September Train Notes

Regularly, to my mailing list South FL Railfans, I post a notes sheet full of trains that ran, power that ran around in South Florida, and news that are usually BSed or overhyped. This month actually had enough good stuff to share here and to also start the tradition of posting monthly notes. Usually I post it at the first of the next month but I found the time now and will do so:

The data is usually jotted down with little structure. This is this month's edition, part 1 since I know something just might happen that is worth reporting within the next 8 days.

SEPTEMBER TRAIN NOTES

UNIT TRAINS:

Known rock trains to run include K996-K995, K950-K951, and K978-K977. K790-K791 ran recently. No words on the Gator country or Wildwood rock though, I don't think they ran at all.

V157 came in... but at the wrong time. Lots of us were stuck AWOL in Academia.

Fort Lauderdale Rock appears to be coming back to life; 985/986s caught by Tommy4Trains and also a 988 was heard at Lauderdale last night.

SPECIALS/Unusual trains:

Geometry Train on the FEC with the NS 5609 behind FEC 720.

Tri-Rail-CSX-FEC special. Responsive to the TIGER GRANT, will mention later. Funny how I imagined something similar on my Key West Extension route: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?17876-FEC-Key-West-extension-modern-day&p=457306#post457306

P933 Service run on September 12 with #516, autorack.

P935 service run on September 21. #166, 2 cars

POWER:

CSXT 15/4565: Power came in on K995 around 9/12; ran the O721. Still in pool service here.

CSXT 5396/800: Came in unknown; caught on K977/K996 weekend of the 7th/8th; left on the 8th (Seen from distance)

CSXT 462/673: Came in on V157 9/16; still in circulation and caught on K791 9/21.

CSXT 7870/7737: Circulated on FRKX Rock Trains until 9/12; left on K978. K978 became K724, but it is unknown if they came back. Should/could have different power.

Another Dash 8 was reported by Ted Marshall to bring up a rock train 9/19.

CSXT 3021: Came in on Q453 9/11; Ran to FEC. Came back unknown, and probably is gone by now.

NS 5609: Rotated on FEC Geometry Train. Can't believe I chose to pass it up 9/12 but I guess it wasn't meant to be.

**If I am missing anything, it will be added to part 2**

NEWS:

Logistics and freight movement are showing little change on CSX. FEC is having another sweet month though.

Observations:

O722's delivery on 9/8 was more of the same; about 35 cars on it as seen from Lauderdale airport.

I haven't been out anywhere believe it or not except for as far as Sawgrass. 

O721 was only seen to haul the car for Probuild along with the CYDX empties. Also Y322 should have brought in coal ash at the top of the month, as seen on last month's Q453-30.

ROCK TRAINS ARE NOW FOLLOWING A NEW ADDED PATTERN. Without fail, the last three weekends produced rock jobs on the Homestead Sub on Saturday carrying the SB ID. The loads go out the next day, Sunday, in the afternoon, usually after P092 runs. However as a tradeoff, photo ops are slacking off south of Dyer since the sun is tracking towards the South. Your best bet is to be on the SXH For the southbound.

Lehigh Spur now back in action for Rock Trains One courtesy Tim earlier in Sept, and one on the 12th that I got. When K977/K725 comes back, one more hopefully.

FEC IS NOW RUNNING INTERMODAL TO THE PORT OF MIAMI. Courtesy of Jonathan Hollahan of the FEC, a yard job is added effective today (9/23) to run to the Port and back with push-pull operation.

Fort Lauderdale Airport Rock is back more or less as stated earlier. I will get a grasp of the schedule soon, but yesterday's night run should be a hint of it.

TIGER GRANT. $13.75M grant approved for rail links at Iris and Northwood, with presumed link at Pompano Beach. Also it seems like I'm starting to see more graphics and renders of the new Pompano Beach Tri-Rail Station. This will make the Miami Sub a true "SFL Four Pack" with the option of running FEC trains on it as well. Remember it's state owned so this is possible. Estimated legs to be built are on all four sides of Iris but the southwest side, as it's not needed. There was speculation this would pull CSX out of SFL but it's calmed down by FEC personnel who say only the maintenance and signal will go. It is believed with high conviction this will lure out FEC trains 202, 222, 335, 109, and 121 from the old Flagler mainline but keep 101, 210, 226, and 107 hell bent on the existing old mainline. Remember that this speculation is not limited to what comes out of POM. It will also make "Tri-Rail Coastal Link" a reality...  

NEW FEC PAINTS Two special schemes have been announced for FEC engines 425 and 436. The liveries are kept hush but I'm guessing it could be something big, something blue. Hopefully FEC revives the long-lost Speedway livery, which is one of my favorites on the GEEPs. Remember that all Speedway GP40-3s were sold. We'll find out before Part 2 of the September notes.

