PL-1 Job Central Connecticut PAS Pan Am Southern

csor2010 wrote:I noticed a large cut of Amtrak ballast hoppers in the Plainville yard this afternoon; I'm assuming these came off last night's EDPL. Does this mean that the Cook's Gap quarry spur is back up and running?

The Amtrak cars are going out west to be rebuilt.

Right at the end of a major construction project no less. Planning for the future ...

The project is nowhere near finished

Another Plainville note; while I was there the other day it looked like a track crew was working near the Pequabuck River bridge, which as far as I know is the current end of track. Having seen several reports of monster EDPL/PLEDs and with the yard looking increasingly like a switching puzzle, is it possible that PAR is extending the northern yard lead by a bit?

is it possible that PAR is extending the northern yard lead by a bit?

Yes.

It also appears that they cleared out enough space East of the rte 10 crossing in Plainville to add a siding.

csor2010 wrote:Another Plainville note; while I was there the other day it looked like a track crew was working near the Pequabuck River bridge, which as far as I know is the current end of track. Having seen several reports of monster EDPL/PLEDs and with the yard looking increasingly like a switching puzzle, is it possible that PAR is extending the northern yard lead by a bit?

End-of-track goes further, the whole length of the Robertson Airport runway to ~200 ft. shy of the former Northwest Dr. bridge. Haven't crossed the Pequabuck in years and only given it minimal weed-spraying for sake of retaining Robertson's maint access to that side of the security fence. There's also a mostly derelict trackside gravel driveway coming off Northwest Dr. that runs along the final 1750 ft. of track, though they haven't ever had a need to use that for anything.


Ironically, if you switch to Google 2016 view (i.e. turn off 3D view on the menu), you'll see a string of 5 tankers parked within a single car length of the Pequabuck bridge and scattered tie piles running from the switch all the way to the bridge footings. Looks like they've been incrementally rehabbing the lead for some months now. Maybe they're getting ready to cross the bridge? They only have 1500 ft. of runaround from last switch to the bridge, so it'll only take a few more cars on those oversize EDPL's before they have legitimate need to tap the slack space next to Robertson.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:End-of-track goes further, the whole length of the Robertson Airport runway to ~200 ft. shy of the former Northwest Dr. bridge. Haven't crossed the Pequabuck in years and only given it minimal weed-spraying for sake of retaining Robertson's maint access to that side of the security fence. There's also a mostly derelict trackside gravel driveway coming off Northwest Dr. that runs along the final 1750 ft. of track, though they haven't ever had a need to use that for anything.


Ironically, if you switch to Google 2016 view (i.e. turn off 3D view on the menu), you'll see a string of 5 tankers parked within a single car length of the Pequabuck bridge and scattered tie piles running from the switch all the way to the bridge footings. Looks like they've been incrementally rehabbing the lead for some months now. Maybe they're getting ready to cross the bridge? They only have 1500 ft. of runaround from last switch to the bridge, so it'll only take a few more cars on those oversize EDPL's before they have legitimate need to tap the slack space next to Robertson.

Yeah, I meant to refer to the end of operating track, given that they probably haven't been north of the Pequabuck bridge since they cut the Canal back from Avon. I had a feeling they might have long-term desires on the track for a while; the initial plans for the bike path link through Plainville had it hopping from Cronk Road onto the ROW at the bridge, but subsequent documents seemed to indicate that PAS/NS had become rather attached to that trackage and had decided to hang onto it for their own purposes. Which makes sense - it's pretty much the only vector for expanding Plainville ops short of building a whole new yard elsewhere.

Caught EDPL this afternoon bringing the 20-25 LPG tankers into the Plainville yard today 5 cars at a time. This was due to the long line of LPG cars already lined up at the north end of the yard. Powered by 4 locomotives (2009 P&W, MEC 352, GMTX 3001, and B&M 334). On a seperate note I have not seen any hoppers with construction debris since the derailment with the exception of the 4 loaded hoppers that have been sitting in the yard since the derailment. Have these loads been put on hold?

Plainvilletrainbuff wrote:5 cars at a time. This was due to the long line of LPG cars already lined up at the north end of the yard.

The yard is excepted track, they can only move 5 hazmat cars at a time either way.

Probably why they've been blitzing track replacement throughout the yard. Business has never been better at Amerigas; siding was completely full when I was visiting the family during the Holidays. And that new LPG customer in Plymouth is off to a gangbusters start.

Amerigas has slack space to double the size of their storage from 2 tracks @ 4 cars ea. = 8 cars to 4 tracks @ 4 cars ea. = 16 cars, spur a pump pipe to load from the extra tracks, and increase their number of permanent onsite tanks with +4 more hookups on the empty north end of the property. All stuff pre-provisioned when they completely redid their siding and pump infrastructure a decade-plus ago. Pretty much inevitable they're going to start adding capacity very soon. The glut of new McMansion subdivisions Town of Southington keeps rubber-stamping are full of rows upon rows of new houses with propane tanks for heat, and the town's been much more sluggish and overburdened with permitting snafus to get gas lines laid to these new streets like they had initially promised. Those tanks are going to be there for the long haul now that they've bit off more than they can chew and had to scale back their dreams of a utility gas grid. Plainville has also become a hot market for house 'flippers' who install propane tanks on their formerly oil-based gut-n'-reno jobs. The flippers have been mowing through the older residential neighborhood by Paderewski Park like crazy the last few years capitalizing on the nearby highway access. My sister bought a reno job on one of those streets, and every time I go visit there's another house within a block of her getting a flipper makeover...usually with switchover to propane.

It's more than a market blip here. The number of area new household and small-biz installations in the last 5 years alone are enough to kick Amerigas's customer base up a permanent notch and put real urgency into a capacity expansion. PAS is very wise to spring preemptively on Plainville Yard improvements, because it's coming fast. Plymouth probably isn't the last all-new LPG customer scouting out cheap ex-industrial land along the Highland, Waterbury Branch, and/or Naugy; plenty of room in the booming local market for another rail-accessible distributor.

Brief article in Norwich Bulletin says overloaded cars caused December's Pan Am derailment in New Britain:

Excerpts:

WVIT-TV says a report that Pan Am Railways was required to send to the Federal Railroad Administration says the cars were weighed and found to be overloaded.

but then there's this comment from the shipper:

Frost Bridge Associates, which leases and loaded the cars, says the cars were properly weighed and loaded before leaving its yard.

http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/201 ... derailment

Does that customer even have a scale? Not many do.

Most scrapyards have a scale at the truck entry to the yard,large enough for a stakebed straight truck/pick up with trailer,
you are weighted in and out,might be loading the gon right off the truck,using the net weight off the truck and adding that
to the gon's empty weight.

That's true. I just remember 9/10 overweight cars we got were scrap cars.