Eastern Railroad Discussion > NS no longer using NBER trackage rights?

It has come to my attention that trains 10A/11A to/from Northumberland, PA are no longer operating over the Nittany & Bald Eagle between Tyrone and Lock Haven, and today we have sightings of a #538 train to Washingtonville, PA operating over the PRR main from Altoona to the Harrisburg area - I believe Washingtonville is the town closest to the Strawberry Ridge power plant.

Does this all mean NS has stopped operating trains over the NBER, presumably to avoid paying the trackage-rights fees and perhaps to eliminate the need to maintain crew qualification that way?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/16 13:34 by toledopatch.

Was wondering about that as well, but, to add, from parailfan.com, 538 shows as a coal run from Shire Oaks to York Haven and not Washingtonville; anyone know if this information is out of date as well? 

I haven't heard of a reason why, but 10A/11A began operating Tyrone-Rockville-Lock Haven (or is it Northumberland?) on or about September 1st. Recently, they began running into and out of Enola, and no longer operate west of there. 538/539 are York Haven trains so they operate Tyrone-Enola-York Haven. 534/537 are the "Ridge" trains, and after September 1st I did see a few operating via Rockville but I haven't seen any go that way for some time now. Within the last two weeks, while listening to the Altoona area scanner feed, I did hear of a 537 train arriving at Tyrone off the Bald Eagle, but I have no idea how often they operate anymore. If I recall correctly, both the York Haven and the Washingtonville plants are going to start using natural gas as well as coal, so the "PP&L" trains will not be running as frequently as they once did.

IIRC, there was s bridge issue east of Tyrone being repaired, but not sure if there is more to the story such as fees.

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toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Does this all mean NS has stopped operating trains
> over the NBER, presumably to avoid paying the
> trackage-rights fees and perhaps to eliminate the
> need to maintain crew qualification that way?


Good question Patch but the NS already answered it in a generic way back on the 27th when they outlined more detail about their plans in a company release titled, Norfolk Southern announces further details of its strategic plan to reduce costs, drive profitability, and accelerate growth with a link of, 

http://nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/news/norfolk-southernannouncesfurtherdetailsofitsstrategicplantoreduc.html

:
 

Since Talen Energy bought PP&L's generating assets, they seem to have shifted production away from Washingtonville and towards York Haven. If you look at the Meeting Minutes on the SEDA-COG Joint Rail Authority website, you can see that the trackage rights traffic is way down to around 15 movements per month.

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Noted. The first person who listed this as a Washingtonville train is usually pretty reliable, so it hadn't occurred to me that this part of the equation might be wrong. As far as how this fit into NS's cost-cutting scheme, I wasn't quite sure, because running Altoona-Lock Haven/Strawberry Ridge with one crew plus a fee would seem to me to be no more costly than running via Rockville with two plus additional mileage, but sometimes 'out-of-pocket' cost trumps actual.

my understanding is York Haven is a very efficient plant, don't know where Strawberry Ridge fits on the spectrum

there's a lot of interest in wholesale electric costs, so Talen would be very conscious of both costs and demand for power