Eastern Railroad Discussion > NS GP59- L7N in NW Ohio

An afternoon drive landed us at Leipsic, Ohio to find the L7N switching Pro-Tec steel. To our surprise, power was an NS GP59, 4623.

Far from hauling piggyback trains in the early 1990's. Today, the 4623 is working a weekend local.

Photo 1: Lugging a few dozen coil cars out of the Pro-Tec coating plant at Leipsic, Ohio. The 4623 clunks across the CSX diamonds and passed the forlorn Leipsic Jct. tower.

Photo 2: We take advantage of the delay to pick up the conductor, to get a head of L7N at Miller City, Ohio. Here the 4623 leads her train into the siding at Miller City to meet an eastbound roadrailer, led by the now somewhat standard pig power, a wide cab ES44DC.

Photo 3: At the west end of the Miller City siding L7N regains the main track. Even though the 4623 breaths a little harder as she accelerates back out onto the main, even after 22 years, she's still turning the revenue mile.

CG Tower



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/11 05:15 by CGTower.

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I have a question that is likely stupid and shows my lack of understand of NS's numbering system, but why is this train sometimes L7N and other times L75? It runs to and from the same location each time so why the different symbols?

L75 is a scheduled job, bid to a regular crew. (At least it was, last I knew.) L7N is a relief or off-day extra symbol, probably run by an extra crew. The symbol could possibly also be used in relief of a different local, not just the L75.

That is also my understanding; similarly an L99 runs between Ft. Wayne and Montpelier in the place of L87 on some days. An extra job enables them to not have to bid the job out, running instead with the extra board.

Chris

Thanks guys! EveN I must be getting old, I remember when the GP60's and GP59's were "hot" power. Now they just slave away in local service.

CGTower Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> An afternoon drive landed us at Leipsic, Ohio to
> find the L7N switching Pro-Tec steel. To our
> surprise, power was an NS GP59, 4623.
>
> Far from hauling piggyback trains in the early
> 1990's. Today, the 4623 is working a weekend
> local.
>
> Photo 1: Lugging a few dozen coil cars out of the
> Pro-Tec coating plant at Leipsic, Ohio. The 4623
> clunks across the CSX diamonds and passed the
> forlorn Leipsic Jct. tower.
>
> Photo 2: We take advantage of the delay to pick up
> the conductor, to get a head of L7N at Miller
> City, Ohio. Here the 4623 leads her train into the
> siding at Miller City to meet an eastbound
> roadrailer, led by the now somewhat standard pig
> power, a wide cab ES44DC.
>
> Photo 3: At the west end of the Miller City siding
> L7N regains the main track. Even though the 4623
> breaths a little harder as she accelerates back
> out onto the main, even after 22 years, she's
> still turning the revenue mile.
>
> CG Tower


Im sure that GP sounded nice. Isnt this train normally pulled by an SD40-2? Also, the train in this picture was at Leipsic 7-7-11 and was called L7R, and was switching at Pro-Tec before it left.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/11 14:16 by Poker2662.

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L7n/L75 seems to be a GP60 or Gp59 most of the time. NS keeps the same units around for a very long time and as a local job it gets whatever they have at East Wayne.