Eastern Railroad Discussion > CSX line sales...

IF CSX decided if it was going to shed some lines, any idea as to what they may be looking to spin off to a short line or regional? I'm guessing the coal lines in West Virginia might be on the block, but what else?

Maybe Amtrak Route of Cardinal Amtrak 50&51 very slow route to Chicago?? CSX have the most slow route??



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/17 22:41 by railcity.

The Montreal secondary from Syracuse, NY to Beauharnois, QC has been mentioned by EHH as a sale candidate. However, CSX just opened a large container facility on it and I doubt that a buyer would be found unless the brand new container yard was abandoned.

KG

How about the new rock sob in illinose to iowaintersrate.

Posted from Android

railcity Wrote:
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> Maybe Amtrak Route of Cardinal Amtrak 50&51 very
> slow route to Chicago?? CSX have the most slow
> route??


A short line is not going to buy that route and upgrade it to higher speeds

In Ohio from Galion south to Columbus seems a likely candidate for sale in my mind.

Candidates in the southeast might be the ex-SAL Norlina-Raleigh-Hamlet-Columbia-Fairfax (partly used by Amtrak), the ex-ACL Montgomery-Waycross, the ex-Georgia Atlanta-Augusta, what's left of the ex-ACL from Jacksonville southward (also used by Amtrak), and several branch lines in the Carolinas.

Most obvious,would be the Illinois Sub.

Let's hope it does not come to that.

CSX got itself into this position for losing interest in doing what it does best - hauling freight. EHH does not seem to have a grasp on what it means to operate in the Eastern US either, where short hauls are important. In fact, they are all that you have in many cases.

It takes hump yards to economically sort it all out quickly and send cars out on the next decent sized train. You can't switch and dispatch 600 cars in one shift in an old obsolete flat yard, or flat switch in a hump yard that wasn't designed for it in the first place. Hump yards replaced many of the flat switched yards for good reasons.

At any rate, the STB will have something to say, and it believes in preserving the semi-balanced duopolies that pass for competition. So any thought of CSX being liquidated piecemeal is just a fantasy



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/17 21:33 by NYC6001.

Hamilton-Indianapolis?

Posted from Android

It is widely anticipated that CSX will try to shed its ex-C&O lines north and west of Plymouth, Michigan. I can't see them pulling out of Michigan entirely, as some have suggested, but Lansing and Grand Rapids are both mere shadows of what they used to be for CSX.

Hamilton-Indy has a lot of grain biz online

Posted from Android

Is there enough auto and parts business to justify keeping the southern MI lines?

Posted from Android

I wish they'd sell off the Northern Br in NJ to a shortline....or the stupid state of NJ wud find a better operator, if they own it. Someone who would solicit business and not chase it away.

How much business is still left along the Northern branch if it were sold to a short line and service restored to NJ/NY state line?

John

DocJohn Wrote:
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> How much business is still left along the Northern
> branch if it were sold to a short line and service
> restored to NJ/NY state line?
>
> John

I don't know if there are any shippers left north of Englewood anymore. There used to be a lumber dealer in Northvale, by the old Porter House restaurant.

I was up in Closter this past Spring, and it looked like the crossing gates had been removed on several rail crossings. Warning lights were still in place. Track and ties looked to be in 10 mph condition.

Does CSX actually own the right of way north of Englewood? I had the impression the state bought it. I can't imagine the folks in Northvale, Closter, Demarest etc would be excited to see freight trains

Once NJT makes part of the Northern light rail, guarantee CSX pushes the few customers left to truck. CSX won't want to deal with the track curfews. Line north of Englewood will become a bike trail. Just my two cents.

railcity Wrote:
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> Maybe Amtrak Route of Cardinal Amtrak 50&51 very
> slow route to Chicago?? CSX have the most slow
> route??


Cardinal route isn't going anywhere soon unless the budget truly does get slashed (which it won't)..ridership was up 7.25% for FY 2016/2017 plus most of the trackage it runs on CSX is at least 50+ mph, with the exception of some curves in the New River and such.

