Eastern Railroad Discussion > csx discussing single main selkirk - chicago

whats going on???

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/william-vantuono/whats-going-on-at-csx.html?channel=00

This should be interesting.

Posted from iPhone

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/17 16:15 by darkcloud.

Yeah, I directly recognize some of those quotes, and know between them which message boards the came from (I can think of three, including here.) One or two of them I even re-quoted in the last few weeks.

It would be hard to believe that they would consider single tracking that segment. It would be great to have a genuine leak that has proof of that before discussing.

New York State gov will never allow anything like this to happen. 

march_hare Wrote:
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> New York State gov will never allow anything like
> this to happen. 


NY State government won't have a say

Wow. Wonder if the same is idea is being proposed for the former B&O between Greenwich, OH and Martinsburg, WV? East of Martinsburg hosts commuter trains, and I think the State of Maryland has paid for several improvements.

march_hare Wrote:
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> New York State gov will never allow anything like
> this to happen. 

I believe that is what Paul Simon (Makanda, Illinois) said about the IC double main in Illinois before it got smoked. There could be some familiar players in this cost saving measure.

Andrew Cuomo - NY Gov. - will have a say. And if it is not to his liking, he will propose that NY buys the tracks from CSX.

Now in Oklahoma or Iowa they might bow to the railroads, but not in NY. They know a good public asset for freight and passenger, when they see it.

march_hare Wrote:
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> New York State gov will never allow anything like
> this to happen. 


Beat me to it. The state of New York would go ballistic if they pulled any main track up east of Buffalo, anyway.

n Wrote:
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> whats going on???

As I recall, one of the first announcements out of the new CSX management team was that they would disinvest in the north and invest in the south. Single-tracking the NYC-B&O lines would be consistent with that decision. If train counts can be cut sufficiently through consolidations or simply an edict to run fewer, longer trains, rules-of-thumb for line capacity might put many mainlines in the single-track category.

Whether it's truly workable or not, the passenger operators would be stuck with the cost of keeping the additional main track(s), since management's declaration that "we don't need them for freight" cannot easily be contested. Such a move would certainly help the bottom line in the short term (at least until Hunter Harrison's impending retirement), as the IC and SP single-tracking projects orchestrated by Ed Moyers (Harrison's predecessor at the Illinois Central 1990-93) demonstrate.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/17 18:33 by illini73.

Given how sparse its traffic has become, it would not surprise me a bit for the EHH regime to single-track significant portions of the B&O east of Greenwich, Ohio -- including Sand Patch.

So they basically would be taking out the 2nd track and just having a single track put there ?if That was to happen that would mean so many trains delayed . Makes since to add a 3rd track ...

Posted from iPhone

Well, this goes back to the days of the three big Eastern RR's trying to compete for traffic from New England thru to Baltimore to go west. CSX has the advantage, after the Conrail takeover, of having two routes, the ex-NYC 'Water Level' via Selkirk and the ex 'B&O' Philly to Cumberland and west. NS really has only one, the ex-PRR Horseshoe Curve route, which is shorter from many locales. And RR costs which is reflective in rates is very mileage sensitive. The NS ex-EL Southern Tier is relatively insignificant now except from New England, not much business. Both railroads would be short-sighted to give up multiple track capacity on any of these routes. Hopefully EHH's remaining time with CSX will not permit him to enact this.

L Stanley would be happy.

A man in a powerful position with a massive ego who is struggling to implement his simple operating plan on a complex RR is a dangerous thing. He will likely start making highly irrational decisions (he probably already has depending on what you believe) if things don't start going his way.

As has been pointed out, the 2nd Quarter results were based on one time events and are not sustainable in the third quarter without some irrational moves.

CP4743 Wrote:
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> A man in a powerful position with a massive ego
> who is struggling to implement his simple
> operating plan on a complex RR is a dangerous
> thing.


Well said. The first step is to simplify the railroad to fit the vision, even if that requires ditching the traffic that requires the complexity. I've seen that in action when Frisco took over BN.

Boeing just has to learn that we don't run trains because they want to ship something.

Don't those customers realize that we have a railroad to run? We can't be running trains because they want to ship something.

And to a meeting of senior management with angry shippers in Wenatchee: You don't get it. We aren't going to give you better service. We want you to go away.

One of the most memorable (and frightening): Train dispatchers are a secret society that uses its rule book to prevent management from doing what it wants. We intend to correct that situation.


TAW

This is a ploy to get NYS to pay for the 2nd track, or drop property taxes on the RR ROW. IMHO

Didn't NY already cave in on big tax cuts for Conrail? I thought Santa arrived in 1993.

Posted from Android

All this above is bull shxt if you review the capital improvement still in progress on the River Line north from Catskill where they have nearly completed the return of second track all the way to Selkirk. This past week included the installation of track panels at two crossing. Two new turnout near Murderer Creek are still off to the side to install, but skeletonized track nearly exists for more than 8 miles. Some stone is being dumped but shortly the new line will be connected to the main at the new interlocking at north Catskill, one mile north of the Catskill Creek Trestle and large ballast trains can dump the whole line. Why will you talk about single tracking on a route as you are building new second main track on that same route? Catch up with what is actually happening. {I forgot the local name as not on the map and I don't have the track charts with me]
Later edit:
Well I stand corrected as these posts are not bull Shxt. I didn't see that the posts were responding to a Railway Age article of that subject. How more insane can EHH become? Totally increasable to watch such destruction.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/17 05:05 by PlyWoody.