Eastern Railroad Discussion > [PA] Harrisburg fuel pad question

The NS Harrisburg fuel pad is located on the north side of town, south of the I-81 bridge over the Susquehanna River. Is it the only location for fueling road trains in the Harrisburg terminal area?

Years ago, locomotives could be fueled at Enola (the freight yard across the river), or at the former Reading Company Rutherford yard, southeast of Harrisburg. I haven't heard of locomotives with trains being fueled in either location in quite a while.

While I'm not an employee and, therefore, do not have direct knowledge, I can say with absolute certainty that there are huge, in fact, gargantuan-sized fuel tanks at Enola Yard and I have yet to see any manifest freights leaving Enola and go across the river to get fuel, so, I would have to believe that yes, Enola also has that capability.

Yes, locomotives can be fueled at Enola. Enola also does some repairs and inspections. I believe maintenance on all the local units from Baltimore, Delaware, York, Lancaster, Northumberland, Binghamton, Corning and all the areas served out of Allentown are serviced there (I probably missed a few areas), plus any road unit which passes through Enola can be maintained there. Usually shop units which are dropped off on the Harrisburg side are brought over to Enola for servicing.

Also, trains which come out of Enola with relay power do indeed stop at the Harrisburg fuel pad if they need fuel and are routed that way, such as 33A to Allentown and 11R and 37Q to the Lurgan line to Hagerstown.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/14 19:34 by sscannella.

The fuel tanks at Enola supply the refueling racks in Harrisburg using the pipeline seen on the side of Rockville Bridge.
When the side of the bridge collapsed some years ago the pipe broke and leaked fuel oil into the Susquehanna River.
Gonut

Thanks for all the info

Don't they have space to put fuel tanks at Harrisburg? Seems a bit inconvienient to keep the fuel tanks several miles away from the fuel racks along with maintaining that pipeline...Dave W

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dwi189 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Don't they have space to put fuel tanks at
> Harrisburg? Seems a bit inconvienient to keep the
> fuel tanks several miles away from the fuel racks
> along with maintaining that pipeline...Dave W
>
> Posted from Android

There are a number of large fuel tanks adjacent to the Harrisburg fuel pad. Clearly visible from Industrial Road with the NS name on a few of them. I'm sure that fueling 8-12 engines at a time consumes a lot of fuel, which is why I was curious about facilities in Enola and Rutherford.

It would seem prudent to have alternate facilities and backup electric power available "just in case", so I'm glad NS has that.

I was just not aware that a several mile long pipeline existed between Enola and Harrisburg...I always thought of them as separate fueling facilities...Dave W

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