IORY South End Part Five

[redside20]

Passed Blue Grass Farms on I71 yesterday while traveling to Dayton on our way to the MVR slide show. Noticed a abnormal number of grain hoppers in the spur about 20 or so towards the spurs end at State route 729...Are they still transferring the grain from the hoppers to the containers still? Because I did see some containers at the site as well.

[midland sub]

Last anyone seems to remember Bluegrass loading containers and using rail was back in early January. BGF claims it's now cheaper to load the container lighter and dray them to Columbus @ Rickenbacker than use rail. Those covered hoppers are in storage. They were part of the fleet used to ship ddg out of Valero. Those were in storage in either Undercliff or on the #1 main between Blanchester and Midland City.

I&O is a mess. Not enough conductors so they are resorting to using contractors. Group should be qualifying this week.

They ran the Wash CH Turn twice last week. At one point had 350 plus cars sitting in Oakley for Wash CH alone.... Not making friends with CSX in Columbus. Shoved a 90 car loaded grain train and then 80 car loaded ethanol followed by a 65 car loaded grain train up the main around Haynes for CSX to deal with last week.

Melvin Stone rock runner train has started up again. Runs Melvin to Undercliff and back. Possibly using 5678 until it blows up...

[logansub]

you say the Melvin stone train is headed towards logan?

[midland sub]

No there's also a stone train that runs to Cincinnati.

[midland sub]

Next Logan stone train should be at Parsons or still sitting south of Grove City. Left Wash CH on Thursday evening and was left just south of Grove City. 4072 and OC 4028 and I believe 50 cars of stone.

[logansub]

Looks like the stone train unloaded on Tuesday and left town late last night or sometime this morning. Still left the 2 stone cars sitting by the train station shop. Must still have problems

[redside20]

Went down to Hamilton this morning to visit RandL so I went to Washington Court House first...Nothing was seen for the first 15 miles as there wasn't a piece of equipment in sight in the Derby-Mount Sterling-Cooks area. However I did see a block of ethanol tanks at Madison Mills (Haynes). Took the new 753 connector off of Route 62 and made a beeline for the industrial park to make my observations from east to west in order from the industrial park to Konrad, this is what I saw. At WCH molding,three plastic centerflow hopers, Domtar had about a dozen or so boxcars but whether if they were for Domtar or that pallet company, it was jammed full of boxcars. Lowes continues to receive a lionshare of lumber and there were centerbeams all over the Lowes Distribution yard. Across 753 at Mars Pet Care, there were the usual slate gray hoppers, various other grain hoppers and a boxcar or two. Fibertech had two boxcars and four centerbeams were seen at Stark Truss. Saw some cars at Purina, but not sure if Purina is getting anything. Didn't go by CPS this time..Nothing at old yard office, but there were two hoppers of something at Potter. About 15-20 cars on the Handy Track and it looked like something was pulling them into town but didn't get a closer look. Out at Konrad was the motherload as every track was jammed full of stuff and a trio of Locos were sitting at the yard office on Bush Road. The powertrio of 4084, 4071, and 3888 were there idling waiting for there next supposed move to somewhere. Going down to Wilmington, a few hoppers at Sabina, and several more hoppers at grain elevator at Melvin. OC 4028 was seen sitting next to a block of loaded stone hoppers waiting to be transported somewhere. Had to get down to Hamilton, but not before going by Timbertech and seeing some plastic hoppers jammed packed into the spur there. SR 73 around Wilmington has to be the shortest bypass ever built complete with hardly any traffic on the road..Great waste of our tax dollars there.

[midland sub]

Should be part of an ethanol train you saw at Haynes. Not sure if it's loads or empties you saw.

Those were all for Domtar. The pallet company was a one time thing with potential for the future. CPS had a couple covered hoppers there yesterday. Purina does not use rail. I believe the rail had been removed from the enclosed loading dock for them. What's left of their track is for staging.

4028 should have the next Logan stone train with it.

[midland sub]

Logan stone train is still shoved into Bluegrass. One of the cars was getting some drawbar work.....

Three sets of CSX power floating around. One set was used on the Grove City local on Sunday. Heritage Co-op in Derby is shipping grain out again as they got ten empty cov hoppers. Second was a on loaded 90 car from South Chuck sitting just north of Konrad waiting to go Haynes. Last set was on an empty train shoved into Bluegrass to get it out of the way. Good thing BGF not using rail at the moment....

