Western Railroad Discussion > A Little Luck on the Speedway

I went out for a little while this afternoon, and decided to ride across the Mississippi River to see what might be happening on the Meridian Speedway.  Much to my surprise, there was a westbound double stack, probably I169, sitting in the siding just west of the Mississippi River Bridge.  Seeing nothing approaching for a few miles distant as I crossed the tracks, I decided to move westward about 5 miles or so.  I crossed the tracks again and saw a headlight getting very close, so I quickly parked and captured an image of what I believe is M266 about to lean into a curve.  As is usually my luck, the DPU was a CLEAN CP SD70ACU, but at least it was facing the correct direction for a going away shot.  I headed back eastbound and captured one more image of M266 going away eastbound with I169 waiting to depart.

VR Out

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Is that line a TWC operation?  The siding switch looks like a hand throw with no signals, but there is a block signal in the first photo.  Any info on the operation of that line would be appreciated.

Andy

The line has Centralized Traffic Control from Meridian, Mississippi to Shreveport, Louisiana.  The photo does not show the block signals at the end of the siding.  I noticed that the Dispatcher moved the switch position just as I was shooting so the westbound in the siding could depart.

VR Out

Nice shots, VR!

texchief1

Nicely done. It's my understanding it is difficult to catch anything on the Meridian Speedway.
Go

Very nice photos.

A big thumbs up.

-Lee

Nice pair!

Gonut1 Wrote:
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> Nicely done. It's my understanding it is difficult
> to catch anything on the Meridian Speedway.
> Go

Absolutely.  With 10 or fewer trains daily, mostly running against the sun, getting more than 2 or 3 trains within 3 or 4 hours is an oddity.  It's a shame too.  It's the perfect bridge route for transcontinental, southern tier intermodal traffic.

VR Out

Vicksburg_Route Wrote:
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> Gonut1 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Nicely done. It's my understanding it is
> difficult
> > to catch anything on the Meridian Speedway.
> > Go
>
> Absolutely.  With 10 or fewer trains daily,
> mostly running against the sun, getting more than
> 2 or 3 trains within 3 or 4 hours is an oddity. 
> It's a shame too.  It's the perfect bridge route
> for transcontinental, southern tier intermodal
> traffic.
>
> VR Out

Totally agree. And don't forget growing Mexico-Southeast traffic either.

CPKC and NS (plus UP and CSX) need to stop playing games with who gets what capacity there is for how much $$$ and fund the capacity improvements that let all four roads compete for taking some lots more I-20 corridor truck traffic instead of marginal gains at the expense of each other.

This corridor is simply much more direct than the Memphis or New Orleans gateways, without the time-consuming interchange at either, and a lot more resilient than New Orleans when the inevitable hurricanes come in from the Gulf between Houston and Mobile or Slidell.