by poppyl
K4Pacific wrote:Here's one for you folks. Why would an Ithaca coal come up out of Harrisburg to Binghamton and then a Binghamton crew takes it to Elmira this morning run around the train to head east into Sayre. But that crew outlawed and the H12 crew which will have worked six 12s took to Sayre to yet run around it again to go to Ithaca? That's what I call a double run around. No WNYP. Could it have loaded on CSX in WV?I can see four possible scenarios for why the drag came via Binghamton. IMO, the least likely is CSX out of WV to NS at Hagerstown or Baltimore. Not a normal situation but the load may have been redirected from a regular CSX customer. Second scenario is the load originated in western VA, southern WVA, or Kentucky and came on NS via Roanoke, Front Royal, Hagerstown and Enola. Since most of this coal normally is for export through Norfolk this seems somewhat unlikely. Third scenario is PA coal originally sceduled through Enola to a regular NS customer but redirected. The fourth scenario is that NS wanted to see the impact of routing a shipment to Cayuga Lake by another route not involving the WNYP.
To me, the fourth scenario makes sense if NS is looking at traffic options involving Binghamton (witness the crew hiring, for example).
The apparent confusion may have been the result of the Binghamton crew not being qualified for the Ithaca Secondary which would lead me to believe that the drag was an extraordinary redirected load. Otherwise I would assume that NS would have positioned a qualified crew in Binghamton to make the transit to Cayuga Lake.
Do you know if this was the Somerset unit train or what mine the coal came from?
Poppyl