Just this morning I saw an NS train on the old PRR line between Muncie, IN and Cincinnati that was a unit train consisting of HERZOG gondolas. It looked like they contained stone (ballast?). Does anyone know the origin and destination of these cars and for certain what they were carrying?
Most likely what you saw was a Herzog ballast train. These trains originate wherever there is a rock quarry, and are usually destined for dumping wherever there is track work going on.
Herzog is a railroad contracting vendor that market many services to the railroad industry. The have perfected a computer/GPS driven method of accurately distributing ballast along the right of way with the ballast train moving at a sustained 15/20 MPH, thus minimizing the amount of track time required for this function. This method of ballast distribution replaces prior methods that could require 4 to 10 times the amount of track time to get the same amount of ballast distributed.
The Herzog ballast trains can accurately distribute 60 car loads of ballast over 20 miles of right of way in one hour…a significant performance enhancement over prior methods. I believe all Class I carriers are currently leasing Herzog ballast trains to aid their MofW programs.