Industry Recap

For anyone following the business and logistics side of railroading, some decent news; all mixed, mashed, and in no particular order:

Train 195 is on duty on the FEC here and there. This attests to some stable rock demand. I just don't know how often it runs though, about once weekly to my recollection.
Nailite Plastics on the CSX line near Golden Glades, Florida, a place where I see two to three cars, had about six on industry. Allsteel & Gypsum also had gypsum centerbeams waiting for a pickup; I don't recount seeing any coil cars though.
It's nice to see that the cut of O717's cars sitting in Fort Lauderdale is consistently 10-12 cars in length. Cars from Amerigas, Boise-Cascade, Cross-Dock, and Home Depot were seen much to my memory. Maybe one Fast-Dry in there as well.
Thursday's O721 (Homestead Subdivison local) had an ample amount of centerbeam flats (about four from two day's worth of trains) and plenty of hoppers, open and covered, all heading back to Hialeah. The entire train, which looked like a clean house job for the Homestead Sub, totalled about 30 cars. Expect to see the slack on tonight's (tomorrow morning's) Q452.
The only bad news, SALCO on the East Rail came up empty---again. Abandoned customer? Oh well. But I saw a video of a mid-week Q452 and it had a decent cut of scrap from the Downtown Spur.

Rail Sign Epic Fail

This is probably the most misleading sign I've ever seen. It's at the Florida East Coast Railway grade crossing on SW 2nd Street/Himmarshee Blvd in Fort Lauderdale, FL. It's supposed to warn the millions of trespassers that cross tracks illegally and play chicken with the train in Fort Lauderdale that they're in the track area, but it's telling them not to stop? The hell? Pretty much, it goes against the purpose built crossing protection that is in front of them. Talk about an Epic Fail.

I noticed this when getting my faraway shot of FEC Train 101 last night. I haven't watched trains here for about a year, and haven't shot this part of the street in just about as much time if not more. Needless to say, as the fleet-footed (for 30mph, anyway -- but they were making every bit of it) and long intermodal hotshot approached, two idiots played chicken. That's right, they weren't doing anything wrong; they were obeying the sign.