This, above all else, is the biggest advantage NS has over any other major railroad! I am continually amazed at how many customers Class 1s could have, but don’t even bother to contact them because “they won’t ship enough” blah blah blah! And this is not a new practice, either. Milwaukee Road, Chicago & North Western are just a couple “local” railroads that continually ignored potential shippers in favor of the long haul, big train, unit train.
Anybody wondering why, for many years (and possibly even today), the railroads were considered to be “in decline”???
I was a very good article - I would love to see a longer version of it. But, the map could have been better. Locations shown incorrectly that I notice are Bluefield, Elkhart, Crestline, and Huntington. Also, NS has only trackage rights on the Northeast Corridor.
You can set your watch by the local here on the NS Delmarva Secondary 11:30pm. - 12:30am. every night. I’m glad to see Trains will be covering Delmarva car float operations in next months issue, I CAN’T WAIT. You almost never see anything in print about railroading here on the eastern shore of Delaware, Maryland, and Va. The Eastern Shore Railroad still uses the old PRR car floats to ferry cars from norfolk to delmarva and then to NS Delmarva Secondary. But hey this is one of the last lines that PRR used its Sharknose units on.
So, I see where the fed is gonna pay $90million to make NS’s tunnels tall enough for double stack. What a wonderful gesture to NS’s stockholders…
Gee wizzz, that way they can bring in even more containers of goods manufactured over seas that USED to represent American jobs… I wonder if Walmart is hiring?
You may accuse me, if you want of re-applying for my resident sycophant status, but I think it was the best Trains Article I have read since MWH was the Editor–although some of his recent articles may make me think they are, at least on par.
In any event, I thought it was as good of an article could be considering it had to handle a subject as comprehensive as NS’ success.
…Yes, Gates…that really is a situation we’ve been dealt here in our country…such as your point of larger tunnels for stuff from China…How did we ever get into a set up such as this. One thought in my mind is over the years we spent money from our budget, pouring it into “lessor” countries bringing them into the “modern world” and gradually they have now taken over our jobs from this great country…Manufacturing, clothing, electronics…and the list goes on…What an ironic twist. And at the same time, we’ve been acting as the peace keeper in the world…and spending what money we had left to the point now…we have record debt piled up for our citizens as taxpayers to try to deal with for the decades ahead…Wow, how did we not see all this coming…!
I’m glad NS really does have something to haul but what they’re carrying and from where is really eye opening…
It is a good article…I’ve read it through a few times already…interesting point that was brought up is that NS is running more trains over Horseshoe Curve than Conrail was in 1995…62 a day now average now (not including Helper movements) vs 47 in 1995…One can argue that the Pennsy ran well over a hundred trains a day back in its prime, but trains were much shorter then too, so tonnage is comparable…and with reports of mine reactivation in Windber, more coal will be added to the traffic mix in the Johnstown to Altoona area. Dave Williams @ nnsaltoonajohnstown@yahoogroups.com
Well, I’m just a casual observer, but my opinion on how we get ourselves into setups like this is that we don’t think things through, we tend to ignore the really big picture, and we have a buncha crooks running this place.
Economics is the driving force. The Wal Mart mentality that if you price even junk low enough, someone will buy it, surely plays a part. Then you have the goals to maximize profits to the stockholders
If I am a stockholder in the ABC refrigerator company, and by having the plant in columbus OH we pay the workers $20 per hour and my annual dividend is 45 cents per share, or if we move the factory to malaysia we pay the help $2.45 per hour and my dividend goes up to $1.15 per share, …guess what I am gonna do? those guys in Columbus never did anything for me except threaten to strike, etc.
The “rub” if you will, is that in order for that plan to work, I’ve gotta squeeze every advantage out of my shipping strategy.
Enter “Joe Sucker, American tax Payer”
Think about this. Here we have a railroading forum, which is part of a railroading magazine. And we are currently elaborating on the benefits of raising tunnel heights to allow trains to haul doublestack. Sounds like an heroic accomplishment, doesn’t it? After all, whatever benefits the train, is good, right? That’s what your politicians will tell you, raising that tunnel with your tax dollars will mean more ease in bringing you lower cost goods from the local container port, and build a stronger America. (rah rah r
Dave…if you can, comment a bit more of what is happening in Windber…More mines coming to life…Sounds good. I know the PBS branch into Shanksville that connects to the S&C CSX line near Coleman, {Rockwood to Johnstown}, is being reactivated as work has started to rehabilitate it since it’s been unused for 6 or more years…Brian Brant {on the forum} here has been keeping me updated on the progress and I visited it myself back earlier in the summer and did see some of the work being done to get it reopened…So sounds like the coal business is going back up on it’s cycle. Hope so, that’s good news for the area.
