Connecticut Southern (CSOR) Discussion

Well, the reason for restoring the Midland line would just be purely for as a through route, not for any traffic destined for Willimantic. It could be in the favor of the G&W so they can connect with the NECR. Since there's still no way to get east of the P&W's Norwich line, the interchange traffic really wouldn't be east/west, unless they hashed something out to have the P&W run more freights between Groton and Providence. Going the Midland way would mean you only would have to deal with the Mystic River movable bridge. I don't really see the traffic ever necessitating this, though. With the NECR, however, they have access to State Pier down in New London, which the state of CT is really trying to reinvigorate into being a much larger hub than it is now. If things really take off after both the NECR line and State Pier gets upgraded, maybe you would have a reason to rebuild the Midland line to Willimantic. I can't imagine the trail folk would be very happy with that, though.

I just can't see the Midland coming back either, not even as a through route. It would be easier for P&W to work out trackage rights with NECR for the small bit they would need to get to- *ponders* uuuhhh... come to think of it, you can't get to Hartford that way....
*Sigh* I guess ya' just can't get there from there. Not without going over CSX, and that being the case, I'd say that anything bound to or from New Haven or Hartford would go over CSX to get there, so, uuuhhh.... guess there's not much reason for the Midland that way either.
The only real motivation would be, as stated, to bypass the NEC, and there's only just so much point to that. P&W serves New Haven, Worcester, and New London, bit it's all from the North or NW. They COULD get to Hartford on the Valley Line, but where then? The only reason now for going there would be for traffic to/from New Haven, and unless they start delivering coal or autoracks to PONH, there isn't much I can see that would go that way. I imagine anything coming from Bell Docks is short-hauled by P&W over to CSX now anyway.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, though, I welcome the input.

The only reason to restore the Midland or some facsimile of it is passenger service. CDOT stringing the Manchester Secondary back to Willimantic means they get instantaneous shot at Hartford-New London commuter rail with stop at Mohegan Sun and campus shuttle bus -distance stop to UConn. And that is admittedly a very attractive prospect X passenger priorities down the line when they settle up the biggies: Hartford Line, Metro North Danbury extension to New Milford, Hartford-Waterbury commuter rail...maybe even some initial Hartford-Manchester DMU shuttle service planting the flag on the Manchester Sec. for purposes of I-84 park-and-ride, Buckland Hills access, Manchester + East Hartford downtown service.

Upside is legit by any measure, and of course if passenger leads it by the nose it's duh-obvious what the NECR/CSOR and P&W freight upsides and freight revenue-generating upsides are. It's just, as shown above, probably #4 or #5 on the CDOT passenger expansion bucket list. It's an aggressive bucket list so I have no doubt we'll get there eventually, but it'll be 20 years before there's anything to talk about here.


Only change I could see is Hartford-Willimantic-Providence's inclusion on Amtrak's 2040 Superduper Inland HSR study map. Unlike the Danbury-Hartford inland leg that's probably flat-out impossible to build, a 125 MPH-upgraded Springfield Line + Eastern CT bypass are very much buildable as Shoreline NEC bypasses. Which is why that segment is included in most of the study permutations. In the case of the Midland there would be straighter options than the verbatim landbanked ROW if they dusted off the most recent 2003 plans for the I-384 expressway extension and used that to grade a high-speed compatible railbed between Bolton Notch and Willimantic. The '03 highway proposal--which was briefly a candidate for the Bush Admin's federal fast-track approval--did gain community approval at long last (after 40 years of trying) for the north-of-Hop River alignment. The Army Corps of Engineers instead favored a south-of-Hop alignment that took a few private properties. Community deadlocked again, and the Feds had to quickly pass it over for the highway bill at the time so there was not really any opportunity to sit down and resolve those last blockers. Given how *extremely* close they came to finally getting 384 approved a dozen years ago, it is a plausible scenario to revisit that most recent plan for a rail line.

So stay tuned. If that Amtrak plan continues to be a thing for advancing the studies this segment of the line is one of the easier builds to front-load on account of being able to recycle a lot of prior final-stages DOT planning. Perhaps even with the build pre-dating actual Amtrak participation by 1-2 decades and just starting out for CDOT commuter rail and freight as a conventional-speed East Hartford-Bolton Notch + new alignment + existing NECR upgradeable to higher speed later.

I wouldn't expect that to be a serious thing we can talk about in less than 15 years either, but there are pot-sweetener considerations at the federal level for restoring that link. And it's possible there'd be a whole new alignment that it would go on after Bolton Notch. So never say never. Never say it's not a serious thing that could become reality. Do say it's an absolute zero for evolving current conditions, because any way you slice it it's just too far outside of practical planning timeframe for us to guess with dartboard's accuracy the what and when of future considerations here.

Does anyone knows if Prestige Industrial Park in East Hartford still have rail service? Also, does United Structural Steel have rail service, too. When I lived in East Hartford, there was a siding to serve some old industries at Prestige Industrial and United Structural (after Republic Steel closed) did have some rails (Before United opened, my friend and I walked the old rails .

United Steel definitely does not get rail service; while the spurs that used to service it still exist in the woods, they aren't connected to the main track anymore, and the tracks are completely gone inside the parts of the land United Steel actually uses.

