IORY South End Part 4

[midland sub]

Former Great Miami GP30 #30 finally made it to the I&O via Parsons this weekend. It was spotted heading into Wash CH Monday afternoon. Should be in Cincy late tonight. As usual CSX gave it the grand tour of central Ohio and Indiana.

[midland sub]

I&O had 5007, 9400, 3887 and 4070 in Wash CH Monday night.

Someone from the mechanica dept was looking @ 4071 today.

Balfour Beatty hi-rail truck also in town, assume they will start spreading ties for the project here.

Cincinnati Railway's GP30 came down on an empty ethanol train for Valero. It will leave for Cincy on tonight's Wash CH Turn

[alittlevanwerty]

Caught IORY 5001 at Sugar street in Lima today.

[AARR]

Caught IORY 5001 at Sugar street in Lima today.

I only know Lima from maps and pics but I will guess that the covered hoppers are from the ethanol plant and looks like a plastic pellet car or two so maybe from Plasti{ak in Jackson Center? And the gons may be from OmniSource?

[midland sub]

Since they were only using a flag and not an EOT, I would say the gons were scrap loads that come out of Omnisource. Prob Jackson Center on the pellet cars. The rest of the train is made up of Central Soya, FURX and NOKL cov hoppers I assume going to Bunge. I would say they were loaded somewhere on the Midland (Sabina-Bunge @ Melvin) or somewhere around Springfield.

Thanks for sharing the videos!

[midland sub]

Tie and surface project on the CIND is almost complete. They replaced the magic I&O number of 6000 ties around Greensburg and on Sunman hill. Balfour Beatty just needs to bring in the tamper and regulator to finish the work. They are supposed to be building a siding on the CIND to help with the Honda traffic. In reality they are rebuilding the former (eastbound?) main that Penn Central took out of service 35-40 years ago.

The Balfour tie gang should be working on the Midland main on Maderia hill. They will head to Wash CH next.

[conrailman75]

Noticed on my way home today as I crossed over the tracks on US 68 in Springfield that there were trees down across the tracks near where the line that connects to the NS Dayton District crosses Upper Valley Pike road.

[redside20]

In other news Rumors are swirling that Genessee and Wyoming and Watco are looking to purchase Railamerica.

[midland sub]

WATCO doesn't have the cash or resources to buy the 56% unless it's highly leveraged terms, which defeats the purpose of buying the 56%. Fortress and RA have squeezed just about every penny of savings they can by cutting costs and the centralized customer service centers, dispatching and trying to use Atlas. GWI has the money and resources to buy the 56%, but again will they leverage themselves too much to buy it? RA has some real dogs for properties and some real gems too. So the question comes down to what is the 56% really worth in such a captial intense investment...?

As I've said several times here in different threads, the shortline and regional companies are coming to a real fork in the road on a lot of their operations. Most were purchased 20 to 30 years ago in the Class 1 consolidation phase. Some were in decent shape, but most were not. Band aid repair and patch jobs have just been enough to put off the issue of how to tackle a major repair or rehab project. Tie and surface projects are fairly inexpensive, but how long will that old 90 and 100 pound rail last? Put some new ties under that old rail and watch how quick you start snapping those old rails. Trestles and bridges start to settle more and more. Where's a couple of million dollars come from to repair them? How well connected are the shortline and regional owership to the federal and local gov'ts to help foot the bill? Those are the things that whoever steps up to buy that 56% are really going to look into.

Is Berkshire Hathaway really interested? Probably not more the usual passing glance they give for any company up for sale. Berkshire typically likes to purchase companies in some sort of trouble that can bought at a discount and easily turned around into a profitable venture. RA isn't going to be cheap enough for Berkshire to give more than a glance over.

[redside20]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/ ... 0120702..I hoping it's Genessee and Wyoming and as the rumor mill goes.. They've been looking at the Midland Sub as a route to the west for sometime now as it would tie into their OC operation from Mingo Jct to Columbus..to Cincinnati perhaps? We'll have to see how this plays out..

[midland sub]

People are going to complain no matter who ends up with the 56% share, but I would prefer GWI to get it. At least with GWI, I don't see the I&O getting any worse. I don't think WATCO would be any better owners, and quite possibly worse depending on who's talking...

