B&M offers to pay costs to keep rail line open
B&G Foods, which owns the B&M baked bean plant in Portland, is offering to pay the cost of keeping the rail line open that delivers beans to its factory from suppliers outside of Maine.
Earlier this year, federal regulators approved the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad's request to stop service on its 24-mile rail from Auburn to Portland, which serves only Portland's B&M baked bean factory. At the time, the railroad said the line was losing money, but B&M urged regulators to keep the line open, citing its dependence on the rail service for delivery of pea beans from the Midwest and Manitoba, Canada.
The Bangor Daily News reported that B&G Foods has offered to pay St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad Co. $111,529 to keep the rail line open.
B&G submitted its subsidy offer to the federal Surface Transportation Board by a Nov. 5 deadline, the newspaper reported. The board will evaluate whether the subsidy is enough to require the railroad to continue operating that line.
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