Geeps to the Rescue
The winter storm that blanketed the East Coast in snow from Virginia to Connecticut also took its toll on major transit systems on the January 23-24 weekend. NJ Transit sent a pair of Geeps to the Gladstone Yard to pick up a consist of ten dead Arrow III electric m.u. cars to bring them to the Meadows Maintenance Complex for repair. The deadhead train passes through Far Hills, N.J., with GP40-2 No. 4302 and GP40PH-2B No. 4203 ignoring the overhead catenary on January 25. Despite precautions taken by the transit agency, it took a few days to dig out from record snowfall and restore the system to normal.
PHOTO BY ADRIAN CORUS
In a related move, NS is
idling
portions of the Pocahontas Division’s West Virginia Secondary, the 253-mile former New York Central route line between Columbus, Ohio, and central West Virginia. When it came into the NS system as part of the 1999 Conrail acquisition, it still enjoyed respectable levels of chemical and coal traffic, the latter mostly destined to Great Lakes area utility customers. However, traffic from Kanawha Valley chemical producers has fallen to the extent that the remaining manifest trains operate only tri-weekly, and utility coal movements are almost non-existent. Traffic from manifest Train 380 (Watkins Yard, Columbus-Dickinson,
W.Va.) and counterpart Train 381 is being rerouted via Deepwater, Elmore, and Gilbert to the Pocahontas mainline at Wharncliffe,
W.Va.
In a positive development on the Pocahontas
Division, the Heartland
Intermodal Gateway facility in Prichard,
W.Va., received its initial revenue loads on December 15. Located south of Huntington, the long-awaited terminal was a key component of NS’ effort years ago to develop the private- public partnership that resulted in the Heartland intermodal corridor. The 80- acre facility will be worked by existing intermodal schedules between Norfolk and Columbus, Ohio, which now carry Prichard pickup and setoff blocks.
Ashtabula Coal Pier Closure
NS plans to mothball its Ashtabula, Ohio, Coal Pier and consolidate operations into the railroad’s other
10 MARCH 2016 •
RAILFAN.COM
Lake Erie facility in Sandusky, Ohio. Ashtabula will continue to operate until all coal inventories have been depleted, which is expected to be by May 2016. A total of 21 positions will be affected as part of the transition, following 13 Ashtabula workers already furloughed due to coal market conditions. Ashtabula primarily serves the thermal coal market, transloading Appalachian coal to lake boats for Canadian and U.S. destinations. This move will bring some additional coal traffic to the former Pennsylvania Railroad mainline west of Pittsburgh, thanks to its connection with the Columbus-Sandusky main at Bucyrus, Ohio.
New Coke Trains for Alabama
Walter Coke in North Birmingham, Ala., had been supplying coke to U.S. Steel’s Fairfield, Ala., works, for which NS only received a short-haul move from one side of Birmingham to the other. Following U.S. Steel’s late 2015 closure of Fairfield’s blast furnace and most rolling-mill operations, the supplier has apparently worked out a deal to supply ArcelorMittal’s Indiana Harbor, Ind., mill with coke.
The first such train, loaded in the first week of January, was routed north via Chattanooga into Cincinnati, and then via Fort Wayne, Claypool, and Elkhart, Ind. At East Chicago, the trains are interchanged to the South Chicago & Indiana Harbor Railway for mill delivery. NS is expecting up to five trains per month, with loads running as Train 868 and empties as Train 809.
Manifest Trains Test Distributed Power
As part of the quest to drive down its operating ratio, NS is experimenting with radio manifest trains. monster trains are running
These from
Chattanooga, Tenn., to Elkhart, Ind., via Cincinnati, Ohio, and Fort Wayne, Ind., with three locomotives on the point and two distributed power units placed mid-train. Some of the initial trains have exceeded 200 cars, 15,000 tons, and 12,000 feet in length. These trains are built on the main at Ten Bridge, north of DeButts Yard in Chattanooga, by adding Elkhart tonnage to Train 174 (Macon, Ga.-Elkhart) that arrives in Chattanooga on Train 178 (Birmingham-Bellevue, Ohio). Train 174 then departs as Train 10X, Train 11X, or Train 101 to Elkhart, all designations being used for the long trains. This change is also allowing NS to annul Train 142 (Birmingham-Elkhart).
Operations News Reductions in carload traffic moving
over the Memphis gateway have resulted in yard crew cuts at the supporting hump yard in Sheffield, Ala. Also, the two westbound Union Pacific run-throughs built at Sheffield are being consolidated as far west as Harris Yard at Memphis. Train 17Z, which carried North Little Rock, Ark., cars to the UP, has been combined into Train 391, which handles the Pine Bluff, Ark., traffic. Train 391 carries two sets of power into Harris Yard, where the combined consists are split for delivery as two trains to UP. East of Sheffield, Train 362 (Sheffield- Chattanooga) has been abolished,
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