I live in an area where we normally experience quite a bit of “normal” Rail traffic. I think that the count in our area of the BNSF’s Southern Transcon is on the order of 90 plus trains a day. (?)
It seems that our regular traffic flow is down by quite a few trains. Certainly, coal trains are more infrequent. Auto racks, as well, are nowhere near what they were even several weeks ago.
There was recently work being done on the Emporia Sub to our Northeast, but even the grain/hopper car moves seem to have fallen off in the last three weeks.
So I was just curious to find out if any others have have had similar perceptions of the traffic where they are rail fanning.
In our area, it seems like it’s double what it usually is for this time of year. BNSF seems to be trying to empty the state of grain ahead the harvest.
CN in Flint Michigan is running trains faster and less i think. That is a real bummer because CN is not a frequent railroad I get to railfann in othe places then Flint.
I don’t see a lot of the traffic that runs through my area - too far from the tracks and catching one of the 4-5 trains that run is a hit-and-miss thing.
The one I did see the other day seemed a little short, but I can’t really judge from that.
I hear plenty, see fewer. My trip Tuesday had the manifests running shorter than normal, but that’s the post-weekend slump, for the most part.
There were still plenty of stack trains, and today’s auto-rack train was pretty good-sized.
The coal trains up here seem to be fewer in number, but I’ve noticed that they come in fleets some days. All of the usual destinations are still represented.
Regarding CN in Michigan…have you seen distributed power on manifest trains? I saw one last Sunday here in NW Indiana. My guess is the train was 348, it had 2 front end locomotives and about 125 cars in had a single unit. It was a heavy train with quite a bit of sand and lumber. The DP was cut in just before auto racks. There were about 160 cars.
Car counts are down from what I have noticed. Freight is down. The truckers are feeling a slowdown as are the rails.
As I had stated, my observations were purely observational impressions. Our Coal traffic through here seems to be heading toward Texas; that would indicate taking the Ark City sub south. There used to be a couple of regular trains through here that were notable for their canvas tarps. They have not been through here in several weeks(?). Grain traffic seems to be off quite a bit. Used to be at least two or three each day in both directions. Lately, not so much.
MP173: Ed: You mentioned DPUs. Most all the trains seem to have DPUs on the rear…Merrchandise trains (Mixed Cars) will generally have only one rear DPU. Exception, is of course the Auto Racks, always have head-end power, but no rear DPU’s. There is one train that seems to have mid train DPUs and a rear DPU. It seems to be a stack train composed mostly of Export type Containers. It was running baout once a week to the West. Have only seen one in the last several weeks. Hard to figure the Tank Car movements…Through her going mostly West, and they seem to be empty moves. THe Crude OIl trains seem to be coming down via the line trough Wichita.
Thanks for your reply. I am noticing the regular import stack trains are pretty large these days, no doubt in time for the holiday shopping season. The NS trains to Columbus and Harrisburg are running 250+ containers. These generally are off the BNSF and will also have a mixture of JBH domestic containers.
Not much DP operations here. CP runs DP on their oil movements on the NS, usually one motor at the front and one at the end. The CN train I mentioned was the first such DP I have seen on that line. What was really interesting was the placement of the DP about 125 cars in with another 35 cars behind it (mostly auto racks). I am wondering of the makeup of the train with heavy sand cars and lumber in the middle with racks at the rear determined the placement.
Domestic intermodal seems to be down. There are some NS movements which I monitor closely. Train 24M is a daily Chicago - Baltimore (Pittsburgh drop) which was averaging about 70-90 containers per day, often with 50+ UPS. This week has seen 25-40 containers with today’s movement having only 23 UPS. My guess is that freight movements are experiencing lower volumes and the truckers are adjusting pricing downward thus resulting in less movements on the intermodal trains. But…that is just a guess.
