Carload traffic to New England: NS v. CSX

Observations from my personal sightings and listening to NS/NYS&W Binghamton Broadcastify channel:

1. CSX: From my frequent sightings at Ayer, I see that CSX seems to deliver daily SEPO trains to PAR at Worcester that often run to 100 cars of empty paper box cars, loaded LPG tank cars, empty centerbeam flats, etc. And while I don't see the RJED trains, from what I can tell, they also seem to have healthy consists of 50+/- cars (please correct me if I'm wrong).

2. NS is currently running a daily 14R from Enola to E Deerfield that generally departs Enola with 60-70 cars but then leaves about half of the cars at Binghamton (for Southern Tier/Buffalo/CP?) before proceeding northward as a 25 - 35 car freight of PAS (and sometimes Delanson) bound cars. I hear this info when 14R seeks permission onto the A&S line from the NS D&H dispatcher at CP-611 and reports engine #s, car counts, tonnage, and length. But yesterday I actually witnessed an overpowered (3 engines) 14R passing through Bainbridge with a 30+ car consist. I could be wrong but I don't think the other daily northward manifest train, 31T carries any PAS bound freight. Perhaps 14R fills out a bit with CP interchange for PAS at Mohawk but I'm guessing.

Net: my very unscientific observation is that CSX delivers 100-150 cars daily to Pan Am while NS may be delivering 30 +/-? Note: I'm assuming that empty car counts delivered to Pan Am become loaded car counts for POSE/EDRJ/11R. Net: CSX does more business in New England in containers, grain, and manifest freight than does NS but NS dominates in coal. And perhaps they're equal in terms of ethanol although I haven't heard of a CSX ethanol delivery to P&W in awhile. I'm just trying to understand NS' post-D&H acquisition freight traffic - Please correct me where I'm mistaken. Thanks in advance. Chow.

I haven't seen a chief's report in a long time but those numbers sound about right. By the time 14R comes into Deerfield with the Saratogas tacked on it is usually 50-60 cars.

A lot of those paper empties you see on SEPO used to go west loaded on POED and then EDRJ but now since the PAS/PAR split they all go via Barbers. Rotterdam traffic is almost exclusively non-Maine traffic.

An NS ethanol train went to the P&W at Gardner a couple days ago.

All in all I would say CSX maintains a large lead in New England carload traffic. NS is a "relative" newcomer, has a worse physical plant to deal with and only has 50% control, and is further from the larger cities.

SEPO out of Ayer this morning with 143 for Rigby...

newpylong wrote:Rotterdam traffic is almost exclusively non-Maine traffic.

Most of the traffic going through the Rotterdam interchange from/to CSX is bound for points on PAS. If CSX interchanges via Rotterdam for points east of CP-312, then they will have an additional waybill for PAS. If traffic is moving via CSX to PAR at Barber, then the extra waybill is not required.

This is certainly an undertaking....

My recommendations:

1.) Don't break down daily volumes, break down weekly. Railroads mostly track carloads per week as they've determined that to be their favorite metric. Also, schedules tend to be weekly. For example, POSE doesn't run Sunday or Thursday (At last count). Some jobs only run 2 or 3 time a week or extra as needed.

2.) Divide into lanes and PAR/PAS. Remember PAR is actually TWO seperate RRs (no matter how we operate it, reporting is ST and PAS). Luckily, each train could be seen as a lane, but even within trains you have a lot of different lanes. Probably the best way to do it is to break it up by State if you can. Think of it like this, for Maine 'lane', CSX has one interchange point (Barber) and NS has one. How many cars from Maine go CSX and how many go NS. Remember that some stay on system, and some go to CN. Then, how many for the Mass 'lane' go CSX (Rotterdam) and how many NS?

If all you want to know is how many cars go via NS and via CSX, who cares what happens once they leave property. If NS drops a lot at Bingo, it's still on NS. If you want to do more and know where they go after PAR/PAS, then I say good luck to you, talk to me in a few months when you're done.

CPF363 wrote:

newpylong wrote:Rotterdam traffic is almost exclusively non-Maine traffic.

Most of the traffic going through the Rotterdam interchange from/to CSX is bound for points on PAS. If CSX interchanges via Rotterdam for points east of CP-312, then they will have an additional waybill for PAS. If traffic is moving via CSX to PAR at Barber, then the extra waybill is not required.

The waybill is actually the smaller reason for the traffic shift, the larger reason is switching fees at Deerfield. It makes no sense to have to pass that on to customers when huge blocks are coming from CSX for Portland.

BTW a lot of Rotterdam traffic is still for PAR customers in MA and NH, which is why I said "Non-Maine." PAR has always wanted SEPO to be a through job as much as possible so they pay for PAS to switch the 495 cars in Deerfield.

CN9634 wrote:This is certainly an undertaking....

My recommendations:

1.) Don't break down daily volumes, break down weekly. Railroads mostly track carloads per week as they've determined that to be their favorite metric. Also, schedules tend to be weekly. For example, POSE doesn't run Sunday or Thursday (At last count). Some jobs only run 2 or 3 time a week or extra as needed.

2.) Divide into lanes and PAR/PAS. Remember PAR is actually TWO seperate RRs (no matter how we operate it, reporting is ST and PAS). Luckily, each train could be seen as a lane, but even within trains you have a lot of different lanes. Probably the best way to do it is to break it up by State if you can. Think of it like this, for Maine 'lane', CSX has one interchange point (Barber) and NS has one. How many cars from Maine go CSX and how many go NS. Remember that some stay on system, and some go to CN. Then, how many for the Mass 'lane' go CSX (Rotterdam) and how many NS?

If all you want to know is how many cars go via NS and via CSX, who cares what happens once they leave property. If NS drops a lot at Bingo, it's still on NS. If you want to do more and know where they go after PAR/PAS, then I say good luck to you, talk to me in a few months when you're done.

t

Ok but where does one get this data? I would enjoy wading through it (I'm retired!). All I have are anecdotal train car count data from ear/eye witnessing. I think the anecdotal data despite the inaccuracies you cite supports the basic contention that CSX is hauling much more Freight to/from PAR/PAS than is NS.

SEPO east out of Ayer with 100 today...