Economy as seen from a railfan's point of view

[ngauger]

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://elkhartproject.newsvine.com/_news/2009/04/16/2688666-watching-the-economy-rumbling-by">http://elkhartproject.newsvine.com/_new ... umbling-by</a><!-- m -->

[Russ Bellinis]

At the last model railroad club meeting, one of the members mentioned seeing long lines of older locomotives at U.P.'s Colton Yard. A couple of years ago, U.P. and BNSF were short on power. They had everything they owned running and were also leasing power. I remember seeing ex-U.P. gp40-2's working the industries around the shop where I used to work. The locomotive was still in U.P. colors, but had a leasing company logo in place of U.P.'s logo. Now they have excess power and the long lines of older power are expected to go to the scrape yards. I suspect that a lot of power units that are down may be stored for the purpose of being overhauled when the economy picks up and the railroads need more power as well. The later is more likely on the BNSF than the U.P. BN and SF have always had a practice of rebuilding older power for use in locals and branch line service, while U.P. has always disposed of power instead of doing extensive rebuilds and buying new. Therefore the example of an ex-U.P. gp40-2 being sold off to a leasing company, while BNSF still runs rebuilt gp7's, 9's, 30's and 35's and other 4 axle power in local service up to and including gp50's and perhaps the gp60m's

[BR60103]

I was thinking the same on the weekend. CP has a long spur that runs off from the yard in Milton at right angles to the main line. This goes parallel to Hwy 407 for about 3 miles. I don't know why it's there, but CP puts empty cars on it.
Right now it's full. The last 1/3 is spine cars - probably 5-packs - while the rest is automobile cars. The automobile cars show all sorts of roadnames -- lots of UP and CP but probably every major road since I saw CN and what I think was NdeM (Mexico).
My first thought was that they should be sending those foreign road cars back, but then I realized that they were probably in a pool arrangement and the other roads would have similar lines of cars.

[Brakie]

I been out railfanning 6 or 7 times and on the NS Sandusky line it appears business as usual..I seen 3 CSX trains and all appear to have 2 units and 70-100 cars..Even P39 on the NS is still carrying 30-40 60' auto part boxcars-normal amount of auto part cars.P39 runs between Oak Street yard in Mansfield to Bellevue..I did notice its now carrying steel coil cars,tank cars and covered hoppers..

[csiguy68]

since the weather has been a lot nicer, i have had a few chances to get out railfanning this month. my favorite place is CONPITT JUNCTION,just outside of johnstown,pennsylvania. at this location norfolk southern 's mainline as well as their conemaugh line come together. ist is an awsome spot, however i have noticed that from this time last year to this year traffic is a little slower and you have to wait a little while longer than you did to see trains.


you also used to see a good bit of foreign power on the trains too, but that very rare to see now.




todd