Eastern Railroad Discussion > Delmarva Secondary and 30D

Tested out my, I mean my wife's new Canon 30D on this coal train heading north, just north of Smyrna, DE. I saw him at Harrington, DE and chased him to this location. My question is, what was this train's symbol and how often does this line see traffic? I found it to be an interesting line and would like to learn more aboout it. Matt

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Here is lite power in Harrington the day before...

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There was a small write up in the current issue of TRAINS; that what you are seeing is actually a spin off of sorts from NS. A shortline of sorts, owned and run by NS, but under a different name if I recall from the article.

http://www.msnusers.com/railflections

Chris Bogley
Bowie, MD

It's a pity they blacked out the running lights on that C40-8w

Hello, perhaps my website will help, now back online minus the pictures:

http://www.trainweb.org/peninsularailfan/

All job descriptions, maps and timetables (if not on the timetable itself then on the milepost guides and maps) are up to date with the latest information. It's a lot to keep up with, but alas it's done.

The photos will be back sometime this summer, though I can't say when. I'm rescanning everything that was on there, plus adding a ton of new stuff. Not even nearly halfway complete and already am up to 9 Amtrak, 37 Eastern Shore, 89 MDDE and 182 Norfolk Southern shots.

The train you have pictured is likely an 897 empty hopper train. It also appears the cars (PNJX) are the cars owned by the NRG powerplant themselves at Indian River. After a year hiatus from coming here, those physical trainsets of cars seem to be running down here again, always making a nice sight with their clean shiny look, NRG markings and stencils for various employees of the company on the side of the cars. The majority of the coal trains to the shore have NS and CSX cars with a few ex-CR's scattered here and there through the train.

It is somewhat rare to witness what you did in daylight, as most hopper trains are out of Harrington after darkness, but it will happen in daylight this time of a year maybe a couple times a week tops. In the winter, forget it. Other than the hopper trains, their loaded counterparts pass south in the middle of the night, as does the southbound road train 12G and the southbound loaded stone train 67T (as well as northbound stone empties 67V). Your only other bet for a daylight road train, unless 12G is running late (common), is the 13G westbound that is usually marked out of Harrington between 17:00 and 19:00. In the summer months you can often seem him in daylight as far north at Clayton, which is the location of your photo. You are actually shooting at the north end of Clayton Siding at the block limit CLAY. I don't want to say you can count on shooting 12G in daylight, but he's rarely not daylight at least from Cheswold/Dover area and southward for Harrington. His arrival time, however, is too dependent on how easily he gets out of Enola, if he has work to do at Dover and how much he gets held up around Newark by other road trains coming to/from the shore.

Hope that helps. For a more in-depth coverage, dive into the site and have fun!


SH

i second that. ns just letting everyone know it's their loco now.

Since I live less than a mile east of the crossing where the photo was taken, the answer to the question is: not a whole lot.
For details, see Scott's Delmarva site. For the basics: 1 major freight each way (12G/13G)which can have large blocks of grain and stone (we don't have a lot of carload freight down here) along with the local that works out of Dover. Toss in the almost daily coal trains (either loads south or empties north) and the stone trains and gosh, you might see up to five trains on a good day in the summer. The NRG Indian River power plant is the biggest polluter in the state, hence the attempt to try to cut down on sulfur emissions (they once did a test buring of chicken manure years ago, the less said about that the better). However, if it wasn't for the power plant, NS would have dumped the Delmarva years ago.
The siding you were by in Clayton often has coal trains tied up either waiting to go south in the morning daylight or sitting waiting to go north in the night. For fun, sometimes the local runs around his train there. For ever-growing excitement, a new biodiesel facility in Clayton will be opening adding another 8-10 cars a week to the local.

Well, NRG announced plans today that would double the capacity of the Indian River plant by 2012, which would lead to more trains. They also said they would clean up the emmisions issues.

My listening suggests that 12G gets recrewed north of the canal about twice a week and is daylight south of Porter. today the 67V stone train was daylight southbound with a dirty grey pony leading and 76 cars. It runs twice a week in each direction.