Eastern Railroad Discussion > CSX coal train question

This afternoon, CSX ran a n.b. coal train up the Toledo Sub with just GE 223 and 18 cars. He was in the hole at AK forever, waiting for a following manifest ( Q 242, I think ) to overtake him. He got out of AK a little after 3 P.M. What would account for such a small consist? Thanks. Jim in Wapak.

At Deshler now. Nothing lined up this way behind him at this time.

There is a train in the SE siding but he was here before Q242.

LV

Just heard one in the area. The Belmore detector just had a train with 74 Axles and 899' long. Close on the count. Just got lined NB to Perry, not yet across the diamond.

All by Deshler Diamond @ 1708.

LV

>>What would account for such a small consist?

Either a customer is running low on supply and CSX has failed to get the loads to them as requested or the customer is paying big bucks for an expedited shipment because they failed to place orders correctly.

CSX internally keeps an industrial customer situation log that list drop dead timing for smaller shipments. This is used to get the less-than-unit-train blocks tagged onto a freight train and to the customers door as needed. It's very important boilers do not run out of fuel for the obvious reasons but also because it's actually very hard to get those things refired and producing steam. So not only is a facility down until the coal arrives but it is down for hours while things heat back up. If CSX is held responsible with no act-of-God excuse, they could be picking up a major downtime bill or lawyer fun.

I chased a mother-slug and 10 hopper consist out of Corbin a few years ago that was an expedit shipment for Calgon Carbon over on the Big Sandy. This was coal used for making carbon black and not just your everyday compliance steam coal. Calgon sits a few hundred feet from all the barge transloaders on the Big Sandy River with hundreds of thousands of stockpiled tons of black diamonds. They were just the wrong specification!

Robby

Q-506 is sitting in the East siding. Crew could not make Standley Yard.

Seems to be real late this week. They were waiting on Q375 and a SB K185 on Wed.

BTW the current Q506 at Deshler is recrewed and lined up behind 508 almost at Custar. Looks like both will be meeting a SB at Tontogany, as it is lined through Haskins.

LV

The symbol on the coal train is W502 (by Perrysburg at 5:45PM), which "The Bullsheet" says is a Hazzard KY - Flint MI train (run as needed). As for the southbound it's K185.

LV, if that was him on the Belmore detector, he dropped one car someplace ( Lima? ), as he was 970-or 990-some feet here ( mp. 118.1 ), and I'm 99% sure his axle count squared with what I counted in AK siding, e.g. one 6-axle unit and 18 cars. Interesting, huh? ( Obviously a slow day in Woepakoneta. )

This train of a single AC4400CW and 18 cars is just perfect for modeling.

Kinda funny one of the members of our model club wears a button on occasion to work that really gets under a certain trainmaster's skin. It reads, "I still play with trains!"

You're right about that train. There are a few around here that are often run on our layout. D743, Y101, Y150, a short Q508 and even Q245 when Speedy has his autoracks. Back when K188 ran we tried to figure out how to put Santa, Uncle Artie, in the cab of a WC unit. K185 isn't as much fun.

LV