Eastern Railroad Discussion > Coal on the Move, Coal being Burned ... 07 May 2022

In the background, over in Ridgeley, WV  is the steam plume from the steam locomotive #1309, a coal burner owned by the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad.
In the foreground a loaded coal train (N792-06) comes into Cumberland, MD at Beall Street from the West Virginia coalfields around Grafton, WV. The drag is one of the combined trains made up in Keyser, WV with 3+3 DP power and 200 loaded hoppers.

Tim W.

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I saw just by chance one of those 200 loaded hopper trains on the Shenandoah Railcam, someting I may look at once a month. I'll bet the drivers that were stuck waiting for that monster to clear the crossing were unhappy. I know a couple years ago NS started this nonsense by combining 80 slab gondolas with the everyday merchandise train. They take more than 10 minutes to clear the crossing in town. I got caught several times just after picking up hot sandwiches on the wrong side of the tracks. I like watching trains but the cold sandwiches, not so much. NS is now running them about 2-3 hours later, for whatever reason, so it is no longer a personal problem!
Neat post. My younger son keeps threatening me with us taking a trip to Cumberland to see that beast.
Gonut

Not sure about B&O / Chessie / CSX over the years (maybe someone here could verify), but I've read accounts that the N&W, long before NS, regularly ran coal trains up to and sometimes more than 200 cars both east to Norfolk and west to Columbus.

On the way to work this morning, I got to thinking that it might be revealing to tally up the amount of time a non-railfan spent waiting at grade crossings in a year's time, and compare it with the amount of time that same person spent sitting at "nuisance" stoplights when there was absolutely no opposing traffic.  A couple of weeks ago, I'd taken my mother to the E.R. at a local hospital, spending much of the night there.  After being advised that everything was fine, but they needed to keep her a few more hours before I could take her home, I left the hospital, only to have to wait for a stoplight at an empty intersection outside a closed supermarket at 4 a.m.  Oh, yes, I had to wait while the oncoming NON-traffic got a left turn arrow too!  

inrdjlg Wrote:
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> Not sure about B&O / Chessie / CSX over the years
> (maybe someone here could verify), but I've read
> accounts that the N&W, long before NS, regularly
> ran coal trains up to and sometimes more than 200
> cars both east to Norfolk and west to Columbus.
>
> On the way to work this morning, I got to thinking
> that it might be revealing to tally up the amount
> of time a non-railfan spent waiting at grade
> crossings in a year's time, and compare it with
> the amount of time that same person spent sitting
> at "nuisance" stoplights when there was absolutely
> no opposing traffic.  A couple of weeks ago, I'd
> taken my mother to the E.R. at a local hospital,
> spending much of the night there.  After being
> advised that everything was fine, but they needed
> to keep her a few more hours before I could take
> her home, I left the hospital, only to have to
> wait for a stoplight at an empty intersection
> outside a closed supermarket at 4 a.m.  Oh, yes,
> I had to wait while the oncoming NON-traffic got a
> left turn arrow too!  

Way back in the dark ages, both C&O and N&W ran up to 300 car trains to the piers....but the tonnage was not what it is today because smaller capacity cars. 286 was a pipe dream....50....75 and 100 ton was still quite common. A modern 300 car train would come in about 40000 tons more or less, where back in the day, it was more like 24000. And 4 SD40's! Or 6 GP40's!

Cool pic!!

I sit for "invisible" traffic regularly......or as my wife calls it, a parade of ants.....:<)