My wild guess its going to a DP&L or a Ohio Power plant between Columbus and Cincinnati.
Larry
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BRAKIE dehusman Could be low sulphur Wyoming coal going to a plant on the the east coast. Georgia Power burns a LOT of Wyoming coal so it ships all the way to the eastern seaboard. Exactly where that coal is headed. But.... Enter all things railroad. NS operates several loaded hopper trains that come from the East on the old PRR Ft. Wayne Line off Pittsbugh Line at Crestline rounds the South-East leg of the wye here at Bucyrus and heads East. Some of the Westbound coal is headed for the Sandusky docks,steel mills,coke plants and power plants.
dehusman Could be low sulphur Wyoming coal going to a plant on the the east coast. Georgia Power burns a LOT of Wyoming coal so it ships all the way to the eastern seaboard.
Could be low sulphur Wyoming coal going to a plant on the the east coast. Georgia Power burns a LOT of Wyoming coal so it ships all the way to the eastern seaboard.
Exactly where that coal is headed.
But....
Enter all things railroad.
NS operates several loaded hopper trains that come from the East on the old PRR Ft. Wayne Line off Pittsbugh Line at Crestline rounds the South-East leg of the wye here at Bucyrus and heads East.
Some of the Westbound coal is headed for the Sandusky docks,steel mills,coke plants and power plants.
Larry, any idea where that southbound coal was heading? I guess that would be considered an eastbound by NS, but as you know that line is going due south at that point.
wjstix Just to exhaust all possibilities - are you sure it was coal? It isn't unusual for a railroad to use regular hopper cars to haul taconite from a Great Lakes port south to a steel plant. Taconite isn't red like raw iron ore, it's black to dark gray. Taconite is quite a bit denser / heavier than coal, so if carried in regular coal-type hoppers, the cars would usually not be filled to the top - maybe 1/2 to 2/3 full max.
Just to exhaust all possibilities - are you sure it was coal? It isn't unusual for a railroad to use regular hopper cars to haul taconite from a Great Lakes port south to a steel plant. Taconite isn't red like raw iron ore, it's black to dark gray. Taconite is quite a bit denser / heavier than coal, so if carried in regular coal-type hoppers, the cars would usually not be filled to the top - maybe 1/2 to 2/3 full max.
These cars were full. The top of the load was higher than the sides of the cars. Not sure how many steel plants are still operating in Ohio but most of them were in the east (Youngstown, Steubenville).
The hoppers were silver if that's any clue.
Stix,Its coal..There are Westbound coke trains through Bucyrus though.
And yes,every NS train that passes East through Bucyrus goes by Cooke Road and that is a railfan spot located near the Train Station Hobby Shop.
rrinker What reporting marks were on the hoppers? --Randy
What reporting marks were on the hoppers?
--Randy
I couldn't tell that. From my vantage point I could only see the top half of the hoppers.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I am 20 miles south of Columbus and these tracks are still running parallel. I too, see these loaded hoppers.
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
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I sure don't have a definitive answer, but it does sound likely that the coal originated in Pennsylvania. In earlier days it might have come west on PRR's Panhandle Division, but that was spun off to Ohio Central (Now Genesee & Wyoming). The old Big Four Route is controlled by CSX now, so an all-NS routing would likely require operation over the old Sandusky Line.
Of course there may be other factors.
Tom
tomikawaTT All coal is not created equal. Metallurgical coal has to have very specific properties, somewhat different for each process. Power plant boilers have fire-end arrangements optimized for a specific grade of steam coal. It's just possible that somewhere south of you there's a plant that can't use Pocahontas coal but thrives on a Pennsylvania product. Or, maybe, some commodities broker scored a deal. Lacking insider information, all I can do is speculate - but not in coal... Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with coal mines that never existed there)
All coal is not created equal. Metallurgical coal has to have very specific properties, somewhat different for each process. Power plant boilers have fire-end arrangements optimized for a specific grade of steam coal. It's just possible that somewhere south of you there's a plant that can't use Pocahontas coal but thrives on a Pennsylvania product.
Or, maybe, some commodities broker scored a deal. Lacking insider information, all I can do is speculate - but not in coal...
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with coal mines that never existed there)
The bigger question seems to be where is the coal coming from rather than where is it going to. That NS line runs due north to north central Ohio. If it was Pennsylvania coal, I would think it would have turned south sooner, possibly on the old Big Four line through Ohio. Still scratching my head over this one.
It seems you already have the answer:
The coal was moving. Where could it go on the tracks "downstream"? Follow the tracks.
Clearly, they aren't going to shove the coal back into the ground.
Of course, one shouldn't ignore the possibility that it wasn't going anywhere. Perhaps it was being stored "on line".
Ed
I am a transition era modeler so I don't pay a lot of attention to modern railroading but I saw something yesterday that has me baffled. The NS and CSX have parallel rights of way through north Columbus, OH and the lines run right behind my LHS. A few blocks north both lines go over Morse Rd on plate girder bridges which is where I get on I-71. On the NS line I saw a string of loaded coal hoppers which wouldn't be unusual except they were heading SOUTH. I couldn't figure that one out. Where did that coal come from and where was it going. If you continue south on the old N&W line you go through Portsmouth OH, on to Huntington WV, and the coal mines beyond. Why would they be shipping coal in that direction. I immediately thought of the cartoon in John Armstrong's book in which he talked about using loads in/empties out operation so that loads leave the mine and empties return. The caption showed one model railroader asking his friend, "Why are you shipping that coal back to the mine? Didn't the boys down at the plant want the stuff after all?".
Does anyone have any ideas about this. I thought maybe there is a coal dock somewhere on Lake Erie but that seems like a roundabout way of of shipping coal to a point somewhere in southern Ohio.