CR on the Southern Secondary

Train is still parked at Woodhaven as of 12:27 PM. No crew in sight. I assume SA31 will take it back later today.

I just started hearing EOT Device packets. As of 1500 Hrs, there is NO motion being indicated.

Clear tracks at Squankum Road. No further movements from the EOT?

Not sure if they leave the EOTD on the back of the train after the crew ties it down and leaves. I assume they don’t?

@ Bracdude181
From what I hear on the radio, and from what the data shows, they do indeed leave the EOT on until the battery charge runs too low. It powers back up and starts recharging the batteries once the air turbine starts operating.

Also, Packets are indicating the EOT device IS in motion. I'm also hearing some chatter on AAR Channel 50 (160.8600 MHz NFM)

An interesting side note:

When they have to flag a crossing, they drop some flares. In Lakewood, this invariably leads to someone from the area calling the fire department and claiming, "The street is on fire..."

I've heard Lakewood Fire Co. dispatched for that several times.

@cx4storm LOL I’ve seen them flag roads many times and the flares always freak people out. Flagging of roads is very common on the Southern Secondary nowadays as several crossings just don’t activate when the train comes anymore. Hamilton road especially, those lights haven’t worked in over a year!

It gives me a chuckle when I hear that too, but that's Lakewood.

@cx4storm Oh yeah it’s definitely a Lakewood thing believe that!!

When work was being done to the Shark River bridges on the NY&LB, a temporary crossover called "CP Sand" was installed just north of the Bradley Beach station, as the repairs caused the operation to one track. A snow storm came with plenty of ice, and a fire was kept burning at the switch points at "Sand". Call after call came in about a fire burning on the tracks. Keep 'em guessing!

SA-31 returning to Browns, lined and locked at Church at 8:04 in the pm.

At least it didn’t take too terribly long to get back this time. I’d imagine the crew is under pressure to get the engines back ASAP. Not that I’d be in rush to drive 4421 without killing its roach nest though lol.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 8:21 pm At least it didn’t take too terribly long to get back this time. I’d imagine the crew is under pressure to get the engines back ASAP. Not that I’d be in rush to drive 4421 without killing its roach nest though lol.

Just curious about why roaches would pick a locomotive to invade. Not much food, I would think. I'm not a bug expert and I know that roaches seem to be born pregnant and you will have thousands in a short time, but what would attract that first one? Rats on a ship, yes, but cockroaches on a locomotive?

4421 for the upcoming Halloween express?

@GSC Roaches prefer to live in dark, humid spaces with a high temperature. They will eat about anything they can get their hands on, not that they need much food to begin with.

Also, roaches in an engine is indeed something you don’t see every day. I can say we’ve almost come full circle now. We’ve had engines come down with all sorts of weird quirks and filled with contaminates. We’ve even had engines contaminated with human waste come down this track! What’s next, an engine with no windows and doors?

Something a bit unrelated but it may come up in the near future.

Lately CSX has been renumbering some of their GP40-2 (which usually comes down on 31)

However it hasn’t effected the Conrail engines yet.

I don’t know why CSX is renumbering some of their engines but it would be nice to know why

NJTMonmouthCoastline wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 10:33 pm Something a bit unrelated but it may come up in the near future.

Lately CSX has been renumbering some of their GP40-2 (which usually comes down on 31)

However it hasn’t effected the Conrail engines yet.

I don’t know why CSX is renumbering some of their engines but it would be nice to know why

My guess would be with the GP40-2 pool being so fragmented from upgrades to GP40-3 and the scraping of GP40-2's
CSX has lost a block of engine numbers in the 4400-4499 with only 30 something engines taking 100 spots! Knowing that the GP40-3 numbers run into the GP39-2's from the Reading/D&H They most likely need a block of numbers for somthing, and a very small block for the GP40-2's that remain today, about 30. It would be wiser to change the smaller amount then fragment a larger amount?