Trains on CSX St. Lawrence Sub (CR's Montreal Secondary)

clarify-

how many trains are running on St. Lawrence, prior to 192/3?

620/1
152/3
and local plus ft drums

I think coke and coal is no longer running.


And what will be running when 192/3 start to hit St. Lawrence? What will be replaced by 192/3? - 152/3?

What's 018?? I have not heard anything about 018

thanks

Q192 running through Little Ferry NJ means probably means via Philadelphia. I think the clearance project north of Philly is done, but just south of Philly this means no double-stacks of any sort I believe.

Current traffic on the St. Lawrence is Q620/621 and Q152/153, plus K533/K534 which are Alcoa bauxite ore trains (loads north, empties south), military vehicle trains as needed, coal and coke trains have been gone since 2008 or 2009 and will not be coming back as the power plant on base has switched to woodchips. Q192/Q193 will replace Q152/Q153, the intermodal traffic that was coming from and going to points east of DeWitt will now move on Q192/Q193. Q018 was previously an intermodal that ran from Bedford Park, IL to Syracuse, this train will now keep going all the way to Valleyfield, presumably all container traffic that was coming from the west including traffic from North Baltimore, OH will be handled by Q018, southbound container traffic may be all handled by Q193. Looks like all intermodals will operate on a five day a week schedule for now, Q620 and Q621 will probably remain running daily, no changes that I know of for the K trains.

Thanks.

Where did ore train comes from? I have not seen ore trains in long time. I thought that CSX lost that contract as well.

Where do power plant get woodchips from?

Thanks for clear it up.

The last I knew, the bauxite trains (ALCOA) originated in Virginia where the product
was off-loaded from ships. It may be different now. In the Penn Central / early Conrail
days, the rotation was about every 14 days. That was for a 60 to 80 car train. For the power
generation plant at Fort Drum, the wood chips are brought in by truck. One of our local
(St. Lawrence County based) "big time" harvesters, takes 10 to 15 tractor trailer loads PER DAY
to the place. That of course does not count all of the others who are hauling chips in there.
Recently, there were a few articles in the local papers where there are those who are questioning
the sustainability of the "renewables" used there.

There are those who feel that the price of firewood has risen in the area because of the demand for wood chips for the generator at Drum.

Some even claim that the suppliers, who are supposed to be using offcut (trimmings, etc) to get the wood chips are actually shredding whole trees instead.

The ore trains are unit trains of older covered hoppers, CSX, Alcoa in various schemes, and some others (leasers), I've seen all variety of pre-CSX schemes go up. Possible you've seen one and didn't realize it.

covered hoppers! no wonder! When they say ore, I was thinking of ore cars.. LOL... Now I will keep my eye open for that train.. how often do they go by?

thanks!!

joha107 wrote:Current traffic on the St. Lawrence is Q620/621 and Q152/153, plus K533/K534 which are Alcoa bauxite ore trains (loads north, empties south), military vehicle trains as needed,

No local?

I know of at least one local that runs from Massena to Canton and back. They service
the big Poulin Grain feed plant on the north side of Canton, possibly some work
at the Potsdam Paper Mill. Not sure if they still drop-off / pick-up cars in Norwood
for the New York and Ogdensburg Railroad, or, if the road trains do that work.
Can't think of the local's number. They operate it "push / pull" fashion since the
runaround track was removed in Canton.

One poster commented on the speculation of the wood harvesters using "good" trees
for chipping instead of "garbage" trees - as is supposed to be used. I too have heard
those thoughts, and, fear they might be true in some instances.

Massena has a couple, B787 runs overnight and B785 runs during the day, I believe Beauharnois has 2 or 3 locals, B778 handles everything out of Watertown, Woodard has at least one local.

First Q192 is reported to be on it's way north out of Syracuse, if anyone sees it I'd love to know what the car count was like, first Q018 made it to Massena early this morning.

It has been posted here that the new intermodals will re-crew at Massena before
continuing on to Canada. How does this work with the current intermodals, do they
re-crew in Massena as well? Do the current crews start out of DeWitt? Can anyone
tell me how many crews now work out of Massena? Thanks in advance.

joha107.....the two Massena locals you listed.....which one is the local to Canton,
and, is it the "overnight" run?

The Q192 is now north of Watertown. Leading is CSX 5311 and has only this unit. Train looks the same as the Q152, About 30 well cars in front and Freight in back. Total is about 45-50 cars overall.

The Q018 passed Locona around 9 last nite, not much of a train only had 20 axles on the Richland detector.