Illinois Sub and Indiana Sub west of Seymour is possible, or the entire line from St. Louis to Cincy with overhead trackage rights. Other than that, disused coal branches and redundant lines would more than likely be the first to go, with the former being abandoned vs. sold unless coal companies express interest in reopening anytime soon.

2 or 3 warehouses in Northvale with rail sidings. Dykes lumber in Closter plus other businesses in closter that may be able to us rail. Mostly inbound building supplies. There's enuf residential building going on. CR chased most of the biz away, telling everyone to truck from a pad at croxton. Thex CSX polished it off by putting a surcharge on cars for the Northern. True, the sky high privce of property in Bergen county made it adventageous for most businesses to cash in on the land, and move elsewhere. There is still a need for building supplies, road salt, etc. I think most of the manufacturing is gone....xcpt for superior oil in Englewood, and I think 4 businesses in the Ridgefield area.

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> Is there enough auto and parts business to justify
> keeping the southern MI lines?
>
> Posted from Android

Absolutely.

yes Wrote:
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> How about the new rock sob in illinose to
> iowaintersrate.

Not. A. Chance.

For those playing "bathtub admiral" and marking up maps, this dead-end line that only connects to the rest of the CSX system via trackage rights on Metra sure looks ripe for spinoff, but the fact is it will NEVER happen, and here's why:

The New Rock Sub, despite the general decline of industry in the Illinois Valley since the Rock Island quit in 1980, is still well-populated with customers, most of them being high-volume customers shipping or receiving dozens of cars per day. VERY few "onesy-twosey" customers. A significant portion of the traffic is silica sand, which is enjoying a boom market as not only is it still used for glassmaking, high-grade casting and abrasives, it is the preferred medium for use in oil "fracking."

Just this past month, CSX initiated trains Q314/Q315, a thrice-weekly unit train move of silica sand from the Unimin silica sand plant at Utica, IL to Benwood, WV. Previous to that there were unit sand trains K268/K269 out of Utica to Barr Yard in addition to the regular Barr-
Ottawa manifests Q556/Q557. Besides the silica sand, there is also a steady stream of high-tariff chemical traffic, both inbound and outbound.

What cements the deal for CSX is that almost all this traffic is moving to or from points EAST of Chicago, such that CSX can capture most, if not all, of the road-haul on the traffic flowing to and from the New Rock.

This has been true even back into Rock Island days...The RI had all this business coming out of their ears between Joliet and Bureau (they probably moved 3-4 TIMES the carloads CSX does today, but today's larger cars makes the tonnage comparison not quite so lopsided) and fielded a slew of switch jobs and locals to service all this traffic. Just about every town had one (or more) switch jobs daily and an agent and clerk to handling all the billing.

So, after incurring all this expense of gathering, weighing and billing this traffic, what was the RI's reward? A 50-60 mile haul to Blue Island where almost all of it was promptly surrendered to the Chessie, N&W, Conrail and GTW. Very little went west to burnish the other 8,000 miles of rail on the RI system.

This is EXACTLY the reason why CSX will not be giving up the New Rock anytime soon: It provides large amounts of traffic that remain on CSX for most or all of its journey, adding value to other lanes of the system. I've been told by an acquaintance in Jacksonville that the New Rock is one of the top five subdivisions in the entire CSX system for revenue generated per mile of track.

Nor will the IAIS be asking for it, either. They're smart enough to know that incurring all the expense (crews, locomotives, track maintenance) of running what is today a half-dozen local jobs for a 50-mile cut of a 1,000-mile haul just isn't worthwhile. EHH might try to bamboozle them into doing it, but Henry Posner III is a VERY smart man and knows a bad deal when he sees it.

Now if HPIII could get dispatching control of the New Rock away from CSX, I think he'd bite on that. Pigs could fly out of my arse, too.

FWIW,

NZ