Eastern Railroad Discussion > Derailment site open for business at Leslie, MD

The site opened for business early this am. I heard Q173 being walked through. Lots of trains called. It should be busy as they get things moving again.

Bruce

I hear that there are a couple of Q173's up there. Also, Q174 never left Bmore. Only CSX would reroute trash trains and have priority UPS and time sensitive Juice trains sitting around!

Here's some reasons why some trains sit and others move

Clearances, the trash trains might clear a detour route wheres taller pigs will not.

Amtrak. Before Amtrak took total control of the NEC trains could use the former PRR/PC/CR line. Today Amtrak will not entertain that. But it is of little import, since most trains have cars that would not clear the Baltimore tunnels and other locations.

Crews. Excluding an Amtrak detour, discounted above, the next route is via Millers WV and via Hagerstown and up NS. That requires a runaround. CSX has hardly any crews left between hagerstown and harrisburg, and NS is limited by their own crew pools and single track that is at fair capacity.

Time and distance. CSX would weigh the likely transit time over a detour versus just waiting for track. Priority traffic like UPS is low over weekends, and the hot Q172 passed Leslie about 0930. The traffic on Q174/176 is not as hot and much of it might not have been drayed out of terminals until today (Monday) anyway. So, in reality, a lot of the boxes will be only one day late and not three as it appears.

As for Tropicana, you can be sure they were consulted. I handled performance on that train for many years. The Greenville destination is a union shop and does not work on Sundays. The usual saturday night Trop train does not start unloading until early Monday, so again, its one day late (passed Wilsmere at 1045). The new cars would not clear Amtrak, and if this were a 100 degree summer day the product would last several days in those cars. I think it will last two days if the refrigerator unit shuts down. Trop's Thursday night train is much hotter it has the weekend stuff. They just worked their warehouse stock this morning. They are very well managed.

Other than that your guess is as good as mine.

An answer like yours is welcome and refreshing.....knowledge, facts, absence of malace. This is how I learn on Trainorders.

tp 117, your rational response on this board is truly refreshing and enlightening. Keep up the good work, there are some here here who appreciate your in-depth explanation.

BaltoJoey

Thanks for the explanation. Clearance would not be an issue with the reroute. They must have figured they would get the track opened in time instead of waiting. Last time they had a big derailment, they did just as you mentioned. They ran the priority trains to Miller Tower and ran around them to go to Hagerstown (and vice versa). Was a very interesting move. I caught a juice train parked in Hagerstown Yard waiting for a new crew. Thanks again.

Thanks for comments. But often what CSX and other railroads do baffles me too. If you have questions, never be afraid to ask. I was born in Baltimore and lived west of there in the '60s.