AUTO Rack spotted in Geneva

From my understanding from a few people in the know on this matter FGLK has 60 or so Auto Racks currentley. They will be storeing 200 Autoracks all together with cars being stored in Victor and cars being stored in Solvay. Many of the Boxcars that were in Solvay are now in Geneva along 414. No Autoracks will be sent to the Depot as many of the curves are to tight for them to be moved around on.

From what I read, Chrysler and Ford will be shutting down production at 30 or more plants for at least the next couple months. Sounds like the racks will be rusting for awhile while automakers regroup their strategy. Hang on, this could get really weird in a historic way ! Railroads will take a big bite in the automotive sector, for sure. And the gas prices fell completely out of whack (where they should be), so I don't think shippers are going to jump to the added costs of switching from truck to rail, unless they are smart. lol

This is somewhat O/T, but in the interest of accuracy - Most auto plants get a 2-week shutdown around the holidays in normal years. Chrysler is shutting all of theirs down an extra two weeks, beginning end of work Friday. This makes their shutdown one month long, for those who can't manage the math on that. Ford is going to leave 10 plants closed an extra 10 days. GM hasn't made any such announcements yet, but has stopped work on a plant under construction related to the Volt electric car. Most of the major news sites will have articles on it from today or yesterday if anyone's interested in learning more, be your preference Savage, Drudge, Fox, CNN, NBC, or whatever.

CSX has always seemed to have racks stored somewhere, the siding at Onieda is more often than not full of them.

Question - there's a little room up behind the insulator plant, where the ballast hopper, plow and caboose are stored - could they get a few racks up in there? They did get passenger cars up there in the past. A fun shove, to be sure.

lvrr325 wrote:This is somewhat O/T, but in the interest of accuracy - Most auto plants get a 2-week shutdown around the holidays in normal years. Chrysler is shutting all of theirs down an extra two weeks, beginning end of work Friday. Ford is going to leave 10 plants closed an extra 10 days. GM hasn't made any such announcements yet, but has stopped work on a plant under construction related to the Volt electric car. Most of the major news sites will have articles on it from today or yesterday if anyone's interested in learning more, be your preference Savage, Drudge, Fox, CNN, NBC, or whatever.

CSX has always seemed to have racks stored somewhere, the siding at Onieda is more often than not full of them.

Question - there's a little room up behind the insulator plant, where the ballast hopper, plow and caboose are stored - could they get a few racks up in there? They did get passenger cars up there in the past. A fun shove, to be sure.

One of the auto makers waas shuting down for a whole mounth seems like it was Ford that planed that move.

On a possibly related note, Q632 today had at least a dozen flatcars that compromise the bottoms of autoracks on his tail end, reporting marks TTXX. All of the ones I saw appeared to have been Grand Trunk Western autoracks previously (they left the handbrake sections intact, which featured the blue paint...). Seeing as to how they were on the rear, they were probably going right through to Guilford as opposed to being dropped en route (they didn't have any work at Lyons).

Well, GM annouced yesterday it was shutting down an additional 2 weeks for a total of 4 weeks. Now everyone needs to remember that even the foreign auto makers are having slow sales. CSX handles a large amount of foreign cars from Honda, Hyndia, Toyota and others. The auto market as a whole is very slow. Today the President announced some sort of rescue plan. I'm not going into the politics/economics of the situation. There will still be autorack trains running, just not as many and shorter. Q632 doesn't work Lyons, just Gen.Jct. and Belle Isle, on the Rochester side. Syracuse, Utica and Rotterdam Jct. on the Mohawk side. It's my understanding that soon Q625/624 will no longer be working Lyons either, and the FingerLakes interchange handled by Rochester Locals again. (whats left of them that is) Q625 will only P/U at Belle Isle and Q633 will P/U Rochester. Thats whats in the wind right now, subject to change in 2 minutes. Syracuse has about 80 flats stored on tk 25, and another 90+ HBO(Heavy Bad Order) coalhoppers (380000 series)headed to scraper stored on tk 26. I'm surprised CSX hasn't utilized the West Yard at Charlotte and the lead out past Russel for storage.

So how many cars are in Victor now?

Many Otto.. Many.
I saw the 'racks sitting on the LV main past the VI switch. Even the passing sidings were full of more autoracks. At first.. i thought: "HOLY CRAP! THE LV IS BACK AND MOVING AUTORACKS!!" then i realized they were stationary.. haha..
Anyway.
Sean

The line of cars in Victor stretches from behind Papa Jacks or so to the crossing at 251. While it is a certain sign of the times, it is also a great way for the railroad to make some money on trackage which is not otherwise being used.

Having just driven across the state on the Thruway, there's also cuts of them being stored on sidings all along the Chicago Line.

- Jered

Lehighton_Man wrote:At first.. i thought: "HOLY CRAP! THE LV IS BACK AND MOVING AUTORACKS!!" then i realized they were stationary.. haha...

The schools frown on drug abuse, Sean...

Hey Everone, This is not funny. I live near Victor and know people at the Fingerlakes RR. It is a very challenging business climate these days and everyone including class ones and shortlines are in survival mode. The cars are there for revenue on forever unused rails now run by the Fingerlakes as well as cars stored elsewere including the old Army depot.
Thanks for reading.
Tom

Well, it's certainly a given that the shortlines make some $$$ for storing cars for their class 1 partners.

Nobody said storing auto racks was funny, Otto implied Sean's remark about the LV being back was.

And speaking of funny, what do you mean by "forever unused rails"?

I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to f----- amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?

LOL!! That sounds familiar.....