Eastern Railroad Discussion > Trains CSX Tonnage Map

Got my Trains mag in the mail and there is a nice map of CSX's tonnage system wide. After looking I'm questioning the tonnage on CSX's Toledo Sub in Ohio. For the whole system they only show three lines of length with greater than 100 Million Gross Tons.
1. Chicago to Buffalo (no Surprise)
2. Pittsburgh to New Castle PA
3. Sidney, OH to Cincinnati (Toledo Sub)

My office is next to the Toledo sub and I have a hard time believing that it has the same tonnage as the Chicago line. It is mostly single track.

The Florida funnel only shows 80 to 100 mgt on double track

Any ideas if this is correct

I wonder about that map too. The Georgia Subdivision has only a stack train per day in each direction, along with a woodchip totin' local and the very occasional coal train. I don't know what's in the containers on the stack trains, but it must be heavier than heck!

I wondered about the map also, but the article was very well done I thought. The guy who wrote it also wrote the book the Men Who Love Trains which was a great book.

Gary

howeld Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------
>
> The Florida funnel only shows 80 to 100 mgt on
> double track
>
> Any ideas if this is correct

The Florida section if you look at the map between Jax to Sanford then Lakeland,(The A Line) is the Amtrak route (6 each way including Auto Train), including few intermodals. But if you look between Baldwin-Ocala-Wildwood, thats the Wildwood Sub, (The S Line) that runs heavy traffic there. Many unit phosphate, unit coal, Juice train, manifests and rack trains run along this line. Now, the thing is, State of FL had acquired trackage for the new Sunrail service and all freights between Jax to Lakeland (Sanford sub) will be transferring to the Wildwood Sub at any time down the road.. CSX is rebuilding all the tracks, infrastructure and new signals along the Wildwood Sub and expected to be completed by 2013.

CR

having dealt with GTM per mile statistics ad also having copies of various railroads GTM maps over the years i would agree that Sidney to Cincy is overstated. the only portion that could be that high is where NS and I&O share CSX from north of Cincy (is it NA?) south a few miles to where the lines split. Almost all lines over 100 million annual GTM have a high percentage of of coal traffic. I'm a little surprised Buffalo to Greenwich OH makes it as there are only 3-4 coal trains on that piece per day, if that. With Gross Ton Miles you include empties. So a 120 car coal train of 286k GWR cars may weight 17160 tons loaded, empty with aluminum cars it is only 2880 tons, for an average of 10020 tons per round trip. At 100.000,000 GTMs a dedicated coal line of such trains would see over 13 loaded and 13 empty trains per day.

Looked at another way, the last AAR fact book I have is 2002. The the average revenue tons per freight train was 3005, with an average of 64 tons per car, or 46.9 cars per train. Add the tare weight at 30 tons per car get GTM per train of 4413. This includes all traffic. remember with intermodal and auto rack trains it is not uncommon for tare weight of the cars in the train to exceed the net weight. Even if things have increased a lot in the last nine years, the average GTM per train (net plus tare) is probably less than 5000, covering all traffic. using that, a 100,000,000 GTM rail line would see 54 trains per day, very hard to handle on single track even if all are short trains.

I'm guessing the Toledo sub sees 25-30 trains North of Sidney with about 6-8 more south of Sidney on a good day. Traffic consists of several autorack trains and mix freight. No regualar coal trains and one ore train(K185).
Thanks for the replys

Interesting....Between Greenwich and Baltimore, the area that has the most single track has the most tonnage (Pittsburgh to New Castle).

To NewCastleSub; good observation. During the late 70s and early 80s before the Staggers Act (partial de-regulation of railroad rates) and the later Eastern mergers, the P&LE and B&O were loosing traffic, consolidating trains and it is easiest to remove costly assets such as a second main track when the profile of a route has easy grades and curves. The railroads at this time were still adjusting to higher axle loads and some main tracks had not yet been converted to welded rail so the obvious decision was to remove a main with primarily jointed rail and use that savings toward the investement for heavier, newer tech welded rail on the remaining track, or even somewhere else.

Then came the Staggers Act, opening of new mines in SW Pennsylvania of high quality coal, more demand for coal, incresed intermodal shipments, and the mergers, and by this time 30 years later the railroads are stuck with some routes they wish they never single-tracked or abandoned.

The CSX ex-B&O) route from the mid-West to the East is now the third most critical rail line in the East. This was proven by the number of re-routed CSX stack trains routed via Pittsburgh instead of Buffalo this last week due to the effects of hurricane Irene. AND, they had to be single level, because CSX has YET to see the logic of making Howard Street tunnel in Baltimore and a few other minor improvements so they can run double stacks to compete with trucks on the I-95 corridor. They are making the smae kind of decisions they did 30 years ago, albeit in a more favorable climate where they can charge what the market will bear, and usually get away with it. Look at their stock history lately.

