Despite Legal Challenges, Grafton & Upton Railroad Chugs Along

Photo/Matt Pilon Rail Revival: Jon Delli Priscoli, owner of the Grafton & Upton Rail Road, said the revitalized line's bringing jobs to the southern I-495 region.

Photo/Matt Pilon The Envirobulk terminal in Upton accepts rail shipments of wood pellets from British Columbia and Colorado, and packages and stores them for pickup. A group of town residents has challenged the facility’s exemption from local zoning and permitting regulations.

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Six years ago, it wouldn't have seemed foolish to have thought the Grafton & Upton Railroad was gone forever.

The 16.5-mile line was overgrown, trees had sprung out of the tracks and crossings had been paved over or torn out.

Neighborhoods cropped up over the years, perhaps built by developers who believed the line had seen its last train. And at least some who bought those homes wish it were so.

But the combination of the right investor and rising diesel prices affecting trucking rates has changed the transportation dynamic, and the Grafton & Upton's fate.

Jon Delli Priscoli, a rail industry veteran who lives in Sudbury, acquired the railroad with partners in 2008 and took over all of it in 2009.

Known as a "bridge line" because it connects two lines (both belonging to CSX Corp.), the Grafton & Upton is looking far different these days.

Under Delli Priscoli's ownership, the tracks have been cleared and restored. Only two miles at the southern end of the line — where it connects with a CSX interchange in Milford — remain unfinished. Delli Priscoli said that work should be completed this year.

"Railroads have gotten very competitive and very nimble compared to what they used to be," Priscoli said in an interview in his truck as he gave a reporter a tour of the line.

Delli Priscoli, who ran the Quincy Bay Railroad for more than a decade, owns the Edaville Railroad amusement park in Carver. More recently, he became CEO of the Cape Cod Central Railroad. He is just the third owner of the Grafton & Upton in 135 years.

And lately, he's got the trains humming along (though he limits them to 10 miles per hour for safety).

There are between 20 and 30 cars per day that make the trip from Grafton to Hopedale.

Since the acquisition, the railroad has built a major transloading operation in Upton – the Envirobulk terminal – where wood pellets are unloaded, bagged and stored for several customers.

And G&U Logistix set up shop last year in a 100,000-square-foot warehouse with 22 employees in Hopedale, behind the town hall.

Some longt-time customers are also still in business. For example, Washington Mills in Grafton is the first stop.

Shaun Keefe, president of G&U Logistix, was vice president at Romar Transportation in CSX's Allston yard, which CSX sold recently when it moved its intermodal facility to Worcester. He said Hopedale offered a desirable location, with an easy access to area highways and a quick connection to CSX's line, which runs right past Delli Priscoli's headquarters on Westboro Road in North Grafton.

"There's good access to 495, the Mass. Pike, 146, down to 95 and 24," Keefe said. "When we were in Boston, where we were delivering to was usually outside of the Boston area."

Keefe said the Grafton & Upton has "excellent service."

"It's in their interest to take good care of their customers," he said. "We get a phone call from the operations manager every day asking what we need."

Bringing in Keefe's firm — the railroad's first new customer in many years — was an accomplishment, Priscoli said. "A lot of people don't want to be the first business, for whatever reason," he said.

Expansion Plans

If Delli Priscoli's plans come to fruition, there will be more customers in the near future. The G&U Logistix building sits on a 30-acre property he owns, and he envisions more development there. And he has an agreement with the owner of a 175-acre property in Upton for which he'd like to find a customer.

And a 6.5-acre site in Milford sits waiting for the final piece of the line to be completed this year.

Also, Hopedale officials hope the revitalized line might help attract a developer for the long-vacant Draper Mill, which at 1.4 million square feet is one of the largest in the state. The mill used to employ more than 3,000 and paid half of the town's property taxes. Today, it's less than 1 percent.

Phil Shwachman, president of Worcester-based First American Realty Inc., which owns the mill, said in an email that bringing new life to it will require an experienced developer with access to capital and a long-term perspective.

The railroad, he said, may help bring that developer to town.

"It has the potential to be a positive influence," Schwachman wrote.

Eugene Phillips, Hopedale's town administrator (and a former employee at Draper Corp. before it was shuttered in the 1970s) admits that he, like many, never thought the Grafton & Upton Railroad would come back.

"It was a great surprise," he said.

And he agrees the railroad offers new possibilities for the massive mill.

A town committee issued a report in 2007 that recommended a mix of apartments, shops and industrial space in the mill. But Phillips said many residents don't find the idea of a big influx of new housing palatable.

"I think it's a real possibility we can get more business in there than was originally intended," Phillips said.

Legal Challenges

But some of the railroad's expansion plans face legal hurdles from both local governments and residents in Grafton and Upton.

The railroad has begun to build infrastructure next to its headquarters to hold four 80,000-gallon propane tanks. But the Grafton selectmen sued in December to stop the delivery of the tanks. The crux of their argument is whether a propane transloading operation — which would accept and store deliveries of the fuel off the CSX line — is exempt from local zoning and other regulations under the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act. The matter has gone to a bench trial, and closing arguments are set for this week.

He faces a similar challenge over the Envirobulk terminal, after seven Upton residents filed a petition with the federal Surface Transportation Board.

Delli Priscoli said the propane operation would be the only facility of its kind in the area. The nearest propane transloading site is in Providence, he said.

Delli Priscoli said he feels pretty good he will win the case.

"It's pretty hard to say it's not a railroad activity," he said. "Our goal is to do it safely with no compromises on safety."

But he admits that losing would be a blow. He has invested in infrastructure for the operation and has a partner lined up, with several more interested, according to court records.

Delli Priscoli said he has tried to meet residents' wishes — for example, he built a fence to shield the view of the Envirobulk facility, which is adjacent to the town landfill and used to house a rock salt facility. But he thinks some residents simply don't want a railroad near their backyards. "I don't know how you fix that," he said. We have our right of way. That's what we have." n

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