Ethanol Plant - Medina, NY

Just curious if anyone knows if the GVT intends to add a unit or two to its stable in Lockport with the extra business coming??

From what I understand, they'll be using CSX power on the Ethanol plant trains... Falls Road crews will take over in Lockport, and hand the train back off to CSX in Lockport.

Will there be a yard built for these trains? Will GVT assign a locomotive to switch the plant once the car arrive or get moved around ?

No, the railroad has plans to sub-contract the plant switching duties to a 6-man Medina crew with the museums' 2 new E-8's, a caboose, and a '73 Maverick.

Alcoman wrote:Will there be a yard built for these trains? Will GVT assign a locomotive to switch the plant once the car arrive or get moved around ?

A new yard is being built at the plant site by the plant owner. No other staging area is planned. As has been posted earlier, the trains will come and go as unit trains. Most of what we have heard is about the corn trains. Nothing has been published on how the ethanol tankers and the brewers grain trains will work.

When a 60 car corn train comes in, CSX will hand it off to the Falls Road RR crew who will back it into the plant yard as each car is dumped. That will take 24 hours and three FRRR crews. They will return to the mainline and hand the train back to a CSX crew.

Anything else on the line will just have to stay out of the way. The corn train is expected once a week. In between corn trains, tankers and hoppers will also have to come and go as well as the regular freight to Brockport and businesses along the way.

And then somewhere in there, we hope to still run the excursion trains.

Gee, can I get on the crew running those E's for switching? That has to be the coolest.

What makes you think the E-8s going to the historical society will be used by the GVT for switching out this facility?

E-8's can't handle the train?

My point is that the owner's of the Es are not the railroad and it is far more likely that the power used to switch out this plant will be GVT Alcos or CSX run-through units or a third possibility, the ethanol plant leasing their own unit. In any case I doubt an E would be used for switching because it is a passenger unit and has both poor rear visibility and no switching steps (notice that F-40s modified for freight service have had these steps added).

Well, I think those power arrangements are probably being made as we speak.

As far as the vision is concerned, I figured we'd just cut two nice big holes in the sides of the E's so we could see better. We can always pop-rivet the cut-outs back in place for the passenger runs. Would that be bad?

WNYP431 wrote:Well, I think those power arrangements are probably being made as we speak.

As far as the vision is concerned, I figured we'd just cut two nice big holes in the sides of the E's so we could see better. We can always pop-rivet the cut-outs back in place for the passenger runs. Would that be bad?

I'm not too keen on the idea of tin-shears and pop rivets. Maybe we can acquire a remote control system and have the Engineer walk along side. If he gets too tuckered out he could just walk the length of the engines from one cab to the other. No special holes required. Did they ever make gears for that switcher mode? The E's minimum speed was 7 MPH.

Maybe we could just get a couple of JD9520's for the yard.

It is simply amazing, everyone knows how the trains are going to be operated- except for the operating crews. Simply amazing.

I think it is time to straighten a few things out. 1. Who will own and operate the E units? 2. Are they just coming up here for the excursions that have been run with GVT power in the past or will the GVT be leasing them to use or operating them to use horsepower to pay down operating over GVT track? 3. Mr Seldom, are you in some way affiliated with the GVT and more in the know than the rest of us? If so would you mind elaborating and clarifying the situation? I ask this because your initial post in this threat was somewhat odd and invited several posts with speculation, some including a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor. Finally, this E unit talk has gotten the thread off topic. I will create a new thread tomorrow to discuss the E unit and move the related posts. Thanks, Nick Moderator of this forum

OK. Enough said about the E-8's already. An innocent, well intended question lead to a lot of humorous wise cracks.

The E-8's will belong to the Medina Railroad Museum peroid.. and will be used exclusively by the Museum. Only if the Falls Road RR Co. lost all power units and were in a dire emergency would the Museum offer these units for use by the railorad. We would be good neighbors in that regard.

The Falls Road RR will serve the needs of the plant. GVT, the parent, will send power in as required for smooth operation of this plant.

The new yard there is about a mile long and currently has three tracks in the yard area. Construction is still under way. The rest of the story will unfold as the plant is finished and comes on line next fall.

All questions are still welcome and will be answered according to what the responder believes to be the best answer at the time.

Hope everybody had their fun. Let's stick to the methanol plant, this has nothing to do with the Medina Railroad Museum. You may discuss the Medina E-units here:

http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=32775

-otto-