Where I live, just north of the Enola yard in PA (and I pass over the Enola yard frequently as well) there does not seem to be a decline in the past month or so. In fact, I’ve seen a bit more coal recently thyan in the past. Auto racks and intermodal seem to be pretty steady. If anything, it seems to have picked up a bit in the last week.
Thanks! Just goes to show that anecdotal evidence (as on here) is often false because we understandably lack both the bigger picture and an accurate memory of past events for comparison.
As the Topic line indicated my enquirey was not meant to be any more than annecdotal from the first. I have read and followedsome of 'industry" publications that are similar to the “Railway Age” linked piece.
it was my only intention to start a conversation among the Posters here to see if they were experiencing some of those similar trends. After all, many of the group here do observe, with interest, the railroads and their traffic in their home areas on a regular basis.
Out here in South Central Kansas, I live at the intersection of traffic that feeds into the BNSF Southern T-con [at Mulvane,Ks]. BNSF is the primary tennant. We were used to seeing quite a few trains each day ( both East and Westbound. Several weeks ago there was a marked decrease in the traffic (Over the line to our East) It was accompanied by Ballast trains, CWR Trains and MOW transport trains.
Car loadings give the big picture of a railroad and the industry. It does not necessarily give a picture of local conditions. You could have car loadings up overall, but it may not translate equally over an entire railroad. A person in one locality could indeed be seeing reduced traffic or shorter trains, even though the reported numbers show otherwise.
In the 75th anniversary issue it mentions on their bucket list, Grand Island NE. The item talks about the UP’s incredibly busy transcon and a headlight every 5 minutes. I wish. Maybe some parts of some days, but not anytime everyday. Most of that traffic is going to cross Iowa and I know our traffic levels aren’t anywhere near that. They haven’t been for a long time. I remember when I first hired out, the talk about how the UP was going to need a third track across Iowa and Illinois. It’s been a long time since anyone’s talked about that. Even completion of the Blair Subdivision double tracking project isn’t talked about much anymore. (They have done some bridge work and realigned a curve. I’m hoping maybe it means they might lay another 6 miles of track on the existing roadbed in the near future.)
Traffic on any particular subdivision or O-D pair is totally dependent upon the traffic mix that is handled. Most subdivisions do not handle every kind of traffic that the railroad handles in it’s overall traffic mix. If one lives along a coal based subdivision and the bottom drops out of the grain business - you will never know it. Additionally large class one’s will route their traffic depending upon local operating conditions such as track work and signal construction curfews. Mom Nature can also cause traffic to be rerouted.
Thank You, Professor:I have to agree with you about my 'little experiment"! I know the aggregated numbers for the American Rail picture are promising, and we seem to be on the cusp of a rising economy(?), but as I am railfanning in an area that is astride one of the major national rail arteries, the observations seemed to be contridictory to the reporting, nationally.
Jeff Hergert works in an a high traffic on the area of the Blair Sub (UPRR), and Balt ACD is sitting in an observational ‘cat-bird’s seat’ .
From my years in the trucking business, Iam aware( perceived?) that traffic flows in that industry can develop internal ‘flow patterns’ almost tide-like in their nature. Weekly shipping patterns, and sometimes the tax on inventories caused some of those implications(?).
I wonder if some of the Posters up in the Upper Midwest have seen any differences in traffic flows their railfanning areas? Out West? Again, just an interesting experiment. [2c]
Some of this observational disconnect goes back to a point I’ve noticed here and have discussed in other topics.
With just 4-6 trains a day through our area, it’s possible for a person to cross the line twice a day (as I did for a number of years) for weeks at a time and not see a single train. I’ve had times when I heard the defect detector that’s located a short distance from one crossing, yet by the time I got to the crossing there was nary a train in sight.
Even someone who lives or works next to the tracks could be misled by the new CSX schedule (and similar adjustments elsewhere). Suddenly a train they used to see at suppertime each day isn’t there. It may come through while they sleep, or while they’re at work, instead. So their perception is that traffic is down.