Jerry Joe took a long hard look at snapping up the Midland along with the C&N, Lake Erie and Central Ohio Subs back in 2004. Supposedly he decided the Midland was too much to bite off and pulled his bid for the Midland. Rumor floating around back when JJJ sold out to GWI was that he would have snagged another $50 million if the Midland was part of the Ohio Central, which goes to the second part....

As for the western connection and stuff that floats around...... GWI has been looking into expanding to western connections for quite some time. Back in 2009/2010 when the Wheeling & Lake Erie came with in an eyelash of becoming insolvent/broke etc, GWI was ready to pounce. Parsons and crew did some create financing and saved the day for the time being. GWI wanted to use the WE to access Toledo and the CFE, which put them that much closer to Chicago. With WE off the market for the time being they went back to the drawing board on the western plans. The farther west they can get, the longer the haul they get on, especially on the salt coming off of the original G&W.

In theory getting the I&O and the Midland gives them a farther west interchange in Cincy. Problem is on paper it's a lot more complicated. Certainly the Ohio Central has trackage rights over the Dayton Dist and passes CP Russ and access to the Midland on the way to Buckeye and back- which I don't think they are doing anymore. Those trackage rights DO NOT give them access to the I&O for the Midland. Anything going to the I&O from OC has to go thru CSX. CSX won't interchange "loose" car freight with the I&O @ Haynes so it goes to Russell then east to Cincy and then to the I&O. The lease terms of the Midland prohibt them from handing it over to NS in Columbus so they can drop it at Springfield without a huge surcharge. So unless they can get around the paper interchange barrier in Columbus, there's not direct shot to Cincy.

[midland sub]

Something I forgot to add about the trackage rights issue. The I&O acquired the Mason Sub years before acquiring the DT&I north of Springfield and the trackage rights over the Dayton Dist. So even though they had trackage rights over the Dayton District, they weren't to access the Mason Sub @ Middletown. So for the two plus years until the Conrail split and they were awarded trackage rights to access the Mason Sub via the Dayton Dist, NS had to move locos and freight for the I&O between Middletown and Sharonville. So trackage rights are only defined for certain use.

[conrailman75]

Noticed on my way home today as I crossed over the tracks on US 68 in Springfield that there were trees down across the tracks near where the line that connects to the NS Dayton District crosses Upper Valley Pike road.

Looked again today and the trees were cleaned off the tracks at the spot I seen them at yesterday, so obviously the IORY had someone out hi-railing that line looking for obstructions within the last 36 hours.

[midland sub]

Balfour Beatty tie gang is working on the Wash CH track project today. They started on the old B&O Wellson main behind Crop Production and are heading west out towards MP 230 on the DT&I at Konrad. They were up to the diamond with the Midland main just before 1 pm. Still haven't heard if they will be used for the DT&I South track project from Konrad to Jeffersonville.

Wash CH Turn was leaving Oakley late this morning with 4071 leading. 3887 has been hanging around as the WCH-A power.

[midland sub]

Had a friend catch the Wash CHTurn last night finally dragging back into Konrad. 4071-9500-5678 and 69 cars. They left Cincy with 66 cars, so maybe swapped empties for loads at Melvin Stone.

They had the 5003 with them in Cincy, either it crapped out in Cincy and that's why they left so late, or it got dropped at Blanchester for the Blan Job.

3887 took 10 to 15 P&G loads to Springfield, but left the pig iron loads in Konrad.

[alittlevanwerty]

Filmed IORY 5001 and 4082 in Lima today, videos coming tonight.

[alittlevanwerty]

[midland sub]

Thanks for posting the video of LSL. Looks like you shot that near the ethanol plant @ the Hanthorn Rd crossing. The ethanol plant have many cars?

[midland sub]

Saw something interesting on the Logab Sub this morning. There were a handful of NS grain cars sitting on the main, very unusual for the Logan Sub. I presume they are loads of wheat heading to Keynes Bros in Logan and loaded somewhere on NS. CBNS 5002 was slowly heading towards Anchor, but I didn't have time to stay around.

WCH-A went to Grovetucky on Sunday with 4 for whatever Ashland Chem is now called and a DWC hi cube boxcar. Either Valero needed a buffer car for an outbound ethanol train or the feed place in Mt Sterling got a super rare car. They've gotten one car since the I&O tookover, and it too was a boxcar of equipment.

[strugglin]

This post continues to fascinate me with all the info posted here!

Where is the new Blue Grass Yard you guys were speaking of on the last page? I was looking through the Bing maps of the Midland and couldn't find a new yard as far as I could tell.