Eastern Railroad Discussion > CSXT Aberdeen Sub

CSXT Aberdeen Sub, also known as the S Line, runs from Hamlet Yard to to Raleigh NC  Being a "Dead End" line for CSXT, it doesn't see nearly the traffic the the A Line sees a couple dozen miles to the east.  The small yard in Apex (immediately south of Raleigh)  is home to L614 and L615 that work the local industries in the area and the branch up to Durham, and L617 that works the dead end Norlina Sub up to Henderson.  These locals are fed by the only pair of freights running the Aberdeen Sub on a daily basis, Raleigh/Hamlet pair L619/L620.    These freights are joined by Amtrak's Silver Star, P091/P092.  

L619/620 works the ATW interchange in Sanford -  ATW has a Monday thru Friday job based there in Sandford that works as needed from Lee Iron and Metal on south side of Sanford to the NS interchange in Cumnock NC a few miles north of Sanford.  Joining the L619/620 paid on the Aberdeen Sub there in Sandford are B427 / B439.  The 427 is a loaded unit stone train out of a quarry there in Sanford, with the 439 the empty counterpart.  These trains run about every 2nd or 3rd day.

In Aberdeen itself, L619 works the Aberdeen and Rockfish interchange in down town as needed.  A&R's HQ and engine house are located here along with a couple transload operation.  The bulk of the A&R's business is Raeford to Fayetteville, where they interchange with both NS and CSXT, so the Aberdeen interchange is typically just cars for the local transload operations,  A&R "traffic" between Aberdeen and Raeford is usually limited to light engine moves to/from shop and the occasional car off NS for one of the transloads.

Immediately south of downtown Aberdeen is a 3 track yard that serves as an interchange locations between the Aberdeen, Carolina, and Western and CSXT.   Traffic between CSXT and ACWR is heavy and often too much for the 619/620, so its not uncommon to see an extra job, usually a Y124 or similar, come up out of Hamlet to switch ACWR.  In addition to the car load traffic, CSXT and ACWR interchange grain trains at Aberdeen - inbound loaded trains to ACWR to feed the chickens, empties outbound.  While CSXT power stays with the grain trains, ACWR will often add one or two of their own units to head head to help on the pull up the hill out of Aberdeen,  In a light week, maybe 2-3 G series trains each way, in a heavy week it can be daily or multiple in a day,  All depends on where Perdue and Mountaire are buying from at the moment.  The two elevators up in Candor combine to feed over 7,000,000 chickens and turkies a day, every day of the year.  

Future of the line seems pretty solid.  CSXT owns several hundred acres north of Sanford that local rumor is they are wanting to develop another inland port type operation.  Just north of that in Chatham County near Moncure, VinFast has announced they will build their North American Mfg Campus, which will be CSXT served.  VinFast is a Vietnamese auto maker who is looking to build EV autos and SUVs for North American market.  Lot of people are skeptical about viability of yet another EV company, and rightfully so, but VinFast is a real company already production product in Vietnam for the SE Asin and South African market and they have deep connections with General Motors and BMW, so personally I give this place an 80/20 chance of really happening,  

Here we see today's Amtrak P092-04, the northbound Silver Star,  running about an hour and a half late, crossing South Street in Aberdeen.  The overpass in far background carries US15-US501-NC211 over the north end of the ACWR yard,  Switch to the A&R is out of view directly to the right.  Power sitting on ACWR lead in background brought a 70+ car manifest into CSXT overnight and is probably tied down waiting for an inbound G series train later today. 

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Great background info Scraphauler.  Thanks for the overview.  Nice to see the ACWR power on the side.

The deal to preserve the former SAL main line, except for the Norlina-Collier segment, seems to have worked out well for everyone. Well, passengers on the Silver Star might wish they were running on the ex-ACL's line smoother track instead.  

Tie and surface job they did to middle of the sub this winter has it pretty smooth thru Southern Pines and Aberdeen.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/22 14:25 by scraphauler.

Good to hear. The last time I rode the line, I felt like a needed a trip to the dentist.