Bryant, I don’t think the 10-12 trains a day are soley traffic out of indy for points south. I think they are dealing with congestion issues in the line from Cincy to Louisville in general. I am just curious why they don’t route the stuff via Seymour instead of going all the way to Indy. Not being a student of the area I am sure someone has an answer from down there.
Where’s the Goosie rant on this??? Impatiently waiting!!!
The EPA is concerned about wildlife, like all the birds that are killed by windmills paid for by the Obama-mites? Sick! And Agent Orange was forced on our soldiers by the GOVERNMENT! As well as DDT was promoted to the farmers. They didn’t go looking for DDT. USDA said it was ok to use it. Facts. Let the railroads run their business as they see it. If there is a need it will be filled by a business, be it rail, truck, plane, car or bicycle, and now maybe drones.
This ludicrous. Is such thinking applied to roads. Of course not. But that’s somehow different is it. I live near a major highway. No one asked me for my agreement to allow extra vehicles to travel on it. Bizarre.
The Louisville to Indianapolis route and points east or west is a more efficient route than the current route via Cincinnati. The LCL sub is riddled with steep grades, single track, sliw speed sidings, sharp curves, etc due to its routing in land away from the Ohio River. Distance-wise it’s only 10 miles shorter to go via Indy but the route is practically arrow straight and flat cutting running times more than in half. If the speeds are upped to 60, there is no reason why a train leaving either Indy or Louisville couldn’t traverse the route in less than 2 hours as compared to 4+ running via Cincinnati. The biggest issue I see running to Indy is the numerous road crossings. Especially in Scottsburg, Columbus, Seymour and Franklin.
For once, I “kinda agree” with the Loon, er, I mean’ “Goose”
Nothing hold up progress like Government bureaucracy!
George - any capacity on the LCL that’s opened up by moving carload freight via Indy will be soon be allocated to more intermodal traffic - CSX wants to make Cincinnati a focal point for north-south intermodal traffic. After a year or two, you’ll likely still see as many trains on the line as they can fit (which is a relatively low number for a major line).
I’ve also rumblings that acrimony involving the old B&O/L&N allocation of crew assignments will keep the LCL from becoming too slow - but I don’t have any real knowledge of this matter.
This is more evidence of how dangerous of a direction we are headed as a country. Until we have another Republican president we will see more and more government nonsense. I love the line that the EPA is worried about the effect on wildlife. The effect would be fewer trucks, less pollution and fewer animals getting creamed on the highways.
For a rare change, I agree with Gusie. (-: If folks are so worried about more trains running faster on this line, CSX ought to oblige them and run more trains slower for a while and see how they like all the blocked crossings. It’s the railroad’s line; they ought to be able to upgrade it as they see fit. Treated with a little common sense, they might even contribute to the funding of overpasses on some of the busier crossing. Cars and truck on the (mostly) parallel highway likely kill a lot more wildlife than the trains do.
What wild life the thousands of geese no one wants walking around park lots. I 65 which parallel causes more disraption of movement of wild life. Fenced on both sides.
The delays caused by this order can’t be justified by the issues raised. Killing birds if that is a serious issue we need to clear the highways of trucks.
If the article is to be taken at face value, then it’s a delay because of poor submitted paperwork, not a government conspiracy. Calm down.
That is not to suggest that I think railroads should have anything but the most minimal environmental constraints, given their inherent environmental superiority over other forms of transportation, especially trucks. But it doesn’t look to me as if there was anything other than a misjudgement about what needed to be submitted here.
Guse - while I agree with you railroads are overregulated, I have to say that you appear to be missing the part where CSX gets fined a gazillion dollars for doing something illegal. Mayor Daley probably doesn’t have that problem.
