CSX Charlotte Runner

Thank you Mr. Smith!
Until I recently retired, while working in the White City area, once in a while I could hear the horns blowing for the grade crossing. There were times when I would hear it almost every day and then nothing for weeks.
I know why I haven't heard much last summer with the tie replacements on the West Yard. Which makes me wonder how they did the switching and run around though it has been explained here ( I think) that there is room between Kodak and R&S to do so.
Need to get away from FaceBook and start checking out these forums again.
Nice to know I will still get email notification whenever there is a posting on this Charlotte Runner thread!
Chris

Great photos, Chris......I have been very much enjoying your photos, thank you!

Charlie

Here are a few shots I took along the Runner on 5/1/13. Heading north was GP40-2 #6092, and the power ran
around in the West Yard. GP38-2 #2576 led on the way back to Goodman St. I should go back again and get more shots
now that the foliage is shedding.









If you look closely, you can see the very bottom of the still extant bridge that carried the Dock Branch over the Charlotte Branch.

It used to be a lot more fun at age 15, inside an empty hopper about 60 cars back from the 4 RS1's, and 25 cars ahead of the wooden caboose! Walk from Dewey Avenue to almost Charlotte, ride up to about Emerson Street, and walk back home.

BR&P wrote:It used to be a lot more fun at age 15, inside an empty hopper about 60 cars back from the 4 RS1's, and 25 cars ahead of the wooden caboose! Walk from Dewey Avenue to almost Charlotte, ride up to about Emerson Street, and walk back home.

Those were the days, I'm sure. Obviously if someone tries that now, they won't have to walk because they'll
get a free ride in a police car!

Charlie

Back in the mid 60's, Monday through Saturday, if you started walking north from Dewey Ave. early afternoon, the odds were very favorable that you would come upon the southbound first belt from Charlotte with the type of train BR&P described. Today, it would be much less probable, and today there would never be the Alcos or the wooden caboose.

You guys are making me dig ...

It would probably look like this:

Chris, looking at your shot Im thinking 1966 or 1967 ? I think the RS 1's were renumbered into the 9900's in 1966.

Yes, as good a guess as any until I dig out the prints (the photo was scanned from the original negative). The oldest photos I have are from 1965 when the RS1s were numbered in the 8100s, so sure, let's go with 1966-1967. Note the Barnard Service & Supply Company property to the right and the fancy gas pump with the porcelain globe. Wonder who's basement that's in?

Here's the only other photo I have of Barnard Service - luckily it's in color and shows the gas pump from the front. The caboose is NYC 19030. 1967 shot (confirmed).

Wow, fabulous.........things sure are a lot different today!

Man, some great stuff there CPS!

Some random notes:

Both those shots are looking more or less north. The Barnard depot is on the south side of Dewey Ave, east of the tracks. At one time the house track went east of the depot, crossed Dewey Ave and rejoined the main just beyond where the caboose is. Eventually the track was severed at the road, with the portion south of Dewey being used as a spur for Nichols Wyman Lumber (who owned the depot at that time).

The part on the north side presumably served that oil distributor altho I don't recall seeing cars in there. The switch was torn up in the big wreck in ...1960? - (C2629 can help me out there) and was never replaced.

Not that anybody probably knew him, but I believe at the time of the caboose pic the First Belt conductor was Sammy Sabin. He smoked those twisted little cigars, they used to call them Dago Ropes, and man were they foul-smelling! The caboose was assigned to the job, so if the regular man laid off a day, or got bumped by a more senior man, the caboose stayed the same.

When a caboose was being replaced by a different one, it was the usual practice to put both the old and new cabooses on the train for a day or two to allow the conductor time to transfer all his personal stuff from one to the other.

Thanks for digging up those photos!

-otto-

This link has some good pictures of the Electric Avenue bridge before it was taken down.

http://www.uer.ca/locations/show.asp?locid=21404" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Benjamin Maggi wrote:This link has some good pictures of the Electric Avenue bridge before it was taken down.

http://www.uer.ca/locations/show.asp?locid=21404" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That's really neat, thank you!!!

Charlie

I was able to get out this afternoon and spend a little while trackside. I went over to West Avenue near the old
GRS plant area and figured to stay a couple hours and see what I could find. After an Amtrak eastbound went through
around 2:20 (it was long, for passengers' sake I hope it wasn't the Lake Shore Limited! ), I heard local B766 on the
Charlotte Runner call the dispatcher and say they were ready to come back to Goodman Street. Permission was granted
and they were off. I decided to head over to Jay Street and see if I could catch them coming through the wye where
the Falls Branch/Charlotte Branch split.

I sat in my car nearby in the parking area of the business park and waited to hear them blow for the crossings at
Lyell Ave. and Hague St. After maybe 10 mins or so, the crossing protection activated and I flew out of my car. I
got there just in time to realize it was a shove-move, which makes sense but I was totally unprepared for!