Typical Chessie power on coal trains to Rochester?

Agreed although the Silver Lake trackage lasted long enough to see GP7/9's as substitute power.

Here is a coal train at Gainesville in May 1980. There are about a dozen freight cars added to the head end, but it is essentially a coal train with 5 units.
The rear end of this train, including the caboose, derailed coming down the hill at Silver Springs.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/85501582@ ... 244326914/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

C2629 wrote:There was an occasional SD that made its way to Rochester, but not to often. I was told by an engineer that they were not supposed to be run up to Rochester due to the track conditions.

As a boy in the late 70s/early 80s, I remember seeing Chessie EMD 4 axle locomotives on the Belt Line. I also remember 4 axle Conrail EMD/GE units on their parallel Belt Line. Would they have used 4 axle units for the same reason?

NYC/PC/CR always used 4-axle power on local (Belt) trains. Usually unit trains had a requirement for 4-axle power only, due to issues on the wye at Charlotte, learned the hard way in various instances. However, 6 axle units DID show up on unit trains. IIRC there were various orders saying 6 axle power was not to be taken around the wye, and also there were times when big units were cut off the train and 4-axle units (State Street power, maybe?) was used to yard the train.

In the early 70’s a PC unit train for Kodak came in with some PC units and two Cotton Belt six axle GE’s. Going a little off the subject but it gives a little insight about 6 axle units on the B&O. One Sunday morning Feb. 1977, there were two C&NW units at the CR Rochester engine house, a GP30 and an SD45. The yardmaster wanted to put that power on the salt train to P&L but couldnt do it because of the SD45 which was not supposed to go down the B&O.

Mike Stellpflug wrote:Here is a coal train at Gainesville in May 1980. There are about a dozen freight cars added to the head end, but it is essentially a coal train with 5 units.
The rear end of this train, including the caboose, derailed coming down the hill at Silver Springs.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/85501582@ ... 244326914/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Fantastic shot, Mike -- love those colorful lash-ups!

Charlie

The Silver Lake Subdivision (official B&O title per ETT) was abandoned effective 4:00 P.M. Monday July 2, 1973.

The last trip on the line was on June 28, 1973, this per the B&O Silver Springs freight agent.

The last car out of Perry was Penn Central 130343, a box car.

Photographed operations on the line a couple times, but missed that last move.

So what was the details behind no 6-axle on the Rochester sub but it was allowed on the Buffalo line? Weight restrictions someplace? Rail weight? Curves?

Crews told me they were not allowed on account of the tight curves at Rock Glen.

Rock Glen has a 5 degree 39 minute curve. Seems to be the worst on the branch. The Buffalo line has 2 6+ degree curves near Hoyts. I'm not a track engineer so I don't know everything used to compute what engines get to go where.

I have a Chessie ETT for the Pennsylvania Division. Timetable 3, effective July 1, 1980.

With the exception of a handful of industrial sidings, there are no locomotive restrictions on either the 3rd Sub (Buffalo), or the 4th Sub (Rochester)

There are other subdivisions (e.g. Salisbury Sub, S&C Sub; there may be others), that specifically state "6 axle engines" "Must not operate on" "Entire SD". However, no such restrictions for Buffalo or Rochester subdivisions.

JR

I went through Mike Z's BR&P V1 today and found s-axle on the R&S (lessor SD40-2 and CP/SOO power) so it was able to run north of Silver Springs during R&S time. Maybe it was just a preference.