Welded Rail and Infrastructure Multi-Year Upgrades

But it sure is not easier to chase them. The train beat me from Avon to Golah Road Monday morning. Tried the same chase in reverse in the afternoon, and the train beat me again.

Barilla has a BIG sign up now on the factory. LAL pulled six cars out on Monday and spotted five. When did they Barilla start getting regular deliveries?

They ran another road train today, Tuesday. 25 cars on today's northbound and 32 cars yesterday leaving Avon. That is assuming I counted correctly. Not sure what is normal these days but at least they are running in the day time.

Sandy

Nice report Sandy, I've noticed the speed changes,also. Glad they have the ability to get the job done more expeditiously.

Greg

A small project has continued in the Village of Avon yard. Stone was put down on the west side of the main line south from the AL-Don Chemical access road to the south switch leading onto the storage track. In some places the difference in height between the main and the sub-bed was waist high and I assume the stone was put there to stabilize the main line roadbed. I think this all happened in about two or three days about two weeks ago.I remember seeing the small bulldozer back there. Some brush and other stuff were moved and cleaned-up in the space between the main line and the fence between Al-Don chemical as well.
Note: the following is conjecture!!!!
This would be a great place for a passing siding to be used in conjunction with the Barilla siding!
Jp

By the way...

The construction of a siding (not sure if it is a runaround yet) has begun and has extended for several hundred feet southbound from the Aldon Corp Crossing. This siding is being constructed west of the mainline in a southbound direction.

Luther Brefo wrote:By the way...

The construction of a siding (not sure if it is a runaround yet) has begun and has extended for several hundred feet southbound from the Aldon Corp Crossing. This siding is being constructed west of the mainline in a southbound direction.

This was first reported on the report by 1jp above, and by mine and 1jp's observations on 12-5-07 posted with sighting reports.
12/5/07 north into Avon about 9am. The engines went into the Avon yard and moved the yard around and took some cars out for Howletts.

A new siding is being installed in the snow, on the west side of the main. Just south of the Aldon Manufacturing driveway. Switch panel is in place and more ties and rail being placed. It is unknown as to the length of the siding and if it will be switched at both ends. Due to the expansion in business in Avon the current yard is usually quite full.

Also note siding switch addition appears to be happening at Howletts on the south end of their siding, making it a pull through siding.

Very Cool!

Work on the new siding by Aldon Manufacturing is receiving ballast today. #425 and MOW hoppers #4444 and #4448 are shuttling between the ballast pile at Papermill Rd. siding and Avon yard to deliver the ballast.

Well it is getting to be close to maintenance/upgrade season again. From what I have heard from various sources, the northern portion of the LA&L is supposed to receive welded rail as well to bring most of the line up to at minimum 127# CWR. Parts of Avon (by the yard) are still stick rail but with the low speeds usually found there it may not be an issue. Not yet anyways.

Also the LA&L is slated to receive $500,000 towards various track projects in Monroe and Livingston Counties.

The rail piles from last years track project appears to be slowly diminishing by way of outbound gondolas.

The rail piles continue to disappear in the Avon Yard.
There are 6 or 7 gons in the yard now. A couple of full gons are probably departing on Fri run.

WNYP DED/HBD's are being readied for service. Wellsville detector operational, one being tested this afternoon at MP 72.5 (between Union City and Corry)

Track work is still continuing in the Avon village area.
If you look south from Main Street crossing you can see the old maintenance siding has been pulled up.
It was disconnected from the main during last years re-hab. Ties are piled and some rail is still laying around.
Looking forward to this years changes.

There has also been some clean up work done along the ROW on the Avon Industrial line to Kraft, some brush and tree removal has taken place.

With the removal of the stubs at the end of the line, there are two new "yard" tracks coming in north of the current yard to replace what was lost. Grading has been completed for the most part but there is more work to be done. In additional, Lakeville PACMA (at the end of track on the old main) has installed a new siding alongside the old track. Lastly the siding at Papermill Road has been extended by some car lengths.

Looks like they need a whole new yard (wider and longer) in Avon. Also additional track in Lakeville would help ease the congestion. Since the new yard track as constructed in Avon, it has not been empty for any appreciable amount of time. Of course it is better to have all tracks filled (though it creates a switching nightmare) than to be pulling up track due to "excess" capacity ala the Class one mentality.

Well that is all I have for now. All observations were made without trespassing and/or with permission. Don't do anything stupid.

It would be cool if LAL could obtain the field behind the Kraft truck lot that is between the Main (southbound from Main St.) and the Industrial track to Kraft. The area is quite large, would handle several single tracks stubs and could be serviced from the industrial, the main line, or both, with some grade work, but it is fairly flat. And it is vertually away from the business area of town. The view from my place would be spectacular!

Greg

Greg,
Bet it would be! Who owns that land anyways?

chris