CHICAGO — The company overseeing the embattled Iowa Pacific railroads has requested that the Massachusetts Coastal Railroad be placed into receivership.
The Massachusetts Coastal, also known as the Mass Coastal, operates freight and passenger service on Cape Cod and nearby portions of southeastern Massachusetts. It was the only Iowa Pacific railroad not to be placed into receivership earlier this fall when it was revealed the company owed millions of dollars to numerous creditors and contractors [See “Additional Iowa Pacific railroads placed into receivership,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 23, 2019].
A company or property is placed in receivership to protect the assets of an organization when it cannot meet its financial obligations or enters bankruptcy.
On Nov. 26, Nova Advisors, the receiver appointed earlier this year, filed a motion in U.S. District Court to have Iowa Pacific’s “Massachusetts assets” placed in bankruptcy protection, along with more than two dozen other companies already in receivership. It is expected that the judge will approve the motion at an upcoming hearing. The “Massachusetts assets” also include companies associated with Massachusetts Coastal, including Cape Rail, Inc. and the Cape Cod Central Railroad.
According to court documents, Massachusetts Coastal has been operating independently of Iowa Pacific since 2018 and that a minority partner, railroad president and chief operating officer Christopher Podgurski, has recently made an offer to purchase the entire railroad.
According to court records, Iowa Pacific and its associated companies owe Big Shoulders Capital, one of its primary creditors, more than $4.6 million. Court documents state the railroads are also subject to “substantial claims” by the Internal Revenue Service.
Nova Advisors was appointed receiver over the railroads earlier this fall and, according to officials close to the railroad, is managing Iowa Pacific’s day-to-day operations. Iowa Pacific founder and former president Ed Ellis is no longer with the company.
Mass Coastal is one of three Iowa Pacific railroads where operations are continuing as normal despite the company’s legal troubles. The others are Colorado’s San Luis & Rio Grande and Oregon’s Mount Hood Railroad.
Ah Tom. I remember that Sunday night freight that passed within feet of the Chicken Bone bar which was right at the Route 135 crossing. Went there many Sunday nights for their Blues Jam and great food. Now it is reported that Delli Priscoli is interested on taking it over and since he did some magic with G&U, he should be able to do even more magic here. This will be interesting to watch.(Previous posting was truncated for some reason)
Ah Tom. I remember that Sunday night freight that passed within feet of the Chicken Bone bar which was right at the Route 135 crossing. Went there many Sunday nights for their Blues Jam and great food.This will be interesting to watch.
It always bothered me that Iowa Pacific holdings owns so much prime passenger equipment and what would happen when the eggs laid of ventures such as the Indiana train with full service chef prepared meals and
the first class cars on the City of New Orleans came to hatch.
I think the existing museums can absorb some of the equipment but many including the best such as the Illinois Railroad Musuem can only have so many domes and E units.
When Iowa Pacific started running the Indiana train on non Cardinal days including a long deadhead from Chicago I mentioned in this forum that the math just did not add up.
No paint scheme of the streamliner past looks worse than the IC brown and orange when it fades into a pink and tan. I do hope they can pull out of this without a equipment selloff to salvagers.
I am old enough to remember when one of the best steamers of the 60’s fan trips was scrapped in place in Chicago due to similar problems. Hope I am wrong.
Other businesses gone in the area. Patriot Ledger newsprint closed within the last 10 years; Plymouth Cordage at North Plymouth closed by the early 1980’s. A large industrial plant just south of Taunton on the line to Dighton I found a large now-failed former customer. De-industrialization. Not enough carload business possible to keep the checks from bouncing. Sad. I used to see a long freight from Framingham south through Sherborn on late Sunday nights; that was the job for SE Mass I guess. I also had to deal with a freight into Taunton from Attleboro’ at 5am’s blocking streets when I was trying to reach an early Bloom bus whose passengers I had to count. A samll amount of freight was moved from Boston to Quincy and beyond ca. 1997 but it was too late and too small to continue but I saw it.
I believe that the chief commodity that Mass. Coastal RR hauls is municipal trash. Rail freight in eastern Mass. is now but a pale shadow of its former self.
I had a friend in the rail car rebuilding business. Years ago, he always referred to Iowa Pacific as IOU Pacific!
Cape Cod (mentioned in the blog above) is non-industrial. The railroad also operates to the South Coast – Fall River and New Bedford, two old mill towns of which New England has many. Connection to CSX is at Taunton, according to Wikipedia.
My native Southeastern Massachusetts is ground zero both for de-industrialization and the death of carload railroading. If CSX never ran another train south and east of Framingham I wonder if anyone would notice.
ANNA – Here’s what you need to know about John Zachary DeLorean. None of it praiseworthy.
Native of Detroit Michigan of Romanian ancestry.
Family home in a working-class neighborhood, in the north end, I believe near DeQuindre and Seven Mile. It is said his boyhood house is visible from the northbound Walter P. Chrysler Freeway (Michigan Trunk Line Highway I-75) but I can’t confirm that.
Attended Cass Technical High School. While a student co-opped at Detroit’s Public Lighting Commission. I have actually seen on old street lighting drawing (not terribly great) initialed JZD.
Working his way up at General Motors, he took credit for the Pontiac GTO and the general success of the Pontiac Division. Seemed to be headed for the “14th Floor” – the executive suite – of GM’s headquarters in the New Center. (This was of course before GM moved its HQ to the RenCen downtown.)
Said he was forced out because he wore brown suits. Not because he was, say, a sleazeball.
Founded DeLorean Motors and got a grant from the Crown to build the DeLorean sports car in Northern Ireland.
Arrested on a major cocaine bust around 1983, but beat the rap. Meanwhile, his auto company collapsed and the Crown was left holding the bag.
Passed on shortly thereafter.
Bottom line – JZD was one among the many reasons I never gave a passing thought to buying a GM car. However if you want to loan me that DeLorean snowmobile ……..
Penn Central took Southeast Mass freight business from three road freights a day to one. Conrail dropped that to one train that ran combined with the business out of Readville Mass and then reduced those trains to locals – which CSX stuff operates in essentially the same manner.
The main business for CSX now is garbage which has replaced the business of most of the large shippers present when Conrail began: General Dynamics Shipyard (shut down), Proctor & Gamble (remains), Burke Distributing (beer, now mostly not moving by rail), Ocean Spray Cranberries (no longer seems to be using rail to receive corn syrup).
When New Haven ended in 1968, there was a local out of Braintree (to Plymouth), two out of Brockton (north and south), one based at Hyannis daily, one at Taunton (to Woods Hole on Cape Cod daily), one at New Bedford plus yard switchers at Braintree, Brockton, Taunton, Fall River and New Bedford. Road freights ran New Haven (Cedar Hill Yard) to New Bedford and Brockton-Braintree plus Framingham-Taunton – Fall River.
By 1980, there was only two locals out of Braintree and two out of Middleboro plus the road freight running Selkirk Yard – Springfield – Readville – Middleboro – Braintree.
CSX inherited the local schedule Conrail left and kept it unchanged: two locals out of Middleboro (in each direction) and and nightime turn to Framingham to connect with the road freight to Selkirk yard.