RailRoadFan.com

AARR wrote:

JStryker722 wrote:I bet this railroad makes more for Pioneer than the actual Michigan Southern railroad this railroad is technically a subsidy to.

MSO has about half the track and half the car volumes and is serviced 3x per week. I'm not sure what that equates to in profitability

Not a whole lot lol seriously,MSO loses one more customer and it's bye-bye operating to Sturgis. In order to get a full week of pay for the train crew,I heard that they operate the Elkart and Western train on the orginial Elkhart segment (Elkhart and Western is leasing another line west of Elkhart near South Bend but forgot where )the 2 days they aren't operating in White Piegon.

JStryker722 wrote:

AARR wrote:

JStryker722 wrote:I bet this railroad makes more for Pioneer than the actual Michigan Southern railroad this railroad is technically a subsidy to.

MSO has about half the track and half the car volumes and is serviced 3x per week. I'm not sure what that equates to in profitability

Not a whole lot lol seriously,MSO loses one more customer and it's bye-bye operating to Sturgis. In order to get a full week of pay for the train crew,I heard that they operate the Elkart and Western train on the orginial Elkhart segment (Elkhart and Western is leasing another line west of Elkhart near South Bend but forgot where )the 2 days they aren't operating in White Piegon.

IIRC MSO has a few customers in Sturgis with Independent Paper(?) being the largest. IP is probably the only reason MSO goes to Sturgis 3x per week. The only Sturgis customers probably don't require service very often.

It's International Paper for 1 and I believe Abbott Labs is the only other big one. But IP is the only reason they go out there as often as they do these days.

Frank Miller & Sons on the south end of the former GR&I in Sturgis has several cylinder hopper cars sitting at their facility, they receive salt and
seems to gets cars on a monthly basis. The landing gear on a semi caught the rail at the Wade Street crossing last week and ripped the rail right
up out of the asphalt and the rail separated at a splice closing the crossing and the railroad. Crews from MSO were working on the crossing and
it looks like they ripped the whole crossing out and started over.. It really needed to be replaced. I believe the car count for the MSO is well under
half that of the ND&W but on a side note the MSO is not on a swamp and does not require the maintenance that the ND&W does.. so I suppose
it's a trade off ! I do think if International Paper were to cease using rail that service into Sturgis would be in trouble... Penguin Plastic also
receives resins via rail so it looks like there are four Customers in Sturgis.

Does anyone know if the ND&W has a LPG customer or transload? Yesterday I saw LPG tanks at Antwerp that had slightly rusty wheels and a few at Woodburn with shinny wheels.

alittlevanwerty wrote:Does anyone know if the ND&W has a LPG customer or transload? Yesterday I saw LPG tanks at Antwerp that had slightly rusty wheels and a few at Woodburn with shinny wheels.

Could be for the cement plant at Paulding or possibly loaded with anhydrous ammonia for farm use.

The fertilizer plant in woodburn has had a couple deliveries with those cars!

Notch 8 wrote:I believe the car count for the MSO is well under half that of the ND&W...

I read somewhere (here perhaps?) that ND&W handled around 2000 carloads in 2014.

IP gets (at least it did) around 10 carloads a week for 500 a year. I don't know how many carloads the other MSO customers receive. Does 300-400 sound about right? That would bring the total count to 700-800 per year if those numbers are close.

I don't believe that you'll be seeing anhydrous ammonia on the ND&W... NS places rates on anhydrous ammonia
to make go away...
The LPG cars were probably headed into storage on the east side of Napoleon, Just a WAG...
International Paper I would say averages more like 6 cars a week...

If you get a chance see what the hazmat placard number is on one of the cars and we can figure it out from there.

alittlevanwerty wrote:Does anyone know if the ND&W has a LPG customer or transload? Yesterday I saw LPG tanks at Antwerp that had slightly rusty wheels and a few at Woodburn with shinny wheels.

Notch 8 wrote:International Paper I would say averages more like 6 cars a week...

Thanks, N8.

I'm surprised this derailment warranted media coverage. Guess the temporarily blocked intersection had everything to do with that:

http://www.toledoblade.com/Police-Fire/ ... ction.html

jimnorthwood wrote:I'm surprised this derailment warranted media coverage. Guess the temporarily blocked intersection had everything to do with that:

http://www.toledoblade.com/Police-Fire/ ... ction.html

Following the Lac Megantic disaster, apparently all derailments warrant media coverage. Unless the incident happens in a yard or a very isolated locale, the media is quick to report and speculate "what if it were and oil train..."

I am shocked at how many significant derailments happen each week. My unscientific calculation is that there are at least five per week which require more than a simple rerail. I suspect the wrath of the media and congress will result in mandates on the railroad to improve performance and/or increase inspections.

Bad derailments aren't nearly as common as the media would have you believe, but it would be a very good week for the industry to have less than 5 derailments a week that exceed the "Time to call Hulcher or Corman" threshold.

Inspections and mandates will not keep trains on the rail. Ties, ballast, and preventative maintenance do the most good, but even then nothing is going to keep the wheel on the rail if it really wants to play in the dirt. Additionally the human element can't be removed, splitting switches, running over derails, etc.

Bulby wrote:Bad derailments aren't nearly as common as the media would have you believe, but it would be a very good week for the industry to have less than 5 derailments a week that exceed the "Time to call Hulcher or Corman" threshold.

A good example is 99.995% (I think that's the number I read in Trains Mag) of oil trains make it safely to their destination yet every oil train is a bomb waiting to happen according to the popular media

Made a visit on Friday, May 1. About a half-dozen tank cars on the track on the east side of U.S. 24. Crossing still marked exempt. A half-dozen or so boxcars just to the west of the crossing. Road train left Napoleon around 2:00 with one covered hopper and eight or so boxcars. We then drove to Cecil. At the cement plant on the line south of there we saw some tank cars, and also a good number of covered hoppers. They must be shipping cement again. Back to Defiance, where the road train was pulling in. They took the cars to the CSX interchange, ran the locomotive back to the yard, and tied up. In the yard was the switcher, the Gettysburg unit, the GP-20 that was on the road train, one of the 1600 number series Geeps that was used to make the interchange move, and another of the Geeps.

This thread has been pretty dead lately. Anyone got any track maintenance to report or anything new on the ND&W?

Nothing has changed... still running trains, same customers, same daily operation, still working on the track

I'm going to Defiance next Friday. Anyone know what time the train(s) usually leave the yard.

7-8 but they may not start in Defiance