WATCO Ithaca Central operator of NS Ithaca Secondary

[Matt Langworthy]

After several years of rumors, it looks like the Ithaca Secondary will get a new operator soon. Watco is advertising for a conductor job in Ithaca.

From the glassdoor.com website:

Location: Ithaca, New York (US-NY) 14850

This position requires a current FRA Conductor / Engineer Certification. The engineer/conductor position will be to control and coordinate the train movements while switching railcars whether in the yard of a railroad, industrial plant, or similar location to facilitate the unloading and loading of railcars in a safe and efficient manner to service our customers.

I do not not know if NS will lease just part or all of the Ithaca Secondary to Watco. This will be interesting to watch. For those of you not familiar with Watco, they operate 32 shortlines across the US and Australia.

[lvrr325]

Boy that's strange they've broken that line up to three operators. I suppose it's just who bid the most for it? But seems like it would be cheaper for the Lehigh Railway to operate it.

[Matt Langworthy]

I know an employee of the Lehigh Railway and he told me 3 years ago that his employer was definitely interested in leasing the Ithaca Secondary. Watco seems to be a good operator, but it would have been interesting to see what LHRY would have dome with the line.

[pumpers]

Boy that's strange they've broken that line up to three operators.

Who's the 3rd operator after Lehigh Railway and Watco. Are you referring to the Reading and Northern (south of Lehigh Railway)? Not sure what they own vs. lease on the LV main, and if they lease, from whom.

[lvrr325]

They control the former LV from Lehighton to Mehoopany, owing it from at least Lehighton to Wilkes-Barre as NS and CP used portions of it via trackage rights. There's a section where RBMN owns one track while Conrail and later NS retained the second track. IIRC they were unhappy they were unable to pick up from Mehoopany to Sayre after buying the Towanda-Monroeton line with plans to haul fracking sand.

I can't imagine an Ithaca Secondary takeover be anything but run the entire line, it wouldn't make much sense to make Ithaca the interchange point.

[Matt Langworthy]

NS was rather upset with CR for selling the former LV south of Mehoopany to the R&N in 1996. It has created a bottleneck in operations between Bingo and Allentown.

Getting back to the original subject, I'd be interested in knowing when the new operation will start, as well as the name of the shortline.

[thebigham]

I hope Watco gets some Alcos for their new shortline.

That's what I always think and then some EMD/GE units show up. lol

[lvrr325]

Watco will almost certainly have EMDs here.

FWIW, the hot rumor about 1994 when NS made a takeover bid for Conrail then, was that they would reroute all the Tier traffic to the LV route, because it was the shortest. Apparently this went as far as staging welded rail trains to drop rail and begin a rehab once the takeover was approved. Which of course never happened.

Has NS ever upgraded the former LV main? The portion that had been the LV Ithaca branch got upgraded with welded rail and was a reasonably smooth ride, but the jointed rail up to Van Etten was rough, it was like being out to sea.

[sd80mac]

FWIW, the hot rumor about 1994 when NS made a takeover bid for Conrail then, was that they would reroute all the Tier traffic to the LV route, because it was the shortest.

probably the shortest but I don't think it would be the fastest.. too much zig-zag. just looked at the map..

[nydepot]

Is this basically salt and that's it?

[Matt Langworthy]

Yes, the current traffic is just salt. However, my contact at the Lehigh Railway indicated there are other potential customers on the line... whom he did not name. Given the track record of Class 1s (including NS and CSX) with growing local service in recent decades, his statement didn't surprise me.

[Matt Langworthy]

Watco will almost certainly have EMDs here.

Agreed. There are alot more used EMDs than Alcos these days and the latter does require a specialized skill set to maintain. Watco has been an EMD operation throughout its history. Among other things, they did have an ex-EL GP35 on their roster, although that went to the scrapper a year or two ago.

FWIW, the hot rumor about 1994 when NS made a takeover bid for Conrail then, was that they would reroute all the Tier traffic to the LV route, because it was the shortest. Apparently this went as far as staging welded rail trains to drop rail and begin a rehab once the takeover was approved. Which of course never happened.

It was 1996 because the NS and CSX were in the midst of their fight for Conrail. NS's management was so incensed by the sale that they made sure the CR transition team (which came aboard a short time later) froze any further sales of railroad lines.

[TrainDetainer]

Miliken Station closed or converted to gas? When?

[johnpbarlow]

From Ithaca.com of July 2018: "Lansing power plant to re-power with natural gas"

https://www.ithaca.com/news/tompkins_co ... f4ca3.html

[thebigham]

I was just joking about Watco getting Alcos. Jeez.