The Last Local
Pan Am Railways local BO1 is seen switching out Rousselot in this shot looking east on the South Reading Industrial Track at Allens Lane crossing. MEC 505 is an unrebuilt sister to the MBTA unit in the previous post having been built by GMDD in Jul. 1974 as CN 9470.
This customer is the only reason there is still freight service on the Eastern Route main and on this last branchline in the northern suburbs of Boston.
Rousselot is the worldwide leader in gelatin production and has a dozen other plants around the world. This particular facility was owned by Eastman Kodak until 2012, although manufacturing has taken place on this site since 1812 when a glue factory opened here.
Kodak used the plant primarily for making a very pure gelatin used in photographic film, but the market for that has dwindled with the emergence of digital cameras. As recently as 2007, 95 percent of the gelatin it produced went toward film, but by 2011 that had been reduced to a 50-50 split between gelatin for film and for other products. During the last 10 years, the facility's production has also decreased dramatically, going from about 19 million pounds of gel in 1999 to 2.75 million pounds at the time the plant was sold.
However the shift from film pharmaceutical products has led to increased production in recent years and more inbound raw materials (bone chips and acid) arriving by rail.
Peabody, Massachusetts
Thursday December 16, 2021
The Last Local
Pan Am Railways local BO1 is seen switching out Rousselot in this shot looking east on the South Reading Industrial Track at Allens Lane crossing. MEC 505 is an unrebuilt sister to the MBTA unit in the previous post having been built by GMDD in Jul. 1974 as CN 9470.
This customer is the only reason there is still freight service on the Eastern Route main and on this last branchline in the northern suburbs of Boston.
Rousselot is the worldwide leader in gelatin production and has a dozen other plants around the world. This particular facility was owned by Eastman Kodak until 2012, although manufacturing has taken place on this site since 1812 when a glue factory opened here.
Kodak used the plant primarily for making a very pure gelatin used in photographic film, but the market for that has dwindled with the emergence of digital cameras. As recently as 2007, 95 percent of the gelatin it produced went toward film, but by 2011 that had been reduced to a 50-50 split between gelatin for film and for other products. During the last 10 years, the facility's production has also decreased dramatically, going from about 19 million pounds of gel in 1999 to 2.75 million pounds at the time the plant was sold.
However the shift from film pharmaceutical products has led to increased production in recent years and more inbound raw materials (bone chips and acid) arriving by rail.
Peabody, Massachusetts
Thursday December 16, 2021