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Eastern Railroad Discussion > Watching the nocturnal CSX B730 turn localDate: 01/06/21 05:20 Watching the nocturnal CSX B730 turn local Author: JPB The "Westfield Bridges" Live Cam looks over the CSX Boston & Albany main where 3 bridges cross the Westfield River at Westfield MA. CSX main sees 14ish daily trains including Sunday through Thursday nightly West Springfield to Pioneer Valley RR B730 interchange turn at Westfield. The major CSX yard in the area is West Springfield, about 8 miles east of Westfield. PV's yard at Westfield is small and its access by B730 requires a back-up move off the main into an available track in PV's yard. See attached annotated aerial photo. Usually B730 drags PV-bound cars to the CSX runaround tracks at Westfield where the two GP40s cut away to head to the PV yard to clear a track pullling outbound cars out and shoving them to east to runaround area. The power than grabs the inbound cars heads west and shoves into the PV yard. Cars exchanged each night range between 15 and 50 - commodities include LPG, lumber and building supplies, scrap metal, and other.
Here are three screen captures off the Westfield Bridges live cam illustratiing B730's operations at Westfield: Photo 2: at 0201, light power heads west to the PV connection track and yard. Photo 3: at 0229, conductor with powerful flashlight is riding the tank car leading 49 cars of outbound interchange that would need to be split into 2 blocks to fit in the runaround yard. I'm guessing the inbound interchange was sitting on the controlled siding, Continued.... Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/21 05:21 by JPB. Date: 01/06/21 05:28 Re: Watching the nocturnal CSX B730 turn local Author: JPB Photo 4: about 90 minutes later, at 0357, the GP40 duo takes 20 cars west to be backed into the cleared track in the PV yard. And at about 0424, the GP40s would run light back to the runaround area to double up the outbond cars and head for West Springfield.
Attachment 5 is the list of PVRR customers at Westfield and Holyoke MA (note that PVRR has a recently re-established interchange with Pan Am Southern at Holyoke). |