NS in Chelsea

[chapmaja]

Witnessed something interesting today in Chelsea.

About 1:30 I left a Dr. appt in Chelsea and as I pulled out I noticed the lights at the M52 crossing flashing. I decided to head past Jiffy to see what was going on. As I turn south and cross the crossing west of Jiffy I noticed NS was on the northern of the two mains through Chelsea. I decided to head to the parking lot behind Chelsea Fire Department to watch the moves at Jiffy.

NS had 3 locomotives and zero cars on the main. There were two cars on the interchange track and two cars on the loading/unloading track by the silo.

After a few minutes watching crew members move between engines, I witnessed the crew decouple the east most locomotive, pull east past the switch and back down the interchange track. They couple to the two cars, one a UP and one a BNSF, then pull back onto the main. They then couple to the two engines left on the mainline.

This meant they have two engines, an SD40E leading, and SD40-2 leading westbound, then the 2 cars picked up from Jiffy, then the GP60 they used to pull the cars from Jiffy.

I have never seen then pull out with one engine and leave two in front then head west with this arrangement.

One other person, whose son works at Jiffy, stopped in the lot and watched for a few minutes. He said he has never seen them switch this way before.

Does Jiffy's interchange track prohibit 6 axel locomotives? I thought I had witnessed them switch Jiffy with all 6 axels before.

Driving home I also noticed the same car sitting at Chelsea Grain that's been there for months. AEX 86468 or something like that. It seems to move places on the track, but doesn't seem to move. Is this some sort of buffer car they keep on the property now instead of having the tractor couple to the cars that are being loaded at the Grain elevator? It has always been the furthest car east (towards the spurs end) when I've seen it with other cars on the spur.

[Ypsi]

Sounds like the crew didn't want to run around their cars. Most liking B44 doing their switch, using B33's power as well. The extra grain car may be because of a tight radius switch or weird couple. In swanton Ohio B41 sometimes needs to leave a car between the locomotive and tank cars because of the curved track they spot cars on. I've seen B25 run engine-teobcars, and another engine multiple times.