BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 16, 2022
For years, the railroad line that runs from Brewer to Bucksport carried daily shipments of paper and materials to and from the Verso Paper mill along the Penobscot River. But when the mill closed in 2014, the railroad lost its primary user. Railway company CSX, which has 21,000 miles of track in the eastern U.S. and Canada, is working on a major merger with Pan Am, the largest railroad system in Maine and owner of the Bucksport line. This week, CSX said it currently has no plans to change the existing routes or types of services offered by Pan Am for any line, including Bucksport. The two new owners of the former mill site in Bucksport are Maine Maritime Academy, which runs a professional development center there, and Whole Oceans, a planned but yet-to-be-built land-based salmon farm. Neither seems to be counting on freight services on the line.