Heritage Co-op still owns Thackery. They extended a track in West Liberty last fall and did some other track work so they could load 65 car trains there. Shepard Grain at one point owned the two, but went under 7 or 8 years ago. Fairly certain they are not loading grain at Thackery and instead trucking it to West Liberty or Mechanicsburg. Makes no sense to spend the money to ship grain there for the higher rates when they spent a ton of money upgrading both West Liberty and Mechanicsburg.
Went out and caught the last grain train from Mechanicsburg passing thru Grove City. The Alkire Rd underpass is quite nice.... Amazing how slow 10 mph is, especially the effect it has on surrounding road traffic in that part of Columbus and the whack job drivers there...
midland sub wrote:Heritage Co-op still owns Thackery. They extended a track in West Liberty last fall and did some other track work so they could load 65 car trains there. Shepard Grain at one point owned the two, but went under 7 or 8 years ago. Fairly certain they are not loading grain at Thackery and instead trucking it to West Liberty or Mechanicsburg. Makes no sense to spend the money to ship grain there for the higher rates when they spent a ton of money upgrading both West Liberty and Mechanicsburg.
I think I read Thackery did some track work to load 15 car blocks a few or more years ago Rate difference between 15 and 65 car blocks must be pretty significant if they'll truck it from Thackery to location where they can load into 65 car blocks rather than just let both elevators load their own then combine them (cnsidering IORY switches both places).
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...
Railameica changed the marketing and rated last summer. Grain tariffs were canceled for the I&O, CIND and CFE back in August. Jacksonville comes up with a rate for the grain traffic for them. There might be some lee way with the local sales gerbels and management such as the Valero corn shuttle, but the 15 car rates are now done.
Another thing to consider. Thackery can't load more than one car at a time and it takes and hour and 4 people to do it. Track structure doesn't justify the expense to upgrade the loading equipment there. Another thing to consider is that West Libery and Mechanicsburg fall under a special unit grain traffic rate CSX has for Heritage Co-op. The I&O and Heritage Co-op have 48 hours from the time CSX hands off those 90 car trains at Haynes to get them loaded and back to Haynes for CSX. Sure there's a cost to trucking the corn the 20 or so miles between the two, but are they back hauling wheat or soybeans to Thackery to make room at Mechanicsburg or West Liberty. There's so, so much you have to factor into shipping grain. The better half was working as a crop inspector at a grain elevator in Ohio before she went on maternity leave for our daughter. I had no idea how complicated the grain market is. It's crazy to say the least. Thankfully she decided (with a lot of prodding by me) to be a stay at home mom. If they have a contract to deliver a 90 or 65 car train to a supplier on a certain date they have to figure what grade of crop needs to go, how much do they have on hand, how much s coming in from a local farmer at that time.
As with any rail shipper, a spur into your business doesn't mean it makes sense business wise to use rail.
Mrs AARR and me do the stay at home mom thing too (even homeschool the kids until 9th grade.) I hope you like it as much as we do.
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...
AARR wrote:
I think I read Thackery did some track work to load 15 car blocks a few or more years ago Rate difference between 15 and 65 car blocks must be pretty significant if they'll truck it from Thackery to location where they can load into 65 car blocks rather than just let both elevators load their own then combine them (cnsidering IORY switches both places).
Or, it’s just a sign that the carrier who serves them isn’t willing to market a deal where the cars are combo’d into a unit train. If a 65-car unit train can be broken amongst 2-3, even 4 common ownership elevators, there is really no reason the carrier can’t honor a reasonable rate rather than having the grain trucked to a single terminal-like elevator. It’s just good business sense to give your customers the best deal possible.
CIND 5003 and 4030 (haven't seen that turd in awhile) were working the WCH locals this weekend. They brought back 15 cars from what redside saw in Grove City.
CFE 3887 is the Blan power at the moment. They did indeed derail on the tall B&O bridge in Greenfield. Good thing they basically crawl the bridge as it would have been ugly for those cars to make the 100 plus foot fall off the side. Crew was coming back from switching Johnson Controls. There's a pic of the train sitting on the bridge at the link below.
Also understand the previous owners, Shepard Grain, weren't interested in using rail. From another group I think they shipped 2 cars in eight years. RA/I&O aren't interested in grain business unless it's either steady i.e. more than a handful of car loads a couple of times a year and/or they provide their own cars. They got rid of the former IOCR and IORY cov hoppers except for maybe less than a handful, and now rely on the NOKL and NYDX lease fleet that bounces around the system. Which at the the moment seems to be mainly on the Keynes Bros wheat shuttle to the Logan Sub. The grain elevator in Leesburg wen thru a couple of different owners in the past 10 years. One tried like crazy to get the I&O to let tyr rail again. There wasn't enough profit to justify the extra expense, so it never happened. ADM currently leases the same place to mainly use as extra storage for their Chillicothe elevator that both CSX and NS serve. It's cheaper to truck the grain back and forth the 27 miles or so than to build more storage in Chillicothe at the moment. ADM trucks out enough corn to a location in Virginia that would equal 2 or 3 car loads a week, but they can't get a rate at the moment that makes a rail worth it.
