Eastern Railroad Discussion > Will Reopening Chattanooga Hump Help?

Good Morning:

With all I am reading about the traffic congestion on the south end of the NS, will reopening the hump at Chattanooga go a long way to helping ease the congestion, or is there much more NS will need to do? What other measures is NS taking to solve these issues?

Thank you in advance.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/18 03:07 by PRR_4859.

Well that's good question that remains unanswered at this point.
According to a previous post on this forum:
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?2,4554334,4554334#msg-4554334

the yard had upwards of some 27 yard jobs. The way I read the NS news release on the re-opening of the hump,
it reads to me it will be used to sort local customer traffic with continued block swapping in the remainder. So perhaps the 27 yard jobs reduces to say 17 and the ten jobs removed are shifted to road crews??? That's my best guess at this point.

As to the Alabama East End
Another issue that isn't helping matters at all is the effects the robust economy is having on all railroads!!!
One thing that has me puzzled here on the Alabama East End has to do with the increased number of loads to
industries located in Carrollton (Georgia Div.) and Douglasville (Alabama Div.) Georgia.

NOTE: The two divisions cross at the "Bremen Diamond" Listening to and watching operations, loads for these two areas are no longer “Blocked” in Birmingham. With the storage tracks in Bremen off the East End mainline full most of the time (with empties), NS has had to place an “un-blocked” cut of loaded cars out of Bham. in the 11,000ft siding between CP Bremen / CP Sewell. At some point, usually in the afternoons the flat switching of these loads to sort them out by A25 takes place now tying up the mainline and siding.

Now I don't have all the numbers and a ton of facts, but for no more traffic that runs on the “C-Line” (Georgia Div.) somewhere south of Bremen and north of Bowden JCT. I'd build a long siding and let the Carrollton locals do all the sorting out of these cars there instead of on a busy east / west mainline. The roadbed for this siding doesn't have to built to mainline specs here! The RR bridge over I-20 was built to accommodate two tracks!! This would eliminate tying up an 11,000ft siding with un-blocked loaded cars. Then again with the way things are running now they would just park and tie down a road train in that siding. But at least the customers in west Georgia would get timely service.

Many a customer industries are serviced off of main lines. Sorting out un-blocked cuts of cars on the mainline is a whole differ issue!!

At the end of the day I don't think there are any large changes or improvements to the system that NS could make that would show immediate results. I do think a series of small changes in various areas, like the one listed above, around the system could add up to improving operating performance.

That's what I'd be looking into. But what do I know???

Phil Maton
Villa Rica, GA

They could add a second main. That would help a lot.

Posted from Android

It would. Right now there are about 32 miles of sidings, total, for 141 miles between Austell and Norris Jct. But the other problem is the curvy nature of this line, which startles people when they first see it. Curves with freight limits of 30-40 are common. Between this and the turnouts for sidings, moving a train over the East End can be painful. Even Amtrak can't run consistently fast if it gets all greens.

“Another issue that isn't helping matters at all is the effects the robust economy is having on all railroads!!!”

Well, NS’s stats cause me to puzzle over this. YTD, Merchandise loads are flat, compared to last year; Coal is down; but Intermodal is up 8%. Is Intermodal growth the cause of the operational problems in the South? I don’t know the operational patterns at all, but Atlanta – Dallas – LA is a significant IM corridor. Are the dynamics of the IM-Merchandise operations on that route such that more investment/re-investment for Merchandise is required?

Mercedes Benz is going gang-busters at their Vance AL plant. About 300,000 vehicles manufactured in one year, some for export.

The MB business must be having a positive impact on Norfolk Southern's (and CSX's?) traffic

Lance Fritz, the CEO of Union Pacific, was recently asked his opinion on closing hump yards. He said it was not in the playbook for the foreseeable future, because humping was a low cost way to switch. James Squires admitted they were Reopening Chattanooga's hump because service in the Southeast was bad.

I think it is not a stretch to assume both railroads did the math, as opposed to EHH, who did things on his wacky principles.