.6-acre Milford train yard to a steel shipping company, Boston Railway Terminal Corp.
The town contends that the residential-zoned property, which contains wetlands and is close to town water wells, must be protected and that any commercial use of it is subject to local zoning laws and Conservation Commission regulations.
In something of a reversal of stereotypes about industry and community, the town is being portrayed as an unsympathetic giant, throwing its weight around to prevent a tiny operation that has been in the region for 131 years from getting a new start.
“It’s not some huge company running roughshod over a town,” said Michael B. Flynn, an attorney for the railroad, stating that the company is run by only three people. “We’re really talking about a mom-and-pop operation.”
The Grafton and Upton Railroad maintains that the yard, next to Vernon Grove Cemetery, is protected by federal regulations that exempt railroads from local zoning requirements and the state Wetlands Protection Act. The two sides will argue their cases in front of a federal judge tomorrow morning.
Town officials recognize the protection of railroad companies provided by federal statutes; however, they say the law is intended to protect rail carriers as they pertain to transportation of people or goods. It does not, they say, protect related companies that either depend on or operate in conjunction with rail companies. In this case, Milford officials say the Grafton and Upton Railroad is trying to elude local and state regulations by presenting itself in its proposal as a rail carrier.
“This is not a rail carrier,” said Milford Town Attorney Gerald M. Moody, speaking of the proposed relationship between the railroad and Boston Railway. “It’s a trucking company.”
Last month, the town filed a brief with the federal Surface Transportation Board, which regulates railroads, seeking a declarative order that the Grafton and Upton Railroad is not exempt from local and state regulations. The case is pending; however, the railroad seeks immediate relief from the US District Court in Worcester, asserting that the company is losing potential income. In addition, the company says it could lose the Boston Railway Terminal Corp. business entirely if a deal is not worked out soon because Boston Railway is under a timeline to leave its current South Boston facility.
Incorporated in 1873, the Grafton and Upton Railroad Company once operated 5.5 miles of track from North Grafton to Milford. Though a significant passenger carrier in its early years, the company prospered during the 1930s and 1940s as a regional freight carrier moving cattle and motor vehicles. Since then, however, the business has steadily declined and today exists in near dormancy with much of the track in disrepair.
But rail officials see the Milford yard, which has gone unused for more than a decade, and the Boston Railroad Terminal deal as an opportunity to pull the company out of its economic hole and reestablish itself as a profitable railroad.
Calls to Boston Railway Terminal Corp. were not returned. But according to court documents, the company receives about 140 rail cars of steel a year via the CSX rail line and then delivers it by truck to customers throughout New England. The Milford yard is ideal for the shipping company because of its comparable size to the South Boston facility and, more importantly, its immediate proximity and connection to the CSX line.
Rail officials dispute the town’s contention that the Milford yard would really be a trucking company, and have said Grafton and Upton Railroad will be an integral part of the yard’s operations. Unlike at the South Boston location where the Boston Railway Terminal runs the locomotives that move train cars from the CSX line into the yard where steel is unloaded onto Boston Railway Terminal trucks, Flynn said, in Milford the Grafton and Upton Railroad would own and operate the locomotives.
The town contends that the rail company has changed its proposal to appear more legitimate to the court, and that originally the company had no intention of operating any of the trains — only leasing the property.
“They’re attempting to make it on paper more complicated, but in our view it is the same thing that is going on in South Boston,” Moody said.