Twenty loaded 50 ft hi cube boxcars stored on Jeffersonville siding for the Urbana Sub. Will go to warehouse on old PRR main for unloading.

4084-4072-3889 brought back 44 cars on Wash CH Turn Monday morning

[midland sub]

Immediate changes to the Logan Sub. Anchor Hocking shut both of their Lancaster plant on the Logan Sub and Lawrenceburg, IN on the CIND down. Press release said they were hoping to sell inventory of products and hopefully reopen both in three to four weeks. Then they announced they had lost $38 million the first quarter and was in default on their $250 million dollar loan. Lancaster plant suffered a fire back in January that shut a production line down, which has yet to return to service and will not this year if they do indeed return to production. Not 100% positive on Lawernceburg production, but Lancaster used five inbound loads of material a day 5 to 6 days a week plus the six day a week twice a day shuttle. This puts a serious dent in the Logan Sub traffic.

[AARR]

Immediate changes to the Logan Sub. Anchor Hocking shut both of their Lancaster plant on the Logan Sub

Hope they didn't buy those new/used box cars yet

[midland sub]

I was incorrect about the Lawrenceburg plant on the CIND. It was spun off in the last Anchor Bankruptcy several years ago and thus not effected. The Lancaster plant and a smaller plant in Monaca, PA fall under the EverWare ownership that shut down. There seems to be some optimism that both will open at some point in the next month.

[logansub]

wonder what why the logan stone train has not been running, still broke down?

[midland sub]

Not the focus of Melvin Stone at the moment. Too many logistic issues getting it thru Columbus to Logan, unloaded and back.

As for the Logan Sub. Down to one job per day. Three days a week they work north to Parsons and back. Three days a week they go to Logan and back. Still nothing solid on when or if ever the Lancaster Anchor plant might reopen...

[logansub]

I heard today that anchor hocking has a sister plant out in pa and they started back up this week. Also heard some one tell me that works for them in shipping that they think they might start back up in 2 weeks. Why is it so hard for them to get through Columbus?

[midland sub]

They were supposed to start up I believe three lines of the much smaller plant in Pennsylvania. The issue with Lancaster is the damage from the fire to one of the main production lines back in January still hasn't been fixed. Hopefully the plant does indeed go back in production. If not they are going to send one of the locos back to the Midland. I saw a pic of them running to Parsons a couple of days ago with both 5007-3888 so that they no longer need to run long hood forward on part of the trip there.

As for the stone traffic..... Day 1: Train gets loaded at Melvin and left somewhere from Haynes north to Grove City for CSX to pick up. Day 2 to who knows when CSX comes and takes train to Parsons. Depending on how jammed up Parsons is at the time it might end up in the right track for a Logan Sub crew to pick up. If and when CSX releases it to the I&O a crew comes up and off to Logan it goes. Usually a couple of days or more to unload. They had trouble with six of the cars last time and damaged the door. Once complete start the process to back to Parsons. The quickest trip I think was a week from the time it was loaded and came back to Haynes. Longest has been 17 days. I was told the goal is a week from load to coming back empty. Which is asking a lot with the endless problems at both the I&O and CSX right now.

[alittlevanwerty]

What symbol does the IORY use on the Dayton district?

[midland sub]

Sharonville to Springfield on NS they use 400/401. 400 is westbound and 401 eastbound. Depends on where the LSL but they can go all the way into Springfield and access the DT&I. Might end being forced to do that every trip. There's rumbles of problems between WESTCO and the very poor service the I&O is giving the WESTCO lines. The I&O is now loosely the Ohio Central West Div......

[alittlevanwerty]

Thanks. Due to unfamiliararity with Springfield and the way the IORY operates currently I missed the 400 come to town because I went west while they came east. What they did was come of the Dayton district by the lumber yard, cut the 400 power away at Burnett St and coupled them to the cars the LSL brought south and placed on the south leg of the wye. The LSL power backed off the north leg to couple up the cars and left directly after. The 400 may have had the 2001 genset in the lead to Springfield but I couldn't tell for sure. 4070 lead back with a OC unit in the middle.

[logansub]

The 4070 and 9500 brought the stone train to logan today. Looked like the cars were the ones they brought down last year instead of the new ones they bought from Georgia power.