True, the people I feel sorry for are the ones who will someday refer to these days as the ‘good old days’…what a croque that would be, huh? [:D]
Back to the article I noticed that John Friedman neglected to mention the General Motors assembly plant near here in Roanoke, which is smack on the “Wabash” line, which I’ll bet wasn’t so much of an oversight as it probably was a prophetic slip of the tongue.
Although there are no official words most folk suspect that 5-8 years and it’ll be a gonner…
The newspaper article discusses the reopening of the mine at Windber…According to the article, there is enough coal there to last 30 years of mining…The Windber coal will be hauled out by NS off the South Fork Secondary which already hauls coal out from Central City and Huskins. Also, .Mine 33 which is up around the Ebensburg area is also supposed to restart within a couple of years, with a portal planned to open near Cresson. This Mine 33 coal will likely be trucked out to loadouts around the area, including the Sonman loadout near Portage where NS is loading up to three trains a week…Dave Williams @ nsaltoonajohnstown@yahoogroups.com
I think that this is probably one of the best TRAINS Magazine issues that’s ever been produced. I really liked how they talked about the ILLINOIS DIVISION, I think it even mentioned Princeton Indiana’s Toyota Plant that NS serves. NS definetely does a lot of business at Princeton. NS is indeed the best managed and best operated railroad. David R. Goode seems to know how to run a successful railroad. I think he has a Passion for Norfolk Southern that will keep Norfolk Southern running strong for a long time. NS also is very good at serving small customers, around here they haul grain for small elevators, 2 box cars of bricks, 2 or 3 gondolas of just stuff, and a few other small items for the small business customers around here. NS has successfully combined the Past with the Present. Here, they still use tractors and speeders to help push around grain cars, that’s definetely neat to see that happen, but they also run fast High Priority Intermodal and General Freights through, so we see a Big Variety of all kinds of things on NS. NS’s future is definetely very good. I also want to add that I think that a lot of people that like BNSF and UP and live out west should stop going around saying that NS will be acquired and will disappear. For starters, they do not understand NS or how it runs. NS is run totally different from all other railroads. I think that BNSF and UP do a great job out west and that’s where they should stay. NS has very good company spirit. All of the conductors and engineers I’ve talked to all say they love their jobs and would not work for any other railroad other than NS. They feel lucky for being able to work for such a great company. NS, for the most part, seems to be like a big family with most of their employees having good company spirit. Keep up the Good Work NS.
Dave…Thanks for the update on new openings of mines in the general area. Yes, I understand NS would haul out Windber coal…Just went under an over pass of that railroad on our way from the Stoystown area to Windber {a so called county road back way}, about a month ago. Went to Windber with friends after church to have sunday lunch but the restaurant was closed so we ended up on Giestown hill on…old 56 for our lunch…forgot the name of the place.
I can’ t seem to open the Tribune-Democrat address in your above post…I just get the page of “this page can’t be displayed”…No problem.
Do appreciate hearing of new work being opened again…Glad to hear it. I’m sure the Windber area can use it…I was amazed in coming through Windber how many old rail crossings are still in the downtown area…One would think they would have been removed long ago…
Alot of those old crossings in downtown Windber are old industrial spurs off the South Fork Branch…for whatever reason they have not been ripped up…there is also a SW switcher and a few freight cars on one of those spurs in Windber down near Rte 56 that have been sitting idle for at least a decade…trapped, if you will, when the connection to the South Fork Branch to where they sit was severed. Reports are that a track will be relaid to extract the SW from there to be used at the Windber Mine site…a twin to that SW is either sitting, or being used in an operation at Holsopple. Dave Williams @ nsaltoonajohnstown@yahoogroups.com
Dave, we missed that SW that’s trapped in our pass through Windber recently…but an interesting story of it being there, etc…and I wonder what the one in Holsopple is all about…Years ago there was activity at that big new plant down below the Quemahoning Dam that made railroad wheel sets, etc…and I believe there was access via a branch over to near it…Currently, I don’t know what is happening at that plant. I know the “old” railroad depot {restored, kinda}, still stands in Holsopple but believe it’s not the property of the CSX now…
Always liked to see the “old” depot right along the Main St. there in Windber…Believe the interurban from Johnstown stopped near it back in the 30’s before the '36 flood took out portions of that liine and it was never restored.