Ownership of CP Rail South of Binghamton

The company I work for has a rail siding south of the East Binghamton Yards, and we got talking at work the other day about how many time this section of line has changed hands.

Here is what I can come up with:

Delaware Lackawanna and Western
Erie Lackawanna
Conrail
D&H
Guilford
NYSW
CP Rail

The Conrail to CP Rail is were it get fuzzy for me?

The line was built by the DL&W, who merged to become EL in 1960. Their rail assets went to Conrail in 1976. The line from Binghamton to Scranton was sold outright to the D&H in 1982. It became CP Rail in 1991/2 and was sold again to NS effective this year.

Guilford never fully merged the Delaware & Hudson. They cast it into bankruptcy in 1988, and the courts awarded the property to CP Rail in 1991 or 1992, I'd have to look back up the details to be more exact. NYS&W was only a court directed operator of service on the D&H who also made a bid for the line, but was rejected.

Even under CP Rail ownership it was considered the St. Lawrence & Hudson for a time and official records may reflect that name.

+ DERECO?

From my bosses stand point who has worked here since the 60's, those were all the different companies he had to deal with to get cars in and out.

Should be an interesting transition to NS, hopefully from our standpoint it is smooth.

ricebrianrice wrote:From my bosses stand point who has worked here since the 60's, those were all the different companies he had to deal with to get cars in and out.

Should be an interesting transition to NS, hopefully from our standpoint it is smooth.

Lots of luck with that. From what I hear, NS as a system whole, is doing poorly when it comes to rail service quality & timeliness. The division your plant is on may be better, but the whole NS system is a completely mismanaged mess.

DERECO was a paper company N&W used to insulate itself from liability for the stock control ownership of both EL and the D&H. As we know, EL still went into Conrail, and D&H was sold later to a subsidary of Guilford.

Just because one company manages another, doesn't mean they own the property.

When D&H declared bankruptcy in 1988, the ICC directed the NYSW to operate the line once Guilford announced they would have nothing to do with it. NYSW was really hoping to acquire the D&H, but CP had the winning bid in 1991.

(For the record, Guilford never merged any of its component railroads. The Boston & Maine, Maine Central, Springfield Terminal, and Portland Terminal all exist as separate companies now all operated by Pan Am Railways).

-otto-

ricebrianrice wrote:The Conrail to CP Rail is were it get fuzzy for me?

The D&H acquired the Binghamton-Scranton segment from Conrail because it had a better grade profile than their own parallel route which was known as the Penn Division. D&H acquired the ex-DL&W route from Conrail in 1982, and work began to improve clearances on the Belden Hill Tunnel soon after that. From what I understand, the Penn Division wasn't completely abandoned until the end of 1985 (once the turnnel work was complete)?

Delaware Lackawanna & Western - 18xx?
Erie Lackawanna - 1960
Conrail - 1976
D&H - 1982
Guilford (still D&H) - 1983
NYSW - 1988
CP Rail - 1991
Norfolk Southern - 2015?

-otto-

Aren't you just repeating what I said and still slipping NYS&W in as an owner even though they never owned it?

Flat-Wheeler wrote:

ricebrianrice wrote:From my bosses stand point who has worked here since the 60's, those were all the different companies he had to deal with to get cars in and out.

Should be an interesting transition to NS, hopefully from our standpoint it is smooth.

Lots of luck with that. From what I hear, NS as a system whole, is doing poorly when it comes to rail service quality & timeliness. The division your plant is on may be better, but the whole NS system is a completely mismanaged mess.

You've been hearing wrong. They're doing fine.

There is no doubt NS is/has been experiencing some "issues", but nothing out of the ordinary for all North American Railroads at this point. MAJOR congestion, particular in Freight classification yards has been the norm as of late, as has motive power and crew shortages. With the decline in Oil shipments, this has eased up a bit but is still prevalent. NS for one has been making a valiant effort to correct both with acquiring quite a bit of power recently and putting the rebuilding programs into over drive. The amount of T&E people being hired, promoted and trained is very impressive as well. Particularly in the Harrisburg Division where terminals like Harrisburg and Binghamton have been hiring by the dozens.

Although things were pretty rough over the winter months on the Harrisburg Division, operations have "normalized" quite nicely and trains are running pretty consistently now but yards (particularly Enola and Conway) remain congested at best. Time will tell how much of a wrench (if any) the D&H acquisition throws into things. I have a suspicion it will be a bit rough the first quarter NS owns the D&H, but that they will get the hang of things and get all the wrinkles ironed out pretty quickly. One must remember the near disaster they will be inheriting from CP on the D&H Southend.

Jim Cerulli

New Trains Magazine has an article about NS in the northeast and their expansion of use of Enola yard -

Ha. Enola Yard- where your train is always being held for power. Guess I should pickup the new Trains.

lvrr325 wrote:New Trains Magazine has an article about NS in the northeast and their expansion of use of Enola yard -

.

malfunctjct wrote:Ha. Enola Yard- where your train is always being held for power. Guess I should pickup the new Trains.

lvrr325 wrote:New Trains Magazine has an article about NS in the northeast and their expansion of use of Enola yard -

.

Aside from a decent map and a few pictures, the article seemed to be pretty content free and confusing (eg, the current Enola yard is described as having a "westbound yard and hump" where eastbound (!) trains are classified. Maybe "westbound" is legacy term that PRR used to describe the 37 tracks in question?). I was hoping there would be more detail as to what specific trains were handled by which facilities (ie, Enola, Harrisburg, and Greencastle yards) in the Harrisburg area.

conrailsharedassets wrote:There is no doubt NS is/has been experiencing some "issues", but nothing out of the ordinary for all North American Railroads at this point. MAJOR congestion, particular in Freight classification yards has been the norm as of late, as has motive power and crew shortages. With the decline in Oil shipments, this has eased up a bit but is still prevalent. NS for one has been making a valiant effort to correct both with acquiring quite a bit of power recently and putting the rebuilding programs into over drive. The amount of T&E people being hired, promoted and trained is very impressive as well. Particularly in the Harrisburg Division where terminals like Harrisburg and Binghamton have been hiring by the dozens.

Although things were pretty rough over the winter months on the Harrisburg Division, operations have "normalized" quite nicely and trains are running pretty consistently now but yards (particularly Enola and Conway) remain congested at best. Time will tell how much of a wrench (if any) the D&H acquisition throws into things. I have a suspicion it will be a bit rough the first quarter NS owns the D&H, but that they will get the hang of things and get all the wrinkles ironed out pretty quickly. One must remember the near disaster they will be inheriting from CP on the D&H Southend.

Jim Cerulli

Agreed. Perhaps the transition will go smoothly if NS takes minor, measured actions initially (eg, preserves for awhile the current set of NS and CP trains blocking and handling) but makes Taylor Yd more fluid with additional local opps and streamlines Binghamton ops (eg, 30T/31T could be recrewed at East Binghamton avoiding a backup move from the current NS office at Chenango St). And perhaps 12T/13T would handle Taylor intermodals between Bison Yard and Taylor yard avoiding any time/track consuming set-outs/pick-ups at Binghamton. If it were my model RR, that's how I would start!