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I know still in the noobcakes section but I would like to vouch to Z or whoever if the WVA Secondary can have its own thread. A poster has popped up giving good information and I would like to the WVA secondary topic evolve from the Peavine thread. How bout it guys?

Seeing as I live near Athens, I'm game. We had an "end of the Secondary" scare, some high sources said the last train was the 3rd of January. A train ran today, so I think we're good. Actually has been fairly busy, which is to say 1-3 trains per day (including helper moves).

One thing I've learned about the railroads. Always be prepared for the worst but, don't believe anything until you see it.

Although, sometimes it is fun to speculate.

WV Secondary traffic for the new year out of Hobson.
January 1 380 south with NS 8444 leading
January 3 698 north with UP 8477 leading
January 4 698 north with NS 1083 leading & NS 1065 (S&A Heritage unit) trailing
January 4 380 south with NS 6344 leading
January 5 381 north out of Dickinson, not to Hobson yet

Jan 3rd they doubled the rate for scrap coming from the Toyota transmission plant at Buffalo. Rate increase was detailed as longer transit routing due to future line closure. Increased the rates to ICI at Thurston to kill off that business. Tie and surface projects scheduled for 2016 around Hobson and then across the river in WV along with deck work on Ohio River bridge canceled.

The flip side is the more we say it's going away the longer it holds on. So someone each week say next week is the end...

midland sub wrote:Jan 3rd they doubled the rate for scrap coming from the Toyota transmission plant at Buffalo. Rate increase was detailed as longer transit routing due to future line closure. Increased the rates to ICI at Thurston to kill off that business. Tie and surface projects scheduled for 2016 around Hobson and then across the river in WV along with deck work on Ohio River bridge canceled.

The flip side is the more we say it's going away the longer it holds on. So someone each week say next week is the end...

What a way to keep your customers happy and do business.

Tuesday 381 had NS 2801 NS 3445 with 41 cars into Hobson, 2 gons, 10 covered hoppers, 29 tanks.

What is now the WV Secondary has had a rough life from the beginning. The 1931 opening of the Deepwater bridge was a big break. Virginian was happy to route traffic north and west via NYC instead of giving it to C&O or N&W with which it competed. NYC could route traffic headed southeast via the Virginian and get the longest possible haul and also turn it over to a non-competitive road. Once N&W acquired VGN in 1959 that business began to decline and disappeared after N&W acquired the Wabash and NKP in 1964. After the PC collapse the track was in terrible shape, the FRA shut the line north of Hobson down for a short period until PC could patch things up. PC trains detoured over the C&O Kanawha Sub & Northern Sub. PC which had introduced 6 axle power on the line (NYC didn't have 6 axle units except passenger power) pulled it off because of the poor track and used only 4 motor units. The USRA wanted to exclude the line from Conrail, basically abandon the line south of the now closed Peabody Coal mine south of New Lexington and sell Point Pleasant south to the Chessie System. That didn't work out and the line ended up in Conrail which was later happy to have the traffic and revenue.

CR fixed the line up and until recently NS has been a patient owner. The biggest drawback the line has now beyond the lack of local traffic is the tunnels. The clearance limits are extremely tight. There have been several cases where NS cars and in at least one case an entire train have been routed to Kenova WV and handed off to CSXT for movement to Pt Pleasant for interchange back to NS because loads would not clear the tunnels. These were not huge transformers or similar loads. The train load involved military equipment which most other lines could easily handle.

Hopefully something will change and the line will get another chance to prove it's value.

Very interesting stuff. There's a lot of good info on the line in Jerry Taylor's A Sampling of Penn Central.

bbe125 wrote: Hopefully something will change and the line will get another chance to prove it's value.

Come on WE or G&W, Ken

NS tried to get G&W to lease it a couple of years and ago and then said no thanks. They will lease New Lex to Corning if it comes to that.

381 on the CSXT Pomeroy Sub approaching Hobson NS 8444 & 6344 +77 cars (41 hoppers, 1 covered hopper, 35 tanks). 2 units and a decent size train like the old days.

NS ran a 380 south Friday night and a 381 north to Hobson on Saturday. The 381 continued on north out of Hobson Sunday afternoon with another good size train. Last night 380 went south out of Hobson with NS 6339 leading.

Also last night a J98 crew was called at Hobson apparently to taxi to Corning where they were to pickup an empty coal train apparently to load at the Burr Oak Mine which usually loads Ohio Central trains which reach it via trackage rights on NS from New Lexington.

Does this line still have all the chemical plants it did during the PC era? Ken

NS made it official today that the line is being taken out of service.

http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en ... uppor.html

midland sub wrote:NS made it official today that the line is being taken out of service.

http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en ... uppor.html

That'll most likely result in some more layoffs in Portsmouth and Columbus.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 63&nseq=75


This may be of interest. Midland do you or anyone else have info on this?

Everyone seems to think the end of 380/381 is tomorrow. There's supposed to be 2 more loaded northbound loaded coal trains in the next couple of days and a possible train of bad ordered coal gons and other junk from Charleston area next week. Otherwise everyone else is under the impression line is dead 2/1.

It's a nice pic. Source has a history of believing anything told to them and running with it. No one else knows anything about it so I'll believe it when we all see it.

midland sub wrote:Everyone seems to think the end of 380/381 is tomorrow. There's supposed to be 2 more loaded northbound loaded coal trains in the next couple of days and a possible train of bad ordered coal gons and other junk from Charleston area next week. Otherwise everyone else is under the impression line is dead 2/1.

It's a nice pic. Source has a history of believing anything told to them and running with it. No one else knows anything about it so I'll believe it when we all see it.

Hmm.

If I remember correctly, the letter NS put out stated they were rerouting the traffic. I understood this as the north end was to be shuttered (outside of what OC uses?). I also heard a rumor from work that Dickinson was going to hold on.

Now granted, I won't believe anything until I see it. I guess I'm just tryin to pick your brain without searching back through the Peavine thread.

That's exactly the same information everyone else has too. Dickinson will continue as the yard for what's left in Charleston.

He's not a credible source by any stretch. He will run with anything you tell him especially if it's Peavine or WV Sec and believe it no matter how outlandish the rumor. Mostly it's just for attention. I fully expect he will chain himself to the tracks when NS starts pulling up the east end of the Peavine.

midland sub wrote:That's exactly the same information everyone else has too. Dickinson will continue as the yard for what's left in Charleston.

He's not a credible source by any stretch. He will run with anything you tell him especially if it's Peavine or WV Sec and believe it no matter how outlandish the rumor. Mostly it's just for attention. I fully expect he will chain himself to the tracks when NS starts pulling up the east end of the Peavine.

Uhh... Who are you referring to exactly?