tp117 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> To NewCastleSub; good observation. During the late
> 70s and early 80s before the Staggers Act (partial
> de-regulation of railroad rates) and the later
> Eastern mergers, the P&LE and B&O were loosing
> traffic, consolidating trains and it is easiest to
> remove costly assets such as a second main track
> when the profile of a route has easy grades and
> curves. The railroads at this time were still
> adjusting to higher axle loads and some main
> tracks had not yet been converted to welded rail
> so the obvious decision was to remove a main with
> primarily jointed rail and use that savings toward
> the investement for heavier, newer tech welded
> rail on the remaining track, or even somewhere
> else.
>
> Then came the Staggers Act, opening of new mines
> in SW Pennsylvania of high quality coal, more
> demand for coal, incresed intermodal shipments,
> and the mergers, and by this time 30 years later
> the railroads are stuck with some routes they wish
> they never single-tracked or abandoned.
>
> The CSX ex-B&O) route from the mid-West to the
> East is now the third most critical rail line in
> the East. This was proven by the number of
> re-routed CSX stack trains routed via Pittsburgh
> instead of Buffalo this last week due to the
> effects of hurricane Irene. AND, they had to be
> single level, because CSX has YET to see the logic
> of making Howard Street tunnel in Baltimore and a
> few other minor improvements so they can run
> double stacks to compete with trucks on the I-95
> corridor. They are making the same kind of
> decisions they did 30 years ago, albeit in a more
> favorable climate where they can charge what the
> market will bear, and usually get away with it.
> Look at their stock history lately.

TP117 please understand that the Howard Street Tunnel in Baltimore CANNOT be double tracked nor can it be made higher. The tunnel floor cannot be lowered due to water problems especially on the south end where the tunnel ends just south of Camden Station. The water seeps in from the Harbor only a few blocks away and the tunnel will even flood at this end if we have a heavy rain in downtown Baltimore. The water usually does not come up over the rail as the track is well ballasted there but on both sides one can observe water. The tunnel is just about at water level here on the south end of Camden Yards right across from the Baltimore Ravens Football Stadium.
The only solution for CSX would be to put a very expensive (billions of dollars) new tunnel under the Baltimore Harbor (Patapsco River) and this will probably not happen any time soon unless we see a complete change of government in Washington, D.C. whereby some Federal money can help to pay for a new tunnel.
JH a/k ClubCar in Maryland



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/11 05:20 by ClubCar.

Just out of curiousity, what's the calculation formula used to generate the figures? I'm sure the loaded K185 ore trains are the heaviest trains that run the Toledo Sub. The standard consist for the train is 125 hopper cars (either built as such or converted from 2929 cu. ft. covered hoppers). If I remember right, the "typical" gross weight for those cars is 265,000 lbs, so each train would be 16,652 tons. I'd say under current business conditions, there's 2 or 3 loaded trains per week. For the sake of the math, say 150 loads per year - that's still a decent amount of tonnage to go down the line every year in just one train.

tp117 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> T(snip)
>
> The CSX ex-B&O) route from the mid-West to the
> East is now the third most critical rail line in
> the East. This was proven by the number of
> re-routed CSX stack trains routed via Pittsburgh
> instead of Buffalo this last week due to the
> effects of hurricane Irene. AND, they had to be
> single level, because CSX has YET to see the logic
> of making Howard Street tunnel in Baltimore and a
> few other minor improvements so they can run
> double stacks to compete with trucks on the I-95
> corridor. They are making the smae kind of
> decisions they did 30 years ago, albeit in a more
> favorable climate where they can charge what the
> market will bear, and usually get away with it.
> Look at their stock history lately.

I thought I read recently that CSX is building a new yard in the Baltimore area specifically to avoid hauling double stacks through the Howard Street tunnel

To ClubCar and MSchweibert. I don't check TO every night. Last night we were hoping to see a 155 car mty ethanol train here in DE but they decided to break it apart after taking the trouble to put it together just 90 miles up the road around Seawarren NJ.

First, i attempt to answer MSchweiberts question. since the beginning railroads have always wanted to figure out how much weight they haul. Simplest reason is figuring out what locos can haul and how much wear there is on track infrastructure. First it was estimated, then came scales, now computers. Even in the 60s/70s when I started a RR career we would take a 'sample week' and manually add up the tonnages of all the trains from the consists. People would be assigned to it. The AAR required it for corporate statistics. You can tell what a car can haul and its tare weight by looking at the stencilling on the side of the car. Of course, most cars are not loaded to capacity, and a few overloaded (RRs have stiff penalties for that). But now computers can figure all of that out. ..........which further raises the question that started this link. SOMETIMES the route of the RR matched to the statistics is not right. But I am surprise the CSX south of Sidney has so many trains.

Second to ClubCar and the Howard Street Tunnel. I respectfully disagree, until someone can prove CSX has really studied all options. I'm a Balto native, went to college in westminster, PC/CR retiree and stockholder of all railroads. Conrail in the 90s wanted a better route and straighter connections in North Jersey. the route could flood in high storm surges. they built a 'tub', which allowed it to flood in the worst weather and powerful pumps would get rid of the water. due to the reroutes I've seen thru Wilmington the last week maybe it could not handle 'Irene' but 97% of the time it works. that could be used at the south end of Howard street tunnel. As for the rest of it, try slab track like the western RRs and Europeans have use in clearance situations. I know the top is 3 feet under the light rail on Howard street in some places. Pay to fix that. Underneath sewer lines? They have to be a hundred years old replace them now, the city will have to soon. What NYC does with its subways and water/sewer lines can be applied to Balto.

I just do not think CSX wants to compete with trucks in the I-95 corridor. NS can DS via Hagerstown, but their routes do not allow good access to Jax and Florida. It is a real transportation failure for CSX to not try to compete on this route; given the number of long haul trucks on I-95.

The real solution IMHO in Balto is build a stimulus type railroad trench ( a la Alameda, CA)for AMTK,CSX and NS along AMTK present ROW thru Balto to improve the operation characteristics of both. Many, many jobs and vastly improving the transportation infrastructure in one of the oldest cities in the USA with the least efficient RR infrastructure. I don't see it in my life time.

JL Wilm DE