Just got back from a 3 mile run and i had heard just before I left that train 177 was coming thru town. I timed it just right and was able to watch it.
What a train!
In the world of unit coal trains, stack trains, autorack trains, et al. today’s 177 was a real throw back.
I counted 113 cars, probably 50 to 60 of which were gondolas loaded with scrap metal of some sort. The rest of the cars were box cars, tanks, and covered hoppers…a real junker train if I ever saw one.
Fewer of these trains seem to run these days. What a fascinating train this was.
Anyone have any idea where all that scrap is consigned to?
My train schedule shows NS 177 runs from Calumet yard, Chicago to Ft. Wayne.
Is that correct?
I figured the scrap was heading to a mini mill, but dont know where that might be.
I think there was a map in Trains a few months ago with steel mill locations.
Anyway, it has been interesting working at home today with the scanner on.
first, CN 752, an eastbound coal train stalled on the Valpo hill. I went and watched as power from CN396 pushed it.
CN752 had 130 hoppers, each 286,000 pound cars, that is 18,590 tons. A hell of a big train.
Then this big 177 train, plus CN’s backlog from the stall and slow orders on the NS. Now I hear L41 and 323 on the NS, both Ft. Wayne turns and 280 is hoping to get thru. Busy day.
I better go see a customer and sell something, this is addictive!
No Darling covered hoppers on the train today. The hoppers appeared to be grain types.
Gabe…there is a “hill” here in Valparaiso that the GTW has always had trouble with. It extends about 4 miles. I dont know the grade, but heavy eastbounds will stall out about an average of 1x week, usually coal trains.
The hill is a result of the Valparaiso Morraine, a remnant of one of the glaciers. The GTW line is double track all the way from Michigan except for the seven mile stretch from Valparaiso west to Sedley…which is right on the hill. So, when a train falls down, as it did today, it tends to mess things up for awhile.
The trouble usually occurs when the rails are wet. The two UP SD90MAC’s or whatever they are called just werent enough to handle the 18,000 tons. The two UP units seemed a bit embarressed by the fact a Northern Illinois hill got the best of them. There was no “We Can Handle It!” in their attitudes!
Gettting back to the NS, they used to run a Chicago - Chatanooga train, i believe it was 143/144 back before the Conrail merger. That train has disappeared. The 177 might be a catchall train which cleans out Calumet with Ft Wayne, Bellevue, Cincinnati, and Chatanooga stuff.
143/144 still live, running via Muncie to Elkhart. They did disappear for awhile but were resurrected and started running the other side. They’re much the same sort of trains they were in the old days, though.
177 almost always goes into the yard at East Wayne and then is rebuilt out of East Wayne for the trip to Cincinnati. As for the scrap, don’t know where it’s going.
Regarding CN trains stalling on Valpo Hill. CN coal trains usally recieve about .47 to .49 hpt. The “hill” at its steepest part is .88%. What makes this hill tough, is not the grade but the curvature. There is also a 40 MPH speed restriction on the diamonds at Wayne which dose not allow much of a "run " for the “hill”. The spot that usally “kills” the coal train is just before the depot. At this point the train is on the hill and around the curves. Any wheel slip at this point usally gets the train. Make it by the depot and life is good.
The dispatchers will usally try to run the coal train without stopping it at Sedely, IN where the single track begins for eastbounds. If this is not possible, the dispatcher will try to inform the coal train that he has westbounds coming down the hill and either pace yourself to Sedely or lay back at Hendricks Rd. near Griffith, IN or at the control point Spring Lake. There have been occasions where I have stopped at Sedely for westbounds with a coal train and made it up the hill.
Why so little HPT for the coal trains? My undersatnding from my Road Foreman days is that the contract calls for 1 HPT. Well, over the years this has not been held to by either party. We accept the trains from BNSF or UP as is and roll the dice that we make the hill. Most of the time we do. Then there are those days when we don’t. Of course when a train dosen’t make the hill, it MUST be the engineers fault. Like the day it was snowing at Valpo and Troy thought the crews were giving them a line because it wasn’t snowing in Troy.
My guess with the BN coal trains is that at Galesburg the rear DP engine is cut off. This then leaves the train with the lower HPT. Leaving this engine on, might help with the hill at Valpo but creates other problems down the line especially at the power plant in Monroe, MI. I also have a suspicion that this is the case with the UP trains aslo. CN dabbled into DP and ran two trains. These trains had one 70MAC on eac
177 is a Chicago to Cincinnati train. From Chicago, it carries Fort Waynes on the head end. The rest of the train block swaps to trains 375 and 143 headed south at Cincinnati.
