Norfolk Southern's Royalton Sub

[88gta350]

Just curious about NS's Royalton Sub.It comes off the Philly-Harrisburg line at Royalton, PA (adjacent to Middletown, PA), and runs south along the Susquehanna. Within it's first couple of miles, it runs through our property at work. I'm just curious where it goes once it hits Lancaster County and points south. It sees about a half dozen trains a day or so, mostly unit coal trains headed south and empties north, and intermodals both south and north. It gets the occassional manifest freight.

[Overmod]

Isn't this the line between CP ROY and CP SHOCKS that connects to the Columbia & Port Deposit?

Presumably there's still a coal-fired power plant at Holtwood?

[Anonymous]

I thought NS was getting rid off the Royalton Branch, I guess I must be thinking of another line. Thanks for that info, I was thinking about trying to catch a train on that section of track, now I know how traffic is.

[88gta350]

dougal, I know of no plans for them to "get rid" of that line. Are you referring to handing control over to someone else or abandoning it altogether? It sees a decent amount of traffic, as I said, I'd guess anywhere between 5-10 trains a day. Probably on the low end of that scale most days. Traffic seems much heavier on weekdays, and most traffic runs at night (much to the chagrin of the neighbors, I'm sure... lots of crossings). It sees Unit coal and intermodal, with an occassional manifest. I've seen some odd trains come through there. The Philly-Harrisburg line is just across the street for the first couple miles at least. I imagine a picture with TMI in the background would be cool.