Trains on CSX St. Lawrence Sub (CR's Montreal Secondary)

Mandy Saxo wrote:What happened to the person named "Roadster" that used to post on this thread years ago? I believe he was an engineer.

He's still around and on Facebook - looks like he left CSX and now works for the LAL (guessing retired from CSX and enjoying an easier schedule with the LAL). No idea why he isn't posting on RR.net anymore though. I always enjoyed his posts.

Nessman, thanks for the reply. I enjoyed his posts too from his boots on the ground perspective. Lots of people have gone to FB from other boards that I peruse too.

Coal and coke trains to Fort Drum have been gone for quite a few years, since 2008 or 2009, the power plant on base retooled itself for woodchips. Military trains have reduced in frequency as well.

Actually saw a military train outbound late last week.

Rehab work in progress on the Carthage to Newton Falls line.
http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/news ... d-20160219" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
See my post on the Genesee Valley short line board also.

Local news source, NorthCountryNow.com, has photo of wind turbine blades going north
through Potsdam with two Union Pacific units powering the train. Will be turned over to
the New York and Ogdensburg at Norwood. The towers themselves arriving by ship at the
Port of Ogdensburg.

Ironically, I first heard about that train from two non-railroad sources.

Saw one headed out of Watertown a few years ago. Very impressive.

Is there actually still a surviving coaling tower up here, as Wikipedia claims?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaling_t ... ted_States" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Been around Malone Junction several times which would seem to be the obvious location, and while there's several interesting structures there, I never saw what looked like a coaling tower.

When you go to the lat/long given at the end of the line for Malone on the wiki, satellite view on Google shows a coal tower seemingly made of concrete. It's in the woods.

Based on what little one can discern from the satellite image, I'd opine that it's far enough off the road to avoid casual observation and may not be visible at all when the leaves are on the trees.

Further, it appears to be more of a silo than the coaling towers (above and astride the tracks) featured in the recent issue of Trains.

When I change from satellite view to topo in Acme Mapper, it shows that it was clearly alongside the NYC yard north of the junction.

I should've scrolled a little bit to the right. I missed the coordinates.

Using the birds eye perspective at Bing, it definitely didn't have tracks going under it. Still neat that it survives though.

I bicycled past that in October of 2001. It's "just" a silo. Could have had a chute and elevator to carry coal out to the trains. Do you want me to go get a shot of it from the ground?

Leo_Ames wrote:Still neat that it survives though.

With the recent feature on on coaling towers in a national magazine, it appears that the thought on concrete coaling towers is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." As long as they don't pose a threat to the railroad, they'll probably outlast us all. Definitely built to last.

A picture would be interesting, Russ, when you happen down that way. I'd suspect that any steel involved in moving the coal (loaders, chutes, etc) didn't make it past WW2, if that long.

I'd like to visit it soon, but sure, I'd love to see some close-up pictures. Especially if I don't manage to get there any time soon, which likely would be the case.

Why would the steel have been gone at such an early date? This line was quite active at least until the cessation of service on the Rutland (For instance, as I understand it, a lot of the New York Central's traffic before the Rutland died avoided Massena and left the Central's route that survives to this day at Norwood and traveled via trackage rights to Malone before continuing North). And dieselization didn't come to the Central's operations in the North Country until 1950 or so.

Did something else eliminate the need for a coaling tower on the Central at Malone Junction?

Leo_Ames wrote:Why would the steel have been gone at such an early date?

I'm guessing at the date - but a lot of steel went into the war effort. Even if it survived the war, the steel would be relatively easy pickings in terms of "cashing in" on its salvage value.

Another possibility to consider as to why that coaling tower may have been decommissioned earlier is the NYS law that mandated oil burners in the Adirondack forest, at least during the summer. I am totally reaching here, but it's not a stretch to imagine that NYC may have decided to use those oil burners (which require only a tank and a pump at refueling locations) exclusively, vice coal burners.

AFAIK, the Adirondack Division was the only place on the Central which used oil for steam locomotives. Getting rid of the apparatus necessary to handle the coal on this lesser-used line may have made sense, especially with the impending arrival of Diesels.