That is the current schedule.
If the scrap steel was on the head end, then Ft. Wayne could be where it was set out, otherwise, next stop is Chattanooga.
Thanks for your excellent commentary on the hill. Manifest do occasionally get brought to their knees. I have memories of that happening quite a bit back in the 70’s with GP 9’s.
It is quite a show to watch an eastbound coming up the hill and really digging potatoes. I agree with your assessment, the killer part is the curve just west of the depot, or at least that is where most stalls occur.
Does wet rail have much to do with stalling?
Also, where are crews changing now. Used to be Battle Creek. I often hear the dspatcher tell a crew they are running thru to Sarnia, or will switch with a train at (point X).
Are the CN trains on the South Bend sub running on any kind of schedule. Used to be you could always count on 392 to be EB early morning, now it and everything else seems at any time.
Regarding 177, there was scrap metal everywhere in the train.
Thanks to everyone regarding explanation of 177’s blocking and the 143 routing.
CN IS a scheduled railroad. ALL trains are scheduled. Even the ones that aren’t scheduled are. CN does not hold trains out of a terminal, CN stages them. With the company line said, (LOL) 392 was (is)called around 1300 EST at Markham. It was nice when it was called at midnight and was a straight Toronto train. On the train at Markham and out by 0200 and sham, bam, al kazam, in Battle Creek by 0700 and tied up. The last time I worked it I died at Marcellus. I do not know what time the other trains are called as I moved to Flat Rock under provisions in the new contract and the seniority districts. I miss the west end excpt the hotel stay.
Yes some crews are running by Battle Creek to Sarnia. Mostly this is on train 148. Yes there is a fair amount of swaping going on nowadays. It’s really not bad. I will some times get called for a train out of Flat Rock, take it to Detroit and swap with a train going to Toledo. Spend a day at work and never get more than 40 miles from my home terminal. There is still a major crew base at Battle Creek and the yard has been reopend.
Wet rail does play a part in the stalling on the hill. One of the critical areas for this is the overhead bridge west of the depot and past the school bus parking lot. It never really dries out under there. There a rail burns between the bridge and the first road crossing east… The whole track structure takes a pounding at that location. It must be an experience to sit at the outdoor bar by the depot and have a coal train “crawl” by. The sound level must be something. Gives any heavy metal band a run for their money.
Thanks for the info. I didnt quite catch what you meant about the “rail burn” from the bridge to the first street east. Perhaps you could clarify that.
Back in the day, I used to frequent Northsides Bar. The eastbounds coming up the hill would really shake, rattle, and roll the place. I usually stepped outside and watched the show.
I moved to Valpo in the late 70’s and quickly became interested in the GTW. I used to sit there at the depot on summer evenings and read and watch the action. The double track ended right there at the bar, since then it has been moved back to CP Valpo.
I recently started listening in on the scanner (this summer) and noticed the CN had changed the operations, or at least train symbols. There used to be quite a few Chicago-Battle Creek trains in the 400 series. Those seem to have disappeared, other than 454 and the 448/449 trains. What happened to the traffic on those Battle Creek trains?
Now, there are 390-399 manifests that run to Canada. Do those trains drop off the Michigan traffic?
You mentioned Battle Creek Yard has reopened. Why? or perhaps better, why did it close?
Also, I remember about 10 years ago when they widened the tunnel from Ontario and there was huge talk of intermodal traffic taking off. It never seemed to happen. Why? The only intermodals that I am aware of are 148/149, both of which are pretty big trains, but the flood of containers did not sweep thru town, as predicted.
BTW…when I moved to Valpo, I had a neighbor named Keith Brown, who worked for theGTW. He died about 15 years ago. Did you know him?
Out of Fort Wayne, there are two Steel Dynamics plants that NS serves. The original “mini-mill” at Butler (closer to St Joe) that is served by a joint NS/CSX industrial track and the newer “rail plant” that is on the ex Pennsy line just east of Columbia City. Train LF14 (or LF10) run out to the rail plant and are sometimes 70 cars long with gons of scrap inbound and empty flats for outbound steel. The regular assigned power is a single GP38. There is a nice hill on this line and I have seen a couple of trains stall on it. It was already dark when 177 went by Tuesday, so I can’t confirm whether your scrap was still on when it rolled by MP 161.8 (south of Fort Wayne).