As for the rest of the industrial park, I'm not sure. One of the two switches to get into the tracks servicing there was cut in the last couple of years, but it was redundant anyways. Bushes definitely has been starting to grow up around the tracks at the beginning of the loop that goes to most of the serviceable industries, so I'm pretty sure that there hasn't been any traffic there in a number of years. Northrop Grumman is the only customer that I think could be served, but I don't know if they actually have been; that is something someone else is gonna have to answer. That being said, little work would need to be done to service these industries (excluding United Steel), so at least the door is open should a customer pop up.

Yesterday I saw CSOR 4 being put together at W. Springfield yard, a good size train left on track 4. Power was the CSO 2021w followed by the NE Central 3855e and CSX 6230w. Can anyone tell me where they were going where they'd be dropping cars or doing any work. And if it's customary to have a CSX engine trailing (unless it was going to be dropped and used somewhere else) although if it was coming back east it would be LHF unless the power was wyed at that last location. I'm used to seeing CSOR 1 going east from the yard then south to Hartford, but have no idea about this job going westbound. Thank you to those who reply to my question.

Don

I had been driving alongside a CSO train going northbound in Wallingford yesterday around ~5:45PM, led by a NECR-paint unit, and followed by a G&W unit and CSX unit. Mostly hoppers.

North by Wallingford? well that would mean that they shuffled all three of the engines around to get the NE Central to lead. But, I'm still in question as to how far they went and where they went. I'm not at all familiar with CSOR's operations and they symbols.
Are you sure it was the NE Central 3855 in the lead as well?

While I'm not sure it was NECR 3855, I am sure there was NECR engine at the lead; the CSX unit was trailing, and the G&W unit was in-between. I don't know if the G&W hailed from CSO or NECR, however. (Wish I could've snapped a photo of it. Was able to be more-or-less along side it for about a mile, and gain about 1000 feet headway on it, but there was just no way I was going to be able to get far enough ahead of it to pull over, get out camera, and take a photo.)

What could have changed things around was whatever they did in Hartford's yard, which operationally is their hub; trains run Cedar Hill <-> Hartford or Hartford <-> Springfield. They interchange with NECR on the B&A Mainline near Springfield's Union Station sometimes, as well, which might also have potentially changed ordering. I myself am only partially familiar with their operations, so I don't have any definite answers.

Ok...but.......I just read your explanation. But what doesn't make sense is that they went west from W.Springfield not south towards Hartford as CSOR1 does. I'm just guessing but I would think that the CSOR may also have other NEC engines that they use as well ? The direction is what throws me off, they were heading towards Selkirk and not south to Connecticut. Hopefully others will read this thread and be able to give us both an answer.

First, I haven't seen their operations for some time now but in the past this is how things were done and it sounds like it hasn't changed that much. So with that in mind, looks can be deceiving. On the east side of the river there is no connection for a train going east from the yard to directly go south on the Spfd line. So for a train to go from West Springfield to Hartford it will have to reverse, or shove it's train east across the river, past the station and up the grade east of the station, then it can proceed to the southbound connection to the Springfield line south to Hartford. That's why the engines were on the west end of the train in the West Springfield yard, so they would be in position to head south after shoving east across the river. As for the CSX engine, CSO puts them in the consist to shuttle them between W. Spfd. and Cedar Hill when they are either going to, or from Selkirk for service.

SJT thanks for your imput with my question. It does make sense especially where I wasn't able to stay around to watch them leave. I'm surprised that with the length of the train that shoving cars that far would be the practical way of doing it.
Never seeing CSOR1 leave W. SP. yard either it now looks like it's not only the most probable way but the only way to make the move. So, let me ask you this. When a CSOR freight is on the approach past the basketball Hall of Fame enroute to W.Sp. yard they would go east towards the Station (using the same route as the commuter trains take) and back their whole train west to an open track in the W. Sp. yard ?
Not being familiar with the CSX operations in that part of the State I do appreciate your help trying to clear this up.

Yes, trains from Htfd to W Spfd will first get permission from the dispatcher to head east on the B&A, then shove their train west to the yard. I can remember a few times where they needed more then one track to spot their train, so they would back onto one track to spot x number of cars, then pull up to switch to another track for the rest. This procedure got them in trouble one time. After making the first cut and pulling east the train suddenly stopped as it was dumping air. The engineer called back to say he was loosing air. They had to get the CSX yard switcher to pull the train back into the yard. As the cars were going past the conductor he found out what happened. The drawbar was pulled out of one of the cars. OOPS!!!

FYI, CSO finishing up on middle crossing in Manchester CT on Tolland Turnpike by Rte 291. They pulled out all the rubber mats and now have gone to black top for this crossing. Not sure if they will also do the next crossing heading East as that one is in so-so shape at this point. So far they have spent three days on this one crossing in the middle. Should be more durable as these crossings get lots of traffic, including many trucks.

There are six box cars parked in Manchester yard today, the most I have seen in 10 years. They are all for the Brick Co. and they were unloading three of them at this time. Not sure what the uptick in car loads is all about but it sure looks good in that small yard.