ED Racks?, 06-15-2011

Racks in Gardner, yes, racks even occasionally in Fitchburg, OK, but two tracks of racks -- w/o visible power -- in East Deerfield yard? That was a surprising sight on 06-15-2011 at 0950. Is a new operational pattern emerging?

190ED brought in 38 racks yesterday

AYMO picked up 28 racks yesterday.

Today ED4 was switching 15 around for AYMO to pick up today.

Also they ran a loaded rack train yesterday with around 20 racks, and today they ran an empty rack train with around 80 empty racks.

Just guessing, but makes it seem like Davisville might be getting its loads slower than it had been, with an EDXX doing a set-out at Gardner.

I believe the D&H has restrictions on train length (c. 9000 ft.) and as such, many times, NS has to drop LOADED auto racks here on the Southern Tier line to be picked up by the next day's manifest to then be tacked onto a following intermodal train. Perhaps intermodal business is up and these empties are simply waiting their turn across the D&H. Recall, we do have an abundance of rail cars due to the economy, so the return of an empty car is not all that critical. Also, with my uneducated insight, it is probably easier to switch cars in and out of trains at a very active rail yard (East Deerfield) vs. Fitchburg, especially if East Deerfield has room.

Now my point would be wrong if Fitchburg is plugged full of auto racks.

Although not plugged full with them, Fitchburg was hosting racks before noon on 06-24-2011.

A dedicated rack train came east through North Adams today around 1930 hrs

Today's AYMO had no racks thru EDFLD around 6pm.

2 tracks of racks were in the r yard.

Track 2 at Gardner was full of racks as far as the eye could see from route 2.

Seems like they've been running rack trains almost daily lately.

Mebbe, just mebbe, the operational sense of running dedicated EB racks to reduce lost time from splits and local congestion might be kicking in. But then again, mebbe not...

From the beginning it was said they would eventually be running dedicated rack trains. Whether it has has happened or there is just enough temporary traffic to warrant the split who knows.

Dunno if it was holiday-weekend-related, but on 07-02-2011 at 1050, Fitchburg had two tracks with racks.

Lotsa wide-open spaces at ED on 07-07-2011 at 0845, with racks visible on only one track.

Saw racks in the Class yard today, also some in the R yard, along with around 100 or so on the Conn River at 385.

AYMO was told to only take 29 west out of Ayer today, due to length restrictions. So I would guess there's more empty racks in the Hill.

Also a track or two full of racks at Gardner today.

...hopefully just a short-term situation and not a symptom of things to come...