Eastern Railroad Discussion > One Train, 5 cars, 128 axles, 3516 Feet

Herzog Rail Train by the numbers
ACWR 6926 - SD40-3, 6 axles, 68' 10"
CSXT 5254 - ES44DC, 6 axles, 73' 2"
HZGX 51002 - "B End" tail (tunnel) car, 4 axles, 57' 
HZGX 51056 - rack cars, 52 axles, 764'
HZGX 51001 - center tie down car, 4 axles, 45'
HZGX 51055 - rack cars, 52 axles, 764'
HZGX 51048 - "A end" head (tunnel) car, 4 axles, 57'
While the rail train is made up of 5 individually registered pieces, all 5 are draw bar connected as one unit.  

Train seen passing through the backyard at 1PM, Thursday 4/2/26, Pinehurst NC on the Aberdeen Carolina & Western Sandhills Sub.  Train hit CSXT at Rose Lake off UP from Minnequa CO and was symboled as B529-28 across CSX.  Headed for ACWR's Piedmont sub, this is the second train in what I anticipate will be 5 trains.  ACWR has embarked on a $37.8 million upgrade to the Piedmont Subdivision between Charlotte and Star NC which includes 30 miles of new heavy CWR, like the Sandhills Sub already predominantly has, installed in stages over the past 10-15 years.  Funding for upgrade includes CRISI money, NCDOT money, and a lot of ACWR money.  Once line is up to 25freight/35 passenger in a year or so, there are rumblings that ACWR is considering establishing some sort of regularly scheduled passenger service between Charlotte and the Resort in Pinehurst (think rolling 19th hole connecting Charlotte to the Resort and all their golf courses and amenities)   

Piedmont Sub is the former mainline of the Original Norfolk Southern Railway that Southern Railway purchased in 1974 to gain access to the Port of Norfolk.  The original NS ran from Norfolk VA to Charlotte NC with several branches and under Southern ownership served as a secondary route across the Tar Heel state, with the state owned, Southern operated North Carolina Railway being the preferred route.  50 years later, almost all of the original Norfolk - Charlotte remains,  Norfolk to Edenton is today's G&W Chesapeake and Albermarle, Edenton, across the long gone huge bridge across Albemarle Sound to Plymouth is gone. Plymouth to Raleigh in Regional Rail's Carolina Coastal Railway, Raleigh to Fuquay-Verena is RJ Corman's Raleigh & Fayetteville, Fuquay-Verena to Brickhaven still belongs to NS and is long out of service, last used for NS to access to the former Carolina Power & Like (now Duke Energy) Cape Fear Generating Plant, which was taken off line in 2012 and demoed in 2015.  Brickhaven to Gulf (just north of Sanford) is operated by G&W's Atlantic & Western, and the remainder from Gulf to Charlotte belonging to ACWR.  Gulf to Robbins is out of service an been so for decade plus.  Robbins to Star is used for car storage and train staging, Star to Charlotte is Piedmont Sub.  



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/26 09:53 by scraphauler.

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Thanks Jim for an interesting report and a great video.

Inquiring minds want to know: How many feet (miles) of rail on that train?

Thanks!

That thing could be a real pain if you have to change out a broken wheel in the middle of the consist. 

Retired_Chief Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Inquiring minds want to know: How many feet
> (miles) of rail on that train?
>
> Thanks!

48 1/4 mile sticks = 12 miles of rail, 2 rails per track = 6 track miles. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/26 07:58 by scraphauler.

gandydancer4 Wrote:
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> That thing could be a real pain if you have to
> change out a broken wheel in the middle of the
> consist. 

That's an understatement!

Matthew

After 1974 Southern did install some CWR on the original NS east of Raleigh toward Norfolk, but its importance was short-lived because all that traffic was moved onto the ex-N&W after 1982. As Scraphauler says, the Charlotte-Gulf portion of the original NS never got a lot of love from Southern or today's NS. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/26 09:12 by ctillnc.

ctillnc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> After 1974 Southern did install some CWR on the
> original NS east of Raleigh toward Norfolk, but
> its importance was short-lived because all that
> traffic was moved onto the ex-N&W after 1982. As
> Scraphauler says, the Charlotte-Gulf portion of
> the original NS never got a lot of love from
> Southern or today's NS. 

But we at the CLNA appreciate the hell out of that 1970s Southern Railway upgrade to welded rail :)  

If NW and SOU get together a decade earlier, SOU may have never bought original NS, and today NW/SOU combination would not be called Norfolk Southern. Southern Western?   Norfolk and Atlanta?   OR    If SOU and NW never marry, maybe whatever today's Southern would be would still be accessing Norfolk via Chocowinity, Plymouth, and Edenton.