question about what i saw Sat.

[jettrainfan]

I was railfanning at berea as usual and saw some pretty unusual things. The most surprising was a N.S. intermodel on the CSX line! my dad & i started to make plans to match speeds with it because it was stopped at the signal. Then over the scanner they said they were going to the N.S. line. That, right their was a surprise! (more surprising than the 2 Canadian nationals that came by earlier.) Can anyone explain what they were doing on the CSX line and why they went back to the N.S. line? I've only seen that switch been used for W&LE so its quite confusing.

Thanks!

[pdlethbridge]

It could have been a problem on their line that required them to use CSX. It's common that some railroads have trackage rights over other railroads.
and from wikipedia we have this

Trackage rights

Trackage rights (or running rights, or running powers (UK)) is an arrangement where the company that owns the line retains all rights, but allows another company to operate over certain sections of its track. The agreement may specify whether the latter company can serve customers on the line. In some cases, the former company may opt to not run any trains over the line but still own it; this can also be done via a partial lease. Overhead trackage rights or incidental trackage rights refers to the case of the latter company not being allowed to serve customers along the line. It is only granted the right to "overfly" the right-of-way of the lessor, using the tracks of the lessor's railroad.

Trackage rights can be temporary or long-term as needed. Temporary rights agreements are typically made when some kind of disaster affects one railroad while a parallel railroad line is fully operational. The parallel railroad will often grant temporary rights to the affected railroad until the problem is resolved. Long-term agreements can be made to allow competing railroads access to potentially profitable shippers or to act as a bridge route between otherwise disconnected sections of another railroad. A union station typically involves trackage rights; the company that owns the station and associated trackage is typically owned in part by the railroads that use it, which operate over it by trackage rights. In the United States, all such agreements are filed with the Surface Transportation Board and are available as a matter of public record.

[jettrainfan]

that could be it, N.S. was slow that day.

[RAM]

some one had a bog derailment of a coal train yesterday.

[jward]

it would help if you told us exactly where this occurred. ns and csx cross in literally hundreds of places.

[jettrainfan]

Berea Ohio. The first interchange coming east bound on the CSX line.

[jward]

this train was eastbound off the "big 4" line to columbus and indianapolis? if so that is highly unusual. there must have been a wreck somewhere and it was a detour train. it would also explain why the ns line here in pittsburgh was dead yesterday, with only about 1/3 the normal amount of trains.

my guess is that there was a derailment somewhere east of ft wayne on the single track wabash line. if so, the train you saw would have been coming from west of ft wayne, and heading somewhere east of cleveland, and detoured over the former b&o line through williard, to the big 4 at greenwich, oh. i have checqued the web for news of a derailment but as yet have been unable to find any.

[pdlethbridge]

Could also have been track repair

[jward]

doubtful it was track repair. ns has 2 lines west from cleveland, the former nickle plate via bellevue, and the former nyc via toledo. they would have detoured any trains due to track work via the nickle plate, or held them until the work crews cleared.

[jettrainfan]

this train was eastbound off the "big 4" line to columbus and indianapolis?

That's the one.

[jbsmith]

Every now and then where i live,,SW MI and NW IN,,i sometimes  UP and BNSF locos.
I have seen BNSF on tracks were i normaly see NS and CSX.
This weekend while out and about near Napanee IN i saw UP locos.
I have seen UP on CN tracks [Formerly GTW] in South Bend.
Seems unusal to see them EAST of Chicago but they do show up here every now and again.

[ebtnut]

Foreign power is a pretty common sight these days.  We see UP and BNSF power fairly regularly here in the mid-Atlantic area.  In many cases, the roads have some sort of pooling arrangement wereby through trains keep their motive power from end to end to save time.  Ultimately, the number crunchers keep track of how many miles/hours the foreign power runs over the their road and the costs are balanced against their power running on the other lines.  Kind of similar to per diem for freight cars. 

[RAM]

Year ago if you saw a train you knew what railroad it was. 

[jward]

as an update:
there was a derailment on the former nyc near toledo last weekend. the train you saw was a detour. that also explains why sunday was so dead around here. we only saw about 10 trains all day.

[jsmvmd]

Thanks, Jeff.

Good work, as usual.

Jack
Altoona, PA