Eastern Railroad Discussion > RJ Corman: Heavy Sand Train on Tuesday Evening

Tuesday evening, my wife and I took a drive over to Lyndon, a Louisville KY suburb at MP 9 on the CSX  exL&N LCL line.  First we saw the intermediate signals at Lyndon were lit on the southbound side, red/red on #2 and Yellow on #1.  By the time we had reached the signals, they had gone out.  Indication was a northbound train had gone out #1 and #2 was lined for another northbound train.  We followed the line down to the Post Office in Lyndon where we looped back.  The intermediate signals were dark on both sides.  We proceeded to Anchorage, MP12, where we observed the controlled signal was lined for RJ Corman.  We turned around and headed back toward Lyndon. 
Just north of MP 9, we met the RJ Corman outbound sand train.  Power was two units, SD40-2 #3944 in the lead followed by an SD40T-2.  The train was moving rather slow, about 25 MPH, speed limit is 35 MPH there and they are usually doing about 40 MPH.  We quickly turned around and headed back toward Anchorage.  Around the Anchorage city limits, the spped limit goes down to 25 MPH but that is all they were doing.
Beating them to Anchorage, we waited by the tracks across from the school for the engines to pass.  Then we proceeded through town and were stopped as the crossing signals activated across RJ Corman's line at the interlocking on the east side of Anchorage.  While we were waiting, I counted the loaded sand cars on the train; they totaled 32. 
After determining the car count, it did not surprise me that he was moving slow through Lyndon.  The most loaded sand cars I had ever seen two SD's handle before was 26. 
The sand train did make for an interesting outing.
ALLEN
 

Bet those 40’s sounded great trying to pull all of that.

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