Southern Tier - West of Binghamton

If NS is combining trains that were already decently long, you better believe they are rerouting or shunning a lot of the traffic that was on those trains. With the downgrade of Allentown yard, some of the traffic will definitely be gone off the line.

what is the news on downgrading Allentown yard more specifically?
The railroads may eventually see operational advantages to having PTC installed; moreover, the price of future PTC installations may drop precipitously, once the required installations are completed.

Allentown hump is being shut down. The yard will be flat switching only. Many trains that once originated or terminated there are now going to Enola.

After dropping my boat off for winter storage, I headed over to Letchworth State Park. A relatively nice day even though leaves are a bit past peak.

Of course I headed up to the RR bridge as I haven't had a close up view since its been built. My first reaction was how many people were walking on it. More than the old bridge in my opinion. The interesting thing I noticed, is that there is no "walking platform" on the bridge. Just rails and ballast. People were either walking on the ballast, in-between the rails or on the rails......or just sitting on them. Does NS and its crews take this into consideration as to what speed to cross?

This picture also includes a small rock slide at the far left of the pic. Just below the Middle Falls, a large slide is evident almost all the way to the top. This looks "new" as compared to when I crossed it 15 years ago [no pic].


Having already walked across the old bridge and also the Steam Locomotive a few years ago, I decided not to walk on the new one. To many people on it plus no smooth area to walk. So I walked the original ROW of the old bridge. The new bridge appears to be quite a sturdy build. Something like giant oak trees as compared to match sticks.


What's really funny about this set up in regards to keeping people off the bridge, did anybody really think that the current fencing [just like it was before] would stop people from walking around it? They should have included a walking platform in the design of the bridge and collected an access fee for people who want to walk on it. Which there are a lot.

The bike path out of Ridgeway, Pa, the Western Maryland Railway in Cumberland, MD and Jim Thorpe Railway ALL have paths that butt up against the active rail. I've rode my bike on all three. Why couldn't they foresee this. People are so interested in this that the parking lot is WAY to small for all the cars parking there. 30 cars were parked on the side of the road just so they could walk on the bridge.

Not incorporating a walkway in the original design for people to walk on safely was a mistake. But we all know that stupid people are stupid no matter what and someone is going to get hurt whether the walkway is there or not.

On a more positive note, this picture is my favorite. I was able to catch a colorful scene before the clouds blocked the sun.

A nasty derailment happened on Norfolk Southern's Pittsburgh Line just east of Greensburg, PA this afternoon,
involving 3 separate trains. Both mains are blocked, and it looks like there will be at least three eastbound trains
on the Southern Tier Line tomorrow. One train rear-ended another and a passing train got tangled up in the
process.

Thank goodness all the crews were okay.

Charlie

https://www.post-gazette.com/local/west ... 1911080143

The detours fizzled out. Maybe one if you’re lucky

Yeah, the tracks were back in service in very quick order. They didn't mess around.

Was PTC working here yet? One train running into another (on the same track) sounds like exactly what it is supposed to prevent.

A post in the Norfolk Southern forum says that PTC is not yet installed there but is in process. The line does have cab signals, but I don't know whether the locomotive had speed control. The NTSB report should make interesting reading when it comes out. All we know for sure is that the NTSB will say that PTC would have prevented it, and maybe it would have.

PTC will not prevent a collision when operating at restricted speed as long as you're operating under 20mph. PTC will prevent stop signal violations, speed enforcement and authority limits in dark territory.

I think that the PTC is only up to Silver Spring, from Buffalo, due to the amount of volume.

I know there's no specific schedule but does anyone know what trains/symbols run thru Hornell and their approximate times? Thanks in advance.

With Hoosac Tunnel still closed due to cave-in, there should be 4 daily road freights through Hornell:
- Eastbound 206 IM/auto train to Mechanicville in the early evening
- Westbound 205 IM/auto train from Mechanicville in the afternoon
- Eastbound 310 manifest train generally but not always before sunrise
- Westbound 309 manifest train generally but not always before sunrise

Plus extra frac sand unit trains operate as needed at any time. There have been occasional eb & wb auto rack trains that run on rare occasions due to the tunnel closure, as well. Prior to the tunnel closure there had also been eb 22K single stack/auto train to Ayer running before sunrise and wb 23K container train from Ayer typically running mid-day.

From what it sounds like, 22K and 23K are back but 205/206 are cut back to Buffalo.

I have to speculate that with the current regime at NS, PSR, downgrading Bellevue, Allentown shuttered and with only 4-6 trains a day currently, it is doubtful in my opinion, that NS would have rebuilt the bridge over Letchworth. The Patriot Corridor never really got more marketing and the Memphis Corridor never developed for north/south intermodal. My gut feeling is NS will try to start selling or looking for options to opt out of this area. They are in shrink mode only which is unfortunate