Eastern Railroad Discussion > NS action at Salina, PA and CSX at Youngstown, Ohio

NS action just before the "big storm" near Leechburg in a little town called Salina. Also some CSX action in Youngstown, Ohio.

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What is the tank train with no buffer?

I was out with my Dad shooting that day. I got home and couldn't post my photos because our internet uplink went down (likely due to the storm). I was the driver on this trip, and while going east out of Youngstown looking for some action on the NS Youngstown Line, we came across a set of Y&S engines with a train waiting to head east, right before the NS yard. The only place to pull off there had giant NS signs everywhere, and looked like it was the entrance to the yard. Not wanting to meet any NS police that day, I kept driving and thought about turning around and having my Dad grab a couple of shots out of his window as we drove by. We weren't familiar with the line, or else we probably would have done that. Instead, we continued east past the yard and found a nice place to stop right along the tracks in a pleasant little village. I looked at the map and figured we would see them come right past us. We knew that the bad weather was approaching, and we still had to make our way back home to the Pittsburgh area, so we wanted to keep ourselves flexible and catch as much as we could. We heard an NS train getting put together in the yard, and then heard the Y&S train call for permission to come east! Woohoo! Sadly, it was not to be--the Y&S basically crosses the NS Youngstown Line and connects to the CSX line across the river. We didn't know that, though. Instead, we heard a train horn blowing, just as a wicked wind and rain started to come in. I jumped outside with my camera (or, rather, tried to jump out, but had to seriously fight the door to get it open against the wind that was striking us broadside). I was out for maybe a few minutes, was completely soaked from the now horizontal rain, and we realized that the train wasn't coming. I got back in the truck and dropped the soaked hoodie in the back, while my Dad did a little more research on the Y&S. That's when we found that they go up and connect with the CSX on the other side of the river, and don't come down to where we were waiting. With the NS train in the yard still getting built, and the temperature falling from 60F to 36F in about fifteen minutes, we decided it would be best to get ourselves on the road headed east. We got ahead of the weather front and got home with enough time to go out to a Conemaugh Line spot I found in Salina. We heard a train leaving Tarentum as we were coming off the turnpike in Harmar, so we booked it out to Salina. My Dad got the drone ready, I cleaned the water spots off of my lens, and we managed to get some good shots of this train headed east. We heard something else coming, but the rain was moving in and the temperature was dropping again. The front had found us, so we bailed and got some early dinner. It was a good day, though I'm bummed we missed the shots of the Y&S.

To answer the question about the buffer, I can't recall the symbol I heard, but I've seen them run without a rear buffer. There's just the EOT and the rear-facing placard.

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