Eastern Railroad Discussion > NS 381 at Sunset- In More Ways Than One

Here's a going-away cell phone snap at Bremen, Ohio, of NS train 381 from Dickinson Yard, WV to Watkins Yard, Columbus, Ohio. This is the last gasp of traffic, rumored to soon end, along this former NYC/T&OC line. NS may embargo part of the line at any time, although rumor has it that a lease has been offered to G&W to operate some of the trackage from near Truro to Belle, WV. In the late PC and early CR era, this line had 2 manifests each way daily as well as a local or two and several daily coal moves and empties. There used to be a block station right near this spot where the PRR Morrow secondary joined in and ran on trackage rights to New Lexington. The Morrow Secondary was embargoed here at CR's formation and soon pulled up. The chemical traffic has been in a slow decline over the years (this train had about 20 cars) and with the CR split as well as the recent decline in coal traffic, much of the remining coal has been rerouted elsewhere or disappeared. There has been an occasional coal train, in fact in 2011 CSX rerouted some coal this way due to a bridge outage in WV. The Burr Oak mine near Corning is still putting out a coal train a day for G&W, so the stretch from Corning to New Lexington ( where G&W gains its own rails for the trip to the Conesville plant near Coshocton) seems safe. So is it sunset for the WV Secondary? NS will probably make a decision soon. Meanwhile, here's also a sunset pic of "the brick street to nowhere" in Bremen on that same evening. It's the street that used to lead to that block station I mentioned. The next town to the east from here is Junction City, which really hasn't been a junction city since the B&O Shawnee Branch was abandoned about 1970. Soon it could be a city with no rails, period, like so many other towns in this area of "Little Cities of Black Diamonds". Time will tell. 

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Here's on of the CSX reroutes from 2010 at Bremen.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/16 14:19 by Gateway97.

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There was a report on one of the Facebook groups I subscribe to that the last 380 from Watkins departed Columbus yesterday. Dickinson Yard will be fed from Linwood, NC going forward. As long as NS controls it, I would expect the line between Nitro and the Gloster/Corning area to go silent, unless there's local business somewhere in there that I don't know about. Same with north of New Lex.

Furthermore, is the power plant at Conesville that safe? There are rumors from time to time of its imminent closing.
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/16 14:24 by toledopatch.

Conesville may be in a precarious position. I know Burr Oak mine's coal has been shopped around including some trains that were supposed to run via NS for test burn elsewhere.  I haven't heard any further details on that.  

Shame to hear another line going away, albeit not completely. It looked like an interesting route to photograph if you were lucky to get a train.

I'm not familiar with the WV Secondary nor any lines east of Chillicothe. Could someone give a quick explanation on how would NS get to and from Charleston now? Would they use CSX?

wheelnrail Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm not familiar with the WV Secondary nor any
> lines east of Chillicothe. Could someone give a
> quick explanation on how would NS get to and from
> Charleston now? Would they use CSX?

The West Virginia Secondary connects to the ex-Virginian at Deepwater/Alloy, WV. Traffic to/from Charleston would use that outlet, as I believe much of the coal still loaded at High Power Mountain already does.

toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There was a report on one of the Facebook groups I
> subscribe to that the last 380 from Watkins
> departed Columbus yesterday. Dickinson Yard will
> be fed from Linwood, NC going forward. As long as
> NS controls it, I would expect the line between
> Nitro and the Gloster/Corning area to go silent,
> unless there's local business somewhere in there
> that I don't know about. Same with north of New
> Lex.
>
> Furthermore, is the power plant at Conesville that
> safe? There are rumors from time to time of its
> imminent closing.
>  

Yikes. That's pretty lousy for any non coal shipper in the Nitro-Charleston area with traffic that has to go west...Charleston WV to Chicago via Linwood NC!!! I wonder if this would mean that they will have to run at least a periodic merchandise train via the PD that would run from a connection on the Pokey main? I wonder if this is honestly one of several instances where some coordination between NS and CSX would do everyone some good...for example, Could NS forward traffic from the Charleston over CSX via haulage or trackage rights to the main line at Kenova? that would save a lot of crews and miles....

 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/16 20:27 by PittsburghMike.

One last 380 southbound tomorrow. 
 

PittsburghMike Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> toledopatch Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > There was a report on one of the Facebook groups
> I
> > subscribe to that the last 380 from Watkins
> > departed Columbus yesterday. Dickinson Yard
> will
> > be fed from Linwood, NC going forward. As long
> as
> > NS controls it, I would expect the line between
> > Nitro and the Gloster/Corning area to go
> silent,
> > unless there's local business somewhere in
> there
> > that I don't know about. Same with north of New
> > Lex.
> >
> > Furthermore, is the power plant at Conesville
> that
> > safe? There are rumors from time to time of its
> > imminent closing.
> >  
>
> Yikes. That's pretty lousy for any non coal
> shipper in the Nitro-Charleston area with traffic
> that has to go west...Charleston WV to Chicago via
> Linwood NC!!! I wonder if this would mean that
> they will have to run at least a periodic
> merchandise train via the PD that would run from a
> connection on the Pokey main? I wonder if this is
> honestly one of several instances where some
> coordination between NS and CSX would do everyone
> some good...for example, Could NS forward traffic
> from the Charleston over CSX via haulage or
> trackage rights to the main line at Kenova? that
> would save a lot of crews and miles....
>
>  

I would think the train would be better off running to Williamson versus all the way to Linwood, that way any of the passing-thru manifests can pick up and drop off those cars, then it's a short hop on the Pokey to the Virginian and up to the Secondary.  Bring back a few crews that were lost as the coal disappeared.

My question is, what would happen to this all with the PTC mandate?  I'm not sure if it was implemented on the Virginian at all, since most of the signals still stand and weren't replaced, so I'm sure they would have to dish out that cost.  Either that or NS is going to try to run everyone off to avoid that headache, and get rid of it...

PittsburghMike Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yikes. That's pretty lousy for any non coal
> shipper in the Nitro-Charleston area with traffic
> that has to go west...Charleston WV to Chicago via
> Linwood NC!!! I wonder if this would mean that
> they will have to run at least a periodic
> merchandise train via the PD that would run from a
> connection on the Pokey main? I wonder if this is
> honestly one of several instances where some
> coordination between NS and CSX would do everyone
> some good...for example, Could NS forward traffic
> from the Charleston over CSX via haulage or
> trackage rights to the main line at Kenova? that
> would save a lot of crews and miles....

From what I can see during visits, the vast majority of non-coal traffic on that line is chemical traffic from Nitro, Institute, Belle, and whatever's in between them. Not sure where it goes, but perhaps providing for its PTC needs is part of the consideration here. It was probably going to cost a lot more, with a lot less benefit, to put PTC in on the Secondary to Columbus than it will to do similar installation on the VGN route to Williamson. And yes, it's plausible that the whole mess will get spun off to Genesee & Wyoming or some other shortline operator, although I've received one message stating NS wants to keep the Charleston business, so who knows?
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/16 14:38 by toledopatch.