Noticed those gondolas with the yellow caps over in Warder Street this morning and a bunch of hoppers towards the back. Where are these gondolas headed?
Those funky looking hoods are for coil steel and used on NOKL gons. Haven't seen them this far south in awhile.
Caught 5002 working the Logan Sub today. Looked like they were putting together tonight's run to Parsons using what's left of the old C&O yard in town. Looked like 25 to 30 cars going north.
redside I forgot to answer your question. Those gons with the coil hoods should be going to Cincy to either NS or a transload on the Ohio River i.e. Cincinnati Barge & Rail or the place over on the CIND by Riverside.
As for BGF, there was an article in the Wash CH paper, actually an extra ag based section, that mentioned BGF and them trying to build a location called Queensgate Terminal. It's over by CP Oklahoma in Cincy where the CIND and CSX's Indiana Sub run together. It was just cleared off in the past couple of years and tracks moved for a road project. City of Cincy wants a retail development to go in there, but what a craphole place for it.
RJ Corman was brought in to work the derailment on the Greenfield Sub on Tuesday. Sounds like they brought in a hi-rail crane to get the two cars rerailed. Blan Job was there with 3887 to help. They also had another car to spot for Johnson Controls. Maybe this derailment happened at a good time as the city of Greenfield applied for those federal grants, but there was doubt that the city is still in an economic distressed area..... We're still looking for the 10,000 jobs DHL took away to be replaced.....
midland sub wrote:RJ Corman was brought in to work the derailment on the Greenfield Sub on Tuesday. Sounds like they brought in a hi-rail crane to get the two cars rerailed. Blan Job was there with 3887 to help. They also had another car to spot for Johnson Controls. Maybe this derailment happened at a good time as the city of Greenfield applied for those federal grants, but there was doubt that the city is still in an economic distressed area..... We're still looking for the 10,000 jobs DHL took away to be replaced.....
How do you replace 10,000 jobs in a place like Clinton County? That sucking sound you heard was a mass migration of people moving away to look for work.
Or Fayette, Highland, Greene, Brown and Adams to name the others that took a hit. They used to have to bus people in from Cincy, Columbus and Dayton every night.. The new Avengers film used part of the airpark for filming.
To tie this into the I&O... they still have one tank car of deicer sitting @ Melvin for DHL/ABX to use for the repair center for DHL's 767 fleet.
Speaking of Wilmington, Trupointe hasn't shipped any grain out of Wilmington in almost 5 months. Trucking it to South Chuck for rail.... They still are getting in maybe a boxcar load a month in Wilmington of horse bedding and other stuff. Trupointe still hasn't gotten the I&O/RA to change their stance on the extra fees for anhydrous shipments so neither their Starbuck Rd location outside of Wilmington or Premeir's Melvin fert plant has gotten any in the past 8 plus months or longer.
midland sub wrote:Trupointe still hasn't gotten the I&O/RA to change their stance on the extra fees for anhydrous shipments so neither their Starbuck Rd location outside of Wilmington or Premeir's Melvin fert plant has gotten any in the past 8 plus months or longer.
IIRC under the new rates IORY makes as much if not more profit off the few cars of ammonia they handle vs what they were making the last few years on the auto business
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Thackery has 8 cars at their facility, with another 7 due in today or tomorrow. Supposedly they won't get loaded for a few days, but this should be another block of corn for the Lima ethanol plant (unless they started loading blocks of wheat for Keyne's Bro.s).
It's not really an issue of profit on that ammonia traffic for Uniopolis, Melvin and Wilmington. It's more they just don't want the extra effort it takes to move it and have priced it accordingly to take rail out as an option for the customer. I would hate to think what they would have done if that empty tank car with tolulene residue fell off the trestle in Greenfield last week....
Great to hear Heritage is actually using rail again @ Thackery. That's the second time we've discussed a customer not using rail that was again. Good update.
midland sub wrote:It's not really an issue of profit on that ammonia traffic for Uniopolis, Melvin and Wilmington. It's more they just don't want the extra effort it takes to move it and have priced it accordingly to take rail out as an option for the customer. I would hate to think what they would have done if that empty tank car with tolulene residue fell off the trestle in Greenfield last week....
I take it there is a lot of hassle-factor/liability in handling certain chemicals like ammonia, tolulene, etc.
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...
Rate difference between 15 and 65 car blocks must be pretty significant if they'll truck it from Thackery to location where they can load into 65 car blocks rather than just let both elevators load their own then combine them (cnsidering IORY switches both places).