ADVERTISED ON FEC New trains 111, 212 are now fixed and adopted to the service plan. These are Bowden-City Pt and back. 109 also runs frequently as well. 

NEW BUSINESS FOR FEC Railex will now be shipping to Jacksonville.

FEC and CSX Rail Business Is Improving Again

The promise of unit ethanol on FEC has finally been delivered. FEC Train 141 ran a solid 81 car unit set with about 20 of those going to Motiva in Port Everglades today and the rest headed to Hialeah. It is possible the rest are for Motiva as well or for Florida Bulk Transfer, but we'll find out. The timing of the extra was so perfect I was able to catch it before having my dinner tonight closer to home!

Aside from that, feeding on Brylon's videos, I've noticed healthy manifest on 123 for Fort Pierce. I am glad to see that even in the death of sugar cane season so much freight is headed for Fort Pierce and West Palm. Also, Lyle caught 121 this morning with a healthy hodgepodge of racks and dead loads.

CSX is doing well also. Q453-21 from Friday night had 101 cars. I caught a subsequent 453 the next day, being in Broward and this one had 51 cars, which is less but the carloads in for the weekend were still good. Though Q453-21 is "watered down" by bad-ordered Yelvington hoppers, the size is still a treat to see and those CYDXs have a destination too. Q452s on Friday and Saturday shot out decent carloads as well. Also with K996, K978, and K790 last week wasn't dead train-wise. Tampa is also getting ethanol well as figured by K422.

Coming into the world out of high school I am happy to see the economy taking shape again... and through one of the biggest ways one can foretell the shape of it, the Railroad.

Deerfield Beach / O717 Corridor Update

While I'm still waiting on starting the layout in HO Scale, I did pass by the real Deerfield Beach and noticed a couple of promising observations.

I was happy to see that despite seeing the loading docks at Sun-Sentinel to be empty over the past few visits, that the industry as of yesterday had at least 1 boxcar in there.

More so, the really good news relates to CSX winning the ASPX's contract to do their scrap gon loading. I think the mysterious location of where these gons get loaded has been found. The former  station track/ current team track north of Hillsboro Blvd is back in service as a loadout track for the gons. Four or five of them have been sitting there yesterday.

In other industry news, no cars at Allsteel or BrickAmerica. One tank at the water plant. Also when I glanced from I-95 about 4 cars at Fast-Dry had been noticed. Also CSX O722 delivered about 35 cars of freight to Dania, many of them boxcars. My belief is they're headed for Home Depot, Boise-Cascade, and other mix and match areas.

Lehigh Spur Update

In the sea of sporadic unit rock trains for Winter Haven and Taft, CSX has managed to finally set up for one at the right time on the stretch of track nearest to my house. K918 is a temporary train of aggregate to fuel the construction of CSX's intermodal facility in Winter Haven.

The train went as a power move westbound around 10:30 PM last Friday by Dolphin Mall and reemerged with 60 loaded hoppers before 1 AM by the same area. I caught it at Galloway as seen below:

I am happy to be seeing this customer kind of back on track, no pun intended. The recent boom of these trains plus a steady flow of unit runners K978 and K977 are keeping this industry active. As I write, another inflow of Florida Rock hoppers is expected by tomorrow morning at latest.

The catch I made last Friday brought back chasing memories from between 2009 and 2011, when I focused on videotaping these trains. Before that, the line was much more active though, getting rock trains almost daily and locals fairly often.

As far as the K918 goes, it is not known if there will be another order for rock for Winter Haven. I frankly thought it would only last one train ful but there were three more since, whereas the first train was loaded late February. K978 and K977 still bring hope for more runs and hopefully one day we will see the return of K974 and K973, the last of which ran June 2011.

Running around Miami today...

Earlier this afternoon I scouted some area industries in Miami proper and Hialeah for the usual excuses... Trainz research, keeping up with progress, model railroading, the works. Today went not as it was planned. Originally I was arranging to chase the Downtown Spur job, Y322, back to the yard around 7-something in the morning. I changed the plan to start with the usual "last chance" shot of the train at 10 AM and chase around town up until 4-5 PM. Sounded good, but didn't work out as good as it sounded.

This all Miami chase for me has become a popular item since Miami was essentially "rediscovered" as a busy terminal, for lack of a better term. It is supposedly even busier since FEC pioneers jobs 984-987 to shuttle rock for the Fort Lauderdale runway project.

This entry will point out the highlights and lowlights of my day as well as mention how the logistics are going on CSX.

Part I - Hialeah

I was looking for Train 202 on the FEC to head out to Jacksonville but it wouldn't and since I wasn't supposed to be hanging and putzing around in Hialeah, I skirted the exotic city and made headway for East Rail and the Downtown Spur. The industrial recon for the CSX side industries was on the list and I made good on checking on every customer south of Hialeah Yard. 

