William S. Cohen Papers | Senate Legislative Materials, Railroads

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MS 106.3.3.4.7 Railroads 1979-1994 13 boxes

Arranged alphabetically. Records in this group document a number of issues concerning railway systems, particularly as they relate to Maine. Maine ranks high in the nation's pulp and paper production, and rail transportation is critically important for the delivery of these products. Rail passenger transportation, though it has decreased, has also been very important throughout the state. Some of the issues documented in these papers are: Amtrak expansion, the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad Company, Bethel Ski Train, Boston's Central Artery Tunnel, and the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad Company. Records include the 1986 Maine Central Railroad labor dispute. Employees at Maine Central, owned by Guilford Transportation Industries (GTI), began a strike on March 3, 1986, and it quickly encompassed other railroads owned by Guilford. When the strike spread to the Conrail system in May, President Reagan established an Emergency Board to investigate the sources of the dispute. Records documenting this case and other issues and legal actions related to Guilford, (described in the Journal of Commerce (1/7/93) as a "contentious, litigious collection of small Northeastern carriers") are also included here. · The controversy during the 1990s concerning the abandonment of the Skinner-Vanceboro line of the Canadian Pacific Limited (CP). CP was losing $7 million a year on this line, and, as in every case of railway abandonment, the harm of abandonment to shippers and the community is weighed against the financial burden of continued operations. Cohen and the other members of the Maine Congressional Delegation strongly opposed this abandonment, and records concerning a hearing convened by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) in Bangor about this case are included here. · The 1986 sale of the Federally owned Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) - the preeminent freight-railroad system in the Northeast - to Norfolk Southern Corporation. A request for the authorization of this sale was expressed in S. 638, the first bill taken up by the Senate in 1986.

Records consist of correspondence, statements from members of the Maine Congressional Delegation, news articles, legal notices, petitions, briefs, and summaries.

Access to some of the records in this sub series is restricted until 2015. Consult the Special Collections Department for further information.


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Revised: 03/19/2019