Eastern Railroad Discussion > Tampa Bay Times Printing Facility to Close

The Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St. Petersburg Times) announced today that they are closing their printing operations in St. Petersburg, FL.  This will likely spell the end of CSX service to the Sunshine City at the southern end of the Clearwater Subdivision.  This news leaves only one customer, Carroll's Building Supply, south of Conrad Yelvington in Largo and I cannot possibly imagine CSX keeping the line intact for just a few hoppers a week.  

https://stpetecatalyst.com/tampa-bay-times-to-shut-down-sell-st-pete-printing-facility/


Eric Lanctot

Carroll's Building Supply might be in Saint Petersburg at the end of track. They get carloads of sand and gravel for cement plus some with landscape rock.

Posted from Android

Carroll's is in St. Petersburg at the (now) southern end of the yard at 13th Avenue North.  The question will be whether or not CSX will continue service to them.  CSX has been using the St. Petersburg yard to bring down aggregate hoppers for CYDX to run around the train prior to taking them back north on the line to Largo becuase of the direction of the switch onto the Duval spur (where Conrad Yelvington is located).  It is a long way to go for just that move.  They could theoretically make the same move in the now two-track yard in Clearwater, although that would require a fairly lengthy back up move down to Largo.

Eric Lanctot

So for those of us that don't live there, how much trackage does CSX use just to get to that one customer?

Posted from Android

And this is how carload disappears---one customer leaves, but then it affects others.  RR's don't seem to try to drum up more business, so the line closes, and more carload traffic is lost (on Class 1's).  Now on regionals, it can be another story....

P Wrote:
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> So for those of us that don't live there, how much
> trackage does CSX use just to get to that one
> customer?
>
> Posted from Android

10 miles

Regionals AND shortlines... And the business they drum up benefits the interchanging class ones. Imagine that.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

coach Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And this is how carload disappears---one customer
> leaves, but then it affects others.  RR's don't
> seem to try to drum up more business, so the line
> closes, and more carload traffic is lost (on Class
> 1's).  Now on regionals, it can be another
> story....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/21 07:35 by wabash2800.