BNSF Loaded Coal Train Derails in Nebraska
Shortly before 11:00 p.m. on February 17, BNSF loaded coal train C-BKMKEB-005A derailed at the west end of Louisville, Neb., on the BNSF Creston Subdivision. Of 119 cars, 32 were derailed beginning 20 cars from the head end. An eastbound signal and the west switch to Louisville Siding were both destroyed in the process. The train was loaded by Buck Skin Mine at Ea- gle Butte, Wyo., and destined for the IES power plant at Kemper, Iowa. The line was cleared and partial service was restored by February 19. The cause of the derailment is under investigation.
PHOTO BY DARRELL WENDT
Nickel Plate line from Frankfort and Muncie, Ind. Utilities are marked at West Point and Flint, the long siding west of Demun, and work there should start in February. All of the ex-Wabash searchlight signals, as well as the concrete bungalows, are being replaced.
Portageville Bridge Progress
NS is moving forward with preparation for constructing its new Genesee River Bridge on the Southern Tier route over the Letchworth Gorge near Portageville, N.Y. Federal bless- ing of the project, ironically from the Federal Highway Administration, completed the last step of the project’s environmental review, and enables NS to proceed with the project as hoped. The total cost is expected to be $71 million, and the three years of construction will begin in 2015. The state Department of Transportation has contributed $3 million in design costs for the project and secured $12.5 million in state and federal funds for con- struction. The balance will be provided by NS. The new span will be located just south of the existing structure built in 1875. Some lo- cal politicians and citizen groups would like to keep the old bridge as a public walkway over the gorge, but the current plan is to remove and salvage the old structure once the new arch-span bridge is in service. The new bridge will increase both train speeds and weight limitations.
Operations
The route of manifest Train 15Q between Chattanooga, Tenn., and the Belt Railway of Chicago’s Clearing Yard in Bedford Park, Ill., has been revised. Instead of taking the more direct route beyond Cincinnati via Fort Wayne and the former Nickel Plate west to- wards Chicago, it now operates via Columbus and Bellevue, Ohio.
The schedule of manifest Train 170 has been revised once again. Through most of De- cember, it operated from Sevier Yard in Knox-
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ville, Tenn., to Conway, Pa., via Radford, Va., and Portsmouth, Bucyrus, and Mansfield, Ohio. By early January, its Knoxville-Conway routing had been changed to via Danville, Ky., and Cincinnati. By the end of January, it origin had been shifted to DeButts Yard in Chattanooga.
New manifest schedules added in early
2015 include Trains 136 (Birmingham-Macon via Columbus, Ga.), 370 (Rome, Ga.-Chat- tanooga), 371 (Chattanooga-Rome), 382 (Calvert, Ala.-Birmingham), and 32D (Pull- man Junction/Chicago-Bellevue, Ohio, via Oak Harbor, Ohio). All operate on a daily basis. Recently abolished are the schedules of two Triple Crown RoadRailer trains oper- ating from Sandusky, Ohio, to Bethlehem, Pa. These are Tuesday/Friday Train 242 and Monday Train 244. Also abolished was manifest Train 173 (BRC Clearing Yard/Chi- cago-Cincinnati) and automotive Train 278 (Kansas City-Chicago).
NIPSCO Coal
On January 29, NS loaded a coal train at Princeton, Ind., destined to the NIPSCO gen- erating station in Wheatfield, Ind. Operating as Train 450, it was routed from Princeton via Granite City and Decatur, Ill., and then east via Bellevue to Toledo. From there, it ran west on the normal route via Elkhart, Ind., used for Pennsylvania coal destined to Wheatfield. Most of the coal burned at the Schahfer Generating Station in Wheatfield is sourced from either Wyoming or Appalachian mines. In recent years, NIPSCO had invested in scrubber technology at Wheatfield, which will allow it to burn coal with higher sulfur content, such as that from the more proxi- mate Illinois Basin.
Southeast Grain Flows
One of NS’s heavier flows of grain traffic is from the midwest to southeastern ports and feed mills via the Central Division. The Divi- sion receives unit grain trains from the Illi-
nois Division at Louisville and from the Lake Division at Cincinnati. From these points, traffic funnels into Danville, Ky., from where it rolls south towards Central, Piedmont, Georgia, and Alabama Division destinations. To provide readers with a better appreciation of these movements, we present the follow- ing snapshot of trains loaded during the last week of January 2015 for movement south via the Central Division.
The furthest north receiver is also one of the largest, the Tate & Lyle processing plant in Loudon, Tenn. Trains to this facility usu- ally split from the mainline at Harriman Junction, Tenn., and are routed into the plant via Knoxville. During the sample week, five trains loaded to Loudon, including three 40G trains from Kankakee, Ill., one 46G train from Princeton, Ind., and a 40G train from Louisville. Train numbers 50G and 56G are also commonly used for Loudon trains from various origins. The “G” character in the train number helps identify Loudon trains. At Chattanooga, trains destined to the Port
of Mobile and the New Orleans gateways head south via the Alabama Great Southern route through Birmingham. A total of 12 “X” trains were loaded to these destinations in the last week of the month. These included four 52X trains from Montpelier, Ohio, to Mo- bile. The remainder were to New Orleans and included one 40X from Elkhart, Ind., two 54X trains from Frankfort, Ind., one 54X train from Chattanooga, and four 58X trains from Columbus, Ohio.
Georgia trains continue south from Chat-
tanooga to Atlanta, where they begin taking a variety of routes to several destinations. The seven trains from the final week of January included 40D (Terre Coup, Ind.-Baldwin), 48D (Decatur, Ill.-Forsyth), 48D (Decatur-Al- bany),
50A (Montpelier, Ohio-Surrency),
52D (Claypool, Ind.-Port of Brunswick), 54D (Frankfort, Ind.-Albany), and 58D (Colsan, Ohio-Brunswick). Other common grain train destinations in Georgia include Gainesville, Port Wentworth, Adel, and Camilla. Most of the numbers for these trains have the “D” character, while a few others have “A”.
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