…It’s reported today that Greensburg, In. is the location for the new Honda Assembly Plant. To be up to 1500 people employed and facility to cost in the neighborhood of 400 million.
Is the tree still growing out of the courthouse roof there?
…Yes it is…It’s watered by the spring in the clock.
…That’s what I was told one time when I asked how it gets water…Ha.
It’s going to be nice watching the MOW trains work the CIND line!
I wonder how much traffic the line will have now?
Wonder if the Honda traffic will run both ways, Cincinnati and Indy, or funnel primarily toward one direction. CSX should be the Class I benefitting most from this.
To soon to tell, but I would agree with you about CSX getting the lions share. Now doesn’t Rail America network go by most of these other Honda suppliers in Ohio? What I’m getting to is interchange traffic where Rail America may get most of the business?
CSX (former Conrail) services the Honda plant in Marysville. It’s interesting that the actual connection is the remnant of the former Erie Lackawanna line that ran between Dayton and Marion. I don’t know how much finished product CSX hauls out of there.
I gotta think Honda will move parts and finished product both north and southbound on the line. What a boon for a line that nearly faded into the topsoil a few years ago.
Ok, traffic routers. Honda reports the cars to be built in Greensburg, Indiana, will use engines made in Anna, Ohio. How would you route them? By truck or rail? If rail, how?
I will admit that I do not know where Anna, Ohio is. Let’s all hope the rails get a lot of business out of this plant and that the Indy-Cincy line is, once again, a top-notch operation.
Anna is just a bit south of Lima, so likely the engines would go to Indianapolis then to Greensburg. There are a couple of options though so it could be routed differently. I’m guessing they’ll go by rail as soon as the line is upgraded. I can’t see that going by trck would be quicker or less expensive, especially seeing as the rail traffic to and from the plant will be the majority of the line’s traffic.
Mike
Although I wi***hey’d go by rail, with a JIT system, I’d guess they’d be trucked. How many roundtrips could a semi make in the time a railcar made one round? Even taking I-75 to Cincy, and then I-275, then west on I-74 to Greensburg, it’s not that far. Hope I’m wrong.
They will be trucked, I’m sure. It’s right at 150 miles one-way, which neatly works out to two round trips per driver per work day for a drop and hook operation, six hours per round trip. Figure a it takes about four trailerloads to equal one rail car.
Based on their operations several years ago (which may have changed), Honda rails in only parts produced overseas, which come in via containers. They do have few suppliers on west coast, which might now move in domestic containers.
They ship massive numbers of outbound auto racks - CR used to run a dedicated Marysville-Chicago rack train to Gibson Yard with all the west cars.
Well congrats to the state of Indiana. I am sure that the employment and construction will be warmly welcomed!
I am sure this will benefit railroads too? A shortline perhaps?
Now remember that I-75 and I-275 is very congested. I think next year they are to begin a 2 to 3 year construction project to add 1 lane on I-75 from near downtown to just beyond I-275. This would make 4 lanes. When this happens there are going to be some major delays. Now when you get to I-74 It’s pretty much 2 lanes all the way from I-75 in Cincinnati to Indianapolis.
It’s been mentioned that Anna Ohio is just south of Lima. Rail America runs down through Lima on some trackage rights with CSX. It then uses their own line, former DTI, to reach Cincinnati. Rail America in this region has some nice trackage with a lot of excess capacity. They also have some nice trackage rights on the CSX and NS. They’re really more of a regional rail carrier. I can see them hauling most of the goods to and from the new plant.
The Louisville Division in jax can bairly handle the traffic we give to them now from Indianapolis to Cincy. Alot of times we have to run our trains out to Sidney, OH, Run around the Train, then down to Cincy.
“Honda’s main reason for choosing Indiana was not cash but logistics, analysts said. Greensburg is about an hour [by truck] from its engine plant in Anna, Ohio, and Honda already has an extensive network of suppliers that feed its operations in Ohio.” – The New York Times, June 29.
Well, there you go. Still wondering how much is to be invested for rail transportation for the completed product. Have to keep an eye out.
WELL… Most or all of Honda’s are loaded up in autorack cars in Toledo, Ohio. In Indiana is CSXT going to have autorack cars parked at the plant or they are going to keep loading them at Toledo???
Any wonder why Indiana got the nod.
Red State, Anti-union, anti everything.
Tom
God Bless the Great Northern