I worked for CSX for over 8 years, including a stint as a trainmaster at Barr Yard in Chicago. I also lived the first 14 years of my life on the Monon route just south of Hammond. The issue is not just getting from Indy to Louisville. You have to look at the big picture. CSX’s longest corridor is Chicago to FL, alot of it being intermodal (thus the desired 60 mph speed). Since CSX abandoned portions of the Monon over a several year period, the portion of the Monon between Mitchell and Louisville being the most recent, that has left Chicago to Florida trains to be routed on the C&EI via Evansville. What’s wrong with the C&EI? Our BIGGEST headache operating trains south out of Chicago was the joint trackage between Chicago and Woodland Junction (near Kankakee where the C&EI splits, the UP going to St Louis and CSX to Evansville). The UP controls and thus dispatches this entire segment to CSX’s continual dismay. Needless to say, UP is going to give priority to its hotshot mail trains over CSX’s mail trains every time. CSX trains used to ( and I imagine still do) get slaughtered on that segment. CSX would have to fight just to get their trains ONTO the line! The question I would like answered is why would CSX put themselves in the position of tenant by abandoning a route that had been critical to their operations in the past? This isn’t a dying industry any more! Its growing by gigantic strides! Railroads need to stop the network chopping and look for ways to increase capacity! You don’t go straight to abandonment mode just because the economy falters and rail traffic slumps. Decades of railroad history tells us traffic returns with a vengeance when the economy recovers. Look at the Southern Railway for example. Southern would perform alot of their capacity improvements and track upgrades when traffic slumped, when there were less trains to delay. When the traffic finally returned, the Southern could handle more of it, and handle it much more efficiently than before.
What we need is 3 or 4 federal agencies poking their nose where they don’t belong. We couls make a good start on balancing the federal budget by cutting ALL of the regulatory agencies in half, and putting a strict time limit on what’s left as to making a final decision, so thay can’t hold up projects that don’t fit their political agenda
What we need is 3 or 4 federal agencies poking their nose where they don’t belong. We couls make a good start on balancing the federal budget by cutting ALL of the regulatory agencies in half, and putting a strict time limit on what’s left as to making a final decision, so thay can’t hold up projects that don’t fit their political agenda
Useless politicians & regulatory agencies…what a joke.
“The U.S. [EPA] has voiced concerns over noise pollution … and the effect of additional train traffic on wildlife. Local communities have also voiced concerns over trains blocking access for emergency responders.” Unbelievable … it is such thinking which hampered, and eventually killed, the DM&E proposal to build into the Powder River Basin.
Unfortunately for plans such as this, it seems that too many NIMBY’s try to paint current operations onto a future canvas: How logical is it so think that a 1.5 mile-long freight train moving at 60 mph will block a crossing for the same amount of time as one moving at 10mph?! So what if there would be more trains - a particular crossing would be blocked for less time, and with more time available between trains for vehicle traffic to move over the crossing. And Don Woodworth is right - cars and trucks on nearby highways likely kill far more wildlife than the 10-12 trains a day would.
CSX is the bad guy here.
The Monon line from Louisville to Chicago would be very busy today (as it was years ago), but the clowns at CSX scrapped it out to make a few short term bucks.
I remember when the former Monon line was washed out by flash floods between Cloverdale and Ellettsville, Indiana, which is just north of Bloomington. I don’t remember exactly when this occurred, but I’m guessing the mid 90s. CSX management decided to abandon that section of the line instead of rebuilding it. It was probably an easy decision to make because at that time, there were only two through freights per day (one in each direction), a local and an occasional grain train or extra freight. I knew once the line was severed, it would never be the same again. CSX had been deferring maintenance for many years, so train speeds were nothing like it was during the Monon days. This line segment still had semaphore signals and, generally speaking, was going to need some major work to keep it open. I’d be willing to bet the flash flooding was a blessing to CSX, for they now had an iron-clad excuse to severe the line, which the STB eventually granted. Now, CSX needs more capacity between Chicago and Louisville and it would be real easy for me to say, “I told you NOT to severe the Monon!” Well, I can’t say that because no one ever asked my opinion (nor did I write to CSX to offer it) and for almost 20 years, the loss of the Monon route didn’t make or break CSX. Yes, it would be nice if the old Monon was still intact and could be used, but unfortunately it’s not, and what’s gone is never going to return. I’m glad to see business is such that existing lines need to be rebuilt and once all the paperwork is straightened out, it will happen.