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

Friday, Jan. 30-09 at 3PM

What is left up here for trains on CSX? Am interested in anything in / out of Massena - northbound and southbound. What are the train symbols for these
moves? Does Canadian National still come thru? In my job with the State Police, we get a lot of calls regarding crossing problems. Where do the repair guys
work out of? Seems like we continue to get calls for hours after the first reports. All it takes is one school bus at one of these malfunctioning crossings and
the whole works is jammed up then! By law, they cannot cross without a uniformed officer physically directing traffic! We used to be able to get by with
fire police doing the job if we were going out straight, but, that no longer flies! We call Jacksonville to report these problems....a year ago I had one of the
guys in Jacksonville argue with me that CSX did not even have a line up here! This is even after I gave him the crossing ID number as supplied by CSX!
I have always heard that they were never crazy about this line, but, that was a bit much....... Thanks for any / all information.

there is still a daily Q620/621 Massena-Watertown-Dewitt-Selkirk. There is a daily train brought down from CN Valleyfield (B798/B799). They tack on "local" traffic that used to run separately on the B753/756 which was annulled late last summer, to make the Q620/621. A B775 and sometimes B780 run between Massena and I believe Huntingdon QC and maybe Beauharnois QC. A B787 works out of Massena that brings traffic down/back from Norwood to Agway in Canton and other "local" duties. A B785 runs up to Helena and then out the Rooseveltown Industrial Track to Alcoa east. Gouverneur used to have a B779 local that came out of Watertown, but that was annulled and is now handled by B778 which also works around Watertown etc. I'm not familiar with operations further south on the line, but earlier posts in this thread provide a lot of good details. As for repair work - track patrols, maintainers, and MOW run out of Massena north and south. In colder weather they run track patrols regularly to look for pull aparts and broken rail. Despite that it may seem barren up here, they have a good group that works hard to keep the line running. Hope this is useful!

Scott

Thanks Scott....this info will be useful. Is there any "normal" running times / days for these trains? From the
sound of it, it would appear the crews have their work cut out for them....long days and lots of work.

as far as "normal" running times, not really. As far as the Q620 southbound, I think it depends on when the 'CN train' is brought into Massena and how much switching needs to be done, as well as when crews are available, etc. Often it is in the middle of the night that this train leaves Massena. For about 3 days in a row this week I was able to catch the northbound Q621 in the morning before I went to work. Today it sounded like the 621 came up somewhere near Potsdam early this evening, outlawed, and then got a recrew shortly after.

Bigt, the maintainers in that region are based out of Massena. However, those guys work on call and besides working a regular shift they can be called to respond from home. They usually assign a call board as to who must be called 1st and so forth. Depending on where trhey may be at the time of the call (ie:home, 50 + miles away on another problem) will determin how long it takes them to respond. They are also subject to hours of service Laws and it is not uncommon in foul weather for these guys to end up all outlawing and you'd have to wait for one of them to get rested or a maintainer from another division to respond.

I see a blurb on News 10 Now this morning that GM's going to finally close the Massena plant, which makes small car engines. But it was down to like a skeleton crew of 50 or so people already. Any impact on local traffic up there?

lvrr325 wrote:I see a blurb on News 10 Now this morning that GM's going to finally close the Massena plant, which makes small car engines. But it was down to like a skeleton crew of 50 or so people already. Any impact on local traffic up there?

I could be wrong but I don't think GM gets anything by rail up there and if they do it's probably only a minor loss.

Bigt wrote:Friday, Jan. 30-09 at 3PM

What is left up here for trains on CSX? Am interested in anything in / out of Massena - northbound and southbound. What are the train symbols for these
moves? Does Canadian National still come thru? In my job with the State Police, we get a lot of calls regarding crossing problems. Where do the repair guys
work out of? Seems like we continue to get calls for hours after the first reports. All it takes is one school bus at one of these malfunctioning crossings and
the whole works is jammed up then! By law, they cannot cross without a uniformed officer physically directing traffic! We used to be able to get by with
fire police doing the job if we were going out straight, but, that no longer flies! We call Jacksonville to report these problems....a year ago I had one of the
guys in Jacksonville argue with me that CSX did not even have a line up here! This is even after I gave him the crossing ID number as supplied by CSX!
I have always heard that they were never crazy about this line, but, that was a bit much....... Thanks for any / all information.

The Singnal maintaince guy who covers the Montral Sec, Fulton Line and Baldwinsville Line lives in Auburn, NY He used to cover from Lyons, NY to just the outher side of Syracuse before bidding out and takeing over repair of them branch lines. Hes on call 24/7 365 days a year. I know the guy vary well as he lives less than 3 blocks from me.

They have one guy for the entire former St. Lawrence division?

I wouldn't be all that surprised, it's CSX after all, but at the same time that's a lot of territory for one guy.

what does the signal maintenance position cover? Is that the person that works on malfunctioning crossings? That would make for quite the work day to have to drive from Auburn up through Lake Effect snow for a malfunctioning crossing in, say, Helena - 169 miles north of Syracuse trackwise.

x1sspic wrote:what does the signal maintenance position cover? Is that the person that works on malfunctioning crossings? That would make for quite the work day to have to drive from Auburn up through Lake Effect snow for a malfunctioning crossing in, say, Helena - 169 miles north of Syracuse trackwise.

Yes One guy covers that whole area North of Syracuse. He dose have assitants that he can call when he needs them on avrage these guys do overlap there zones when they need help on occation. As crazy as it is he has to dive to Weedsport, NY to go get his work orders for the day on Centerport Road at the block house at M.P. 313 then he drives up to check out Baldwinsville,NY Fulton,NY and the whole line from Woodard,NY North to Ft. Coveington, NY Every now and then he is required to go check the crossing lights and gates in Montreal, Quebec . When he covered Lyons-Utica, NY he had a reguler Truck when he transfered out he was given a Hi-Rail Truck. His transfer took place about 6 months after the Crossing Gates were upgraded and replaced in Cayuga County less than a year and a half ago or so. Hes one of a few old timers left from the Penn Central Days and is more expirensed with the older Crossing signals.

There is anouther Guy who lives on RT38 just south of Port Byron who is a CSX Signal maintaince guy he took over covering Lyons, NY to Utica, NY.

scharnhorst wrote:Yes One guy covers that whole area North of Syracuse.

I've met him - he's a friend of my daughter and her husband.

He must get an awfully early start. I've seen his truck in Evans Mills around 7:30 AM a number of times.

tree68 wrote:

scharnhorst wrote:Yes One guy covers that whole area North of Syracuse.

I've met him - he's a friend of my daughter and her husband.

He must get an awfully early start. I've seen his truck in Evans Mills around 7:30 AM a number of times.

When I worked in Syracuse I used to pass him every so often on RT 5 around the Elbridge area between 5:30 and 7:30a.m. I've also caught him heading out at 6 p.m. a number of times as well.

The gentkeman you are refering to is a section chief. He has a small group maintainers in his section, and they are all responsible for covering a section. He's the foreman.

That makes more sense, would be kind of tough for CSX if they have some kind of high priority failure in Massena and the only guy who can fix it is in Auburn and has to fight his way through the worst of the lake effect snow to get up there.