Watching the great Roanoke VA web cam today,the hotel one, at about 1.20 ET, I noticed something I considered quite unusual. I did not count but I guess there were at least fifty NS locomotives which I saw arrive from the west on the track nearest the new Amtrack terminal which is being built adjacent to Norfolk Avenue SE. It halted then returned in the direction it had arrived but crossed over onto another track. I wondered what was going to happen to these locos. Are they to be scrapped or refurbished. It did seem unusual, to me anyway, that there were so many.
could be a power move, getting locos where they’re needed.
Course with CSX melting down, NS may be getting all hands on deck to catch the extra business.
You can’t see it from the camera, but there is an enormous number of stored locomotives on the tracks to the west of that area, on at least two tracks as of week before last, and I suspect that what you saw was one of those ‘rakes’ of stored power being moved to a different track within the facility.
I admit that I have never seen NS move that many engines over a main line at one time, and I don’t know if NS has been stockpiling engines of some type at a different location and is now moving them to Roanoke to join all the others. I think it is likeliest that you saw stored power being shuffled. Might have been getting a specific locomotive out of the middle of a long line of stored power, too.
Thank you gentlemen for your coments. I look at Roanoke web cam a couple of times each day usually, I also like the ones at Landgraff WVa and Chesterton IN. The great thing about the Chesterton one is as it is at a grade crossing you can hear the wigwag bells whilst looking at something else.
Class 1’s have rules pertaining to how many locomotives can be in a locomotive consist under normal circumstance. CSX limits the number to 12.
With the movement of the number of locomotives identified by the OP, I suspect a terminal yard job went to a track of ‘dead line’ locomotives and moved the track to some location to switch out speciific locomotives - what those locomotives ultimate purpose will be ???
The current satellite image shows well over 100 locomotives of various shapes and sizes stored on three tracks just east of VMT.
As for why pulling a specific loco out - among other reasons, maybe that one had a specific lease or similar ownership. Or perhaps it’s the best candidate to re-activate amongst those available. Or it’s going to scrap.
Just my [2c]
Coming to this thread late. Pretty sure I saw the same footage you did, and some of the people on the Altoona railcam said the power move in question was the GP38-2s that had been put up for auction a few days earlier. IIRC, 74 engines including multiple high-hoods.