Trains on CSX St. Lawrence Sub (CR's Montreal Secondary)

The container traffic from/to Valley Field will still be sent into Dewitt as these are blocked with traffic for other destinations from/to North Baltimore. The pilot containers and cars (the many emptys you've seen on Q152/Q153) have been testing the traffic for the Mearsk contract. The customer is happy with the results. CSX expects to have the balance of the Massena to Syracuse track up to back 40 mph. The future of the Sub. appears brighter than in recent years.

joha107 wrote:
Traffic when I started photographing this line in 2002 was at 3-4 trains a day (Q621 and Q620 daily, Q622 Sat and Mon-Thur and Q623 Mon-Fri), this lasted until 2008 when traffic dropped to two trains a day after the recession. You'd probably have to go back to Conrail to find a busier time period in terms of number of road trains. That said, train lengths are much shorter, the K trains are between 40-65 cars, Q152/Q153 rarely exceed 50 cars, Q620/Q621 can break 100 cars probably once or twice a week, but often they can be under 50 cars.

Joe,
When I first started paying attention to this line in 1988, Conrail typically ran 2 road freights a day in each direction between Montreal and Selkirk. At that time they were all called SEMC or MCSE and they ran into St. Luc with a CN drop in Huntington. On a typical day, the NB's all left Dewitt in early evening, usually starting after 7pm and the SB's arrived at Dewitt starting early to mid Morning (usually all in daylight into Dewitt). These trains were usually all very long with lots of CN, CP, and BAR paper cars and related forest/paper traffic. There were days that 3 sections ran on this train but it was not that often. There was also a Dewitt to Carthage job that seemed to switch around between a road job symbol and a WA local symbol. In addition there were acid extras that would run SB and occassional Ft Drum coal and military moves although I rarely saw coal trains in the late 80's. So on a really good day you might have 9 trains but the norm was more like 6 trains between Dewitt and Watertown. I am not counting any pure locals.

Then Conrail started messing with symbols and CP took over the D&H and things pretty much settled into 2 trains a day in each direction in addition to moves from Dewitt to Watertown or Carthage. There was a CPSE/SEMC pair and a CNSY paired with something NB that might have been just a Massena symbol. Eventually it settled into CNSE/SECN and a CPSE paired with a Massena symboled NB and this might have lasted until the end of Conrail.

The late 80's were probably the busiest since both the D&H and B&M Conn River were way down in traffic at this point and there was still a lot of paper moving. Conrail had the line in very good shape and the NB-SB pattern kept the line very fluid.

John

Back in the middle 90's, I was going to school at Clarkson Univ. in Potsdam. There were 4 normal road frieghts that ran CNSE/SECN, MSSY/SYMS. CNSE/SECN train was daily. MSSY/SYMS ran Mon-Sat. southbound and Sun-Fri Northbound if I remember correctly. The MSSY also ran as MSSE symbol as well. There was a local M-F that ran to Canton/Dekalb area from Massena. There were occasionaly acid unit trains as well using an HAZ### symbol.

KEN PATRICK wrote:k4pacific et al. Since CSXT follows a "what-the-traffic-will-bear' pricing theory, the investment will not impact pricing. What Mr. Pease needs are trucking alternatives. Then CSXT pricing will reflect what unknowledgeable pricing people at CSXT think is the 'market price'. Costs are never the determinant in pricing by railroads. Perhaps pricing based somewhat on fear of trucking might close the gap. If not, then get a friendly trucker to quote below-cost prices. Ken Patrick

In all fairness to CSX, when I see a local freight with only a couple of cars, I don't see a great deal of profit, even when they're charging thousands for every car movement. The fact that CSX is paying more in property taxes in New York State than for the rest of their network combined demonstrates just how unfriendly the business environment is, and how unlikely any substantial shippers will be drawn to this desperate and declining region.

CSX is making a very substantial investment in this line, not because of the nuisance levels of business originating on the line, but because of the double stack business from the Port of Montreal. The through traffic matters and it's the only thing that matters.

There's a story posted today at NorthCountryNow about Massena's village government hoping some of that money earmarked for yard improvements by CSX in Massena will be put towards installing a siding to their little industrial park.

lol

Somehow I doubt they're going to be investing their own funds for the chance of an opportunity to maybe move a few dozen cars a year.

i agree, Leo. At best the city would have to install the track up to a point where CSX would install the switch from their trackage. Even then I believe the going rate for installing a Handthrown switch on a main is around $100,000. Without a commitment of a shipper in there, CSX isn't going to invest any of it's funds, and that'd be only for the switch installation. Somebody has high hopes or pipe dreams.

Half a million for a #6 to be cut in on signaled territory. That includes 25 feet of track into the siding.

St. Lawrence Sub is not signaled north of CP W (Woodard) -

There's a switch just south of the Arsenal Street bridge in Watertown that leads off into the industrial park on a heck of a grade. No customers yet that I know of...

"industrial park"? You mean the former Sackets Harbor branch?

RussNelson wrote:"industrial park"? You mean the former Sackets Harbor branch?

Nope - I think this is fairly new construction: N 43.97025 W 75.92853

The Sackets Harbor line would be here: N 43.97162 W 75.94467

Oh, that one. Yes, there's no obvious customer there, unlike the Sackets Harbor Branch (remains of, anyway) on the north side of the industrial park.

Wouldn't it be like 1000 times easier to connect a track off that remnant of the Sacketts Harbor line than to get a new switch added like half a mile away?

This presumes a swtich still exists, Google shows me switches into both, and cars at an industry on the Sacketts Harbor remnant.

lvrr325 wrote:Wouldn't it be like 1000 times easier to connect a track off that remnant of the Sacketts Harbor line than to get a new switch added like half a mile away?

This presumes a switch still exists, Google shows me switches into both, and cars at an industry on the Sacketts Harbor remnant.

At one time there were a number of switches in that area - there were also two and three tracks going past the industrial park.

Remember that the area of the industrial park was at one time the Watertown yard and engine facility - the remains of the roundhouse are right next to the jail, and if you wander west behind the stores you can still find remnants of the yard.

The industry there is the former Blue Seal Feeds, now resurrected by another outfit. Given the age of some satellite images, those cars may have been from the Blue Seal days. Further down that siding, past Blue Seal and right next to the access road, Harroun Lumber had a facility for receiving shipments of lumber (duh!). The sheds are still there. Harroun closed up some years ago.

Here's a 1953 shot from the Arsenal Street bridge which appeared in the NYCHS magazine: