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

The fellow I'm talking about lives in the Syracuse area - his beat is Watertown.

Could that be a Mr. Winters ?

Mr. Winters is a track dept. foreman assigned to the Lyons Section. Their residence is kinda irrelevant. Just because someone is assign to a certain Maintainance section doesn't mean they have to live within it's designated borders. The St.Lawrence sub. begins at CP 291 and they also handle the B'ville sub, fairgrounds sub. and the Fulton Sub., Syracuse/Dewitt Yard is a hub for their offices and supllies, along with offices at Massena. Of the several maintainers assigned to this section, some live near and report to Syracuse, some live near and report to Massena. Winter is a busy time for maintainers, recent layoffs have reduced numbers and seniority bids force these people to get assigned to another section further from where they live.

Well, if a guy is on call 24/7 his residence has to be a factor in response time to an off-hours call, was my point. It just didn't make sense to me for CSX to be expecting to be able to call out one guy to have to drive 4 hours to make some repair up north. Most other jobs it doesn't matter much, at least one guy I know who's off now worked out of Utica originally and spent time since then at Selkirk and Dewitt over the years, had about an hour and a half drive either way.

What is the Fairgrounds Sub?

Flat-Wheeler wrote:Could that be a Mr. Winters ?

Nope. Mr. Brown. Unless he's moved.

On another note, it appears the spreader made an appearance at Evans Mills sometime Monday - definite difference between the time I crossed there on the way to work and on the way from....

roadster wrote:Mr. Winters is a track dept. foreman assigned to the Lyons Section. Their residence is kinda irrelevant. Just because someone is assign to a certain Maintainance section doesn't mean they have to live within it's designated borders. The St.Lawrence sub. begins at CP 291 and they also handle the B'ville sub, fairgrounds sub. and the Fulton Sub., Syracuse/Dewitt Yard is a hub for their offices and supllies, along with offices at Massena. Of the several maintainers assigned to this section, some live near and report to Syracuse, some live near and report to Massena. Winter is a busy time for maintainers, recent layoffs have reduced numbers and seniority bids force these people to get assigned to another section further from where they live.

Mr. Winter Retired Last Summer of 2007 I used to see him at the Cayuga County Coin Club which if I'm correct still meets the 2ed or 3ed Wensday of every Month in Auburn.

The guy I'm talking about is Marty Feffer he covers the Montreal Line, Baldwinsville and Fulton Lines. He used to cover Lyons to just the outher side of Syracuse.

His brother "Ron" Winters is still working for CSX outa Lyons. (Bob retired, Ithink, never could tell the difference). As far as the responding to calls for service up North. I believe the Massena guys cover that segment, (kinda like a subdivision). Their division/subdivision borders are different from T&E so I do not know where the coverage changes. But, like any bid job, seniority rules, if you bid it you can hold it, residence
is not part of the requirements. But if one of those guys lives a fair distance away and weather is bad they occasionally stay at the hotel in Massena.

roadster wrote:His brother "Ron" Winters is still working for CSX outa Lyons. (Bob retired, Ithink, never could tell the difference). As far as the responding to calls for service up North. I believe the Massena guys cover that segment, (kinda like a subdivision). Their division/subdivision borders are different from T&E so I do not know where the coverage changes. But, like any bid job, seniority rules, if you bid it you can hold it, residence
is not part of the requirements. But if one of those guys lives a fair distance away and weather is bad they occasionally stay at the hotel in Massena.

Ron Winters Retired. His Brother is still working for CSX.

2/15 saw three northbounds go up, although one appeared to be the local for Woodard/Fulton. The others were a very long train with cars for CN/points north, and a military train, loaded with a lot of heavy construction equipment and a pair of Union Pacific GEs on the point - the second one in the flag paint scheme, kind of appropriate.

The first train was an extra B956-16, with the local cars for Watertown and Massena. Then the Fulton local. Over this weekend a slight surge of Southbound Q and S 620's caused a 2 day backup of Q621's at Dewitt. So they combined the Watertown and Massena cars into the B956 (Formerly B756/Q622) and the 2 Q621's were combined into 1 train (Q621-14). There should be a Q621-15 departing any time now and heading North.

B978 with UPPY 7083 and UPPY 5674 just went up to Fort Drum.

Scott

Based on some radio traffic I heard in Syracuse on Sunday, everything was backed up. Didn't get any symbols, though. There was an eastbound standing next to the mall around 3:30, too.

I can kind of tell by what power and what cars I see what the trains are - the 620-621 seems to still rate at least one CN unit most of the time, the B956/Watertown-Massena locals get a lot of older SD40s and SD50s but tend to have most any six-axle power (and may have some 4-axle power tucked in for use up north), and the Fulton/Woodard local stuff always has GP38s in twos or threes.

Military stuff is a wildcard and I've seen CSX, UP, even once KCS power on them.

One train did come down late last week after dark with six or seven units on it, but I couldn't see very well - where I see most of them, there's one streetlight that's out, and one that cycles on and off, after that the view is blocked by trees. You guys who run the line would know it as around 2/10ths of a mile north of MP 3.

I haven't had a scanner on in a long time, for a while there I kind of lost interest and haven't really turned one on since. Doesn't help that the reception is terrible even with a long antenna.

Who's getting the gondolas with some kind of load in them? Several cuts on that B956 extra, hard to tell what was in them, might have been steel or aluminum of some sort, large things.

lvrr325 wrote:Who's getting the gondolas with some kind of load in them? Several cuts on that B956 extra, hard to tell what was in them, might have been steel or aluminum of some sort, large things.

Don't know but I can tell you that there comeing in on East Bound Trains saw one last weekend with 9 CSX Units with a mixed train the first 40 cars were Gondolas. Followed by a cut of tank cars then 1 Boxcar a good cut of Covered Hoppers followed by more Tank Cars.

Here are some photos from 30 years ago when I was a SUNY Potsdam student
http://cefredericks.rrpicturearchives.n ... x?id=42067
I hope to post some more in the next week or two.

It was fun to read Bigt's post of 1/4/09 describing operations a few years before I was around.

Carl Fredericks