Saw one for the first time last night on the Harvard Sub of the UP ex CNW line between Chicago and Janesville WI, and wanted to do some quick fact checking.
Went to the website
http://www.georgetownrail.com/prod03.html
(God Bless the internet).
Still, for those railroaders out there:
-Are these are leased out by GREX or are they sold to RRs ?
- How often do these get used?
-The website explains what they are used to do, is it that much cheaper than to
have the RR’s own people do?
-As a possible follow-up, if they are leased out, used fairly often, and are
cheaper, why wouldn’t the RRs own their own?
Lots of questions I’m afraid but thanks for any answers you can give.
techguy
Georgetown Railroad…based in Georgetown, just outside of Austin, Texas…
Home to a huge limestone quarry, and several gravel pits, and a granite quarry.
Several local public buildings and private homes are constructed out of the limestone out of this quarry.
GRR hauls the crushed limestone, granite and gravel, with their own locomotives and fleet of used open top gons.
You can see them just about everywhere, the entire concept is to provide ballast and building material to railroads and concrete plants.
The consists you see on the web page you mentioned are for lease, along with crew…
Cheaper sometimes for the railroads, especially regionals, to have them do the work than try to hire enough MOW men to do the work.
Type GRR or Georgetown Railroad into your search engine…
Ed
Ed,
Thank you much for the info. One quick question though. The train I saw was being pulled by UP motive power. Is that a UP thing, ie they’d rather pull it themselves?
Just curious. Thanks again.
PS How warm is it down in Houston? its 4oish here.
Mike
Never mind just read that Georgetown RR is a subsidiary of UP. Again God Bless the internet.
Mike
Ive seen a Slot Train here at a yard. That was pretty awsome, the engineer let me get into the cab.