East rail was a desolate stretch of track save for Sentry Industries. They had six tanks. After tossing and turning through the streets around East Rail, I knew P625 was due in so I headed to 46th St to catch it at my secret spot. This is a great spot, especially the north side by the signal. But CSX needs to get on trimming those weeds.

Part II - Downtown Spur

This segment was the heart of the excursion. Originally we were supposed to dog Y322 on this line getting it where we could but the job came back when I was having REM sleep most likely. We visited an old friend at his shop for the first time in 2+ years since we were in the area and spotted around taking pics. My dad was fascinated with the Miami Canal area in particular but shots were damned tight and I said I'll leave it for another trip.

The Downtown lead is strong industriously with FP&T, Miami Iron (presumably), Sun-Gas, CBI, Family & Son, and Trujillo all full of cars. Of note was a broken gate/crossing malfunction here at N River Dr. In the meantime we lunched at a BK at 12th Av / 20th St in the medical district (and missed a chance to speak with an attractive girl waiting on her food - oh well). 

Part III - Hialeah (Again)

The most fail-ridden part of the trip was the look around Hialeah. Something was coming off of track-3 at Dania and I thought it best to check out the north side of the yard and bag it. Wrong. We waited there and my dad handled business matters but saw only track. We did manage to check out Hialeah Yard from the bridge. It's nice to see most of the yard tracks filled with cars, a  good sign.

Train 986 was narrowly missed (by a darn hair) and so was a Tri-Rail that left when we used the restroom at Amtrak Miami. O721 in the meantime was getting its train together.

Part IV - Chasing O721

I met up with Cesar (tonymagona334) at Aero Squadron to pick up the O721 I saw at the yard. This was our first time chasing together and our second time meeting in person. This midsize train passed us and we were able to chase it down to SW 12 ST. Nothing special on O721... overcast skies, 2 cars for Orr, and a lot of CYDX cars. We would run to La Carreta for snacks, camaraderie, and saying goodbye for the day and with the promise that we will chase again, in the future.

Our videos compiled together (I let him do it all) can be found here in this package:

CSX SD70MACs sold to Paducah and Louisville

EDIT: WAS MISINFORMED ON SOME NUMBERS

I am "saddened" to report that 16 CSX SD70MACs have been written off the roster and are now the property of the Paducah and Louisville Railway, "PAL".

2 power moves of 8 units each ran from Corbin, KY to the area that they will be interchanged. They will be repainted into the PAL graphics.

This is awful in my eyes. They are phasing out some pretty strong EMD pullers.

The Class I cites declining coal shipments as why these are being sold. I guess these are the first to go since the EMDs have been admittedly a bit flawed especially the pre-pro SD70ACes. If I were CSX I would have sold some AC4400CWs though.

This dreadful move brings the 70MAC roster down from 220 units to 204 units.

I will never forget my catches of these locomotives.

Changes to Miami Terminal Locals

With the new year CSX appears to have taken to changing the profiles of their locals. If a source can confirm this that would be appreciated.

Y220 now has to work East Rail most of its days. This does not sound like good news since it appears CSX has abolished the midday and photo and video friendly (or unfriendly given the hassles) Y121. Y220 works all the terminal industries and those customers as well. I would not be surprised to see some of the workload in Hialeah shuffled to another yard job, but Y220 still is the main job. I will have to confirm if Y121 is abolished but given ATCS tracking, the switches have not been seen to point to East Rail in the midday hours. Now as an update, to contradict that, there is an occupancy on East Rail as of 12:45 PM. Hmm.

Y322 still runs as usual but has not been going to the Lehigh too often. It's still in its profile but probably on some sort of as needed basis.

O721 now appears to run Monday-Friday with the Rock Trains running as their K symbol on the weekend. The K-trains on record now show a trend favoring sporadic runs. December 22 and 29 K996 ran; the 22 was on O721's schedule more or less, and the 29th was on their ooooold schedule. January 6 saw the K996 again but in the morning, and January 13 saw K978 on the Lehigh Spur. K996 ran again this time on the 19th at night. O721 switches their customers Monday through Friday, evidenced on December 21, via Joe (BusProwler) on the 28th, and January 18th. Given the Homestead almost firmly sees 6 moves a week, this is a good upturn from five and this spells good news for the Homestead Sub.

More will be found out about these changes as time goes on.

Surprise! K978-13 Fresh off the Lehigh Spur

Surprise Surprise!

Only my fourth unique train catch in South Florida in 2013 (behind FEC 101, CSX Q453, FEC RBBX Circus Train), a K978 with the 5228, 3014 "GEVO Juice", and 66 Florida Rock hoppers straight out of the Lehigh Spur evokes some good and positive feelings.

The train is a sign of hope for the economy and hopefully one of things to come. A Sunday afternoon run, it reminisces the classic O719 which used to run mornings down the Homestead Sub. It actually took the Lehigