Ron Morgan at the Huntingdon, PA Daily News (New rail system could aid region) and Wayne Laepple at the Trains Newswire (Railcar repair shop opens on East Broad Top, August 11, 2014) are both reporting that Larry Salone has opened a railcar repair facility in Mount Union, PA.
The Trains Newswire article includes these two lines:
Quote:
Salone hopes to expand operations to include part of the recently rehabilitated EBT yard as well as the enginehouse that still houses one of the EBT's standard gauge steam switchers, 0-6-0 No. 3. As the business expands, he may erect a building in the Riverside Business Center, about two miles south of the EBT yard along the original EBT main line.
Trains does not distinguish between the non-profit East Broad Top Preservation Association and the "East Broad Top Railcar, LLC" that was created on 2/3/2011, according to the PA Department of State. I mention the two different entities because some RYPNers many not see how using the EBT's Mount Union yard for industrial development would be consistent with the EBTPA's stated objectives ("Our mission here at the East Broad Top Preservation Association is to preserve, maintain, and continue to improve the history of the East Broad Top Railroad.")
Both articles also mention the "PASS Box". Here is a very short (2-sentence long) fair-use quote of the Huntingdon News article, which is titled New rail system could aid region:
Quote:
The recent development of a “supply hopper” transportation system known as a Portable Aggregate Supply System (PASS Box), participating companies could save between 30-40 percent in reduced freight costs using the intermodal rail service, explained Larry Salone, one of the activists in the promotion of the innovated PASS Box system and head of an organization that wants to expand a railroad car repair business in Mount Union and DuBois.... Briefly, the PASS Box system, created and patented two years ago by Synergy Natural Resources’ Drew Lofstad, is being promoted as a innovated “hopper”-style storage and delivery container that can be safely transported over the rails from its original point to its destination, without being disturbed.
The Huntingdon News article also says that Synergy Natural Resources LLC claims that 100,000 PASS Boxes will be needed domestically and that Mr. Salone thinks Mount Union would be the perfect place for their manufacturing plant. As I read that, I found myself wondering why would an Atlanta-area company bother to consider building a plant in rural Pennsylvania? I quickly found the LLC's website , which includes a "Our Team" page that describes Mr. Drew J. Lofstad as company Co-Founder/Managing Member.
I then researched Mr. Lofstad and found some rather disconcerting information: there are multiple court records for a Mr. Drew J. Lofstad in both Georgia & Alabama, and the Atlanta (Fulton County) mugshot of a Drew Jason Lofstad is even posted online.
It also appears that news about the "PASS Box" was used to pump up the price of a penny stock in March 2013. Here's the relevant March 14, 2013 press release posted on Yahoo Finance... and here is that penny-stock's performance during the month -- you can see that it doubled in price immediately after that press release came out:
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I'm not sure what to make of all this, but I doubt that any of it is good for the railroad.
(Post Edited on 8/14/2014 in order to correct link to The Huntingdon News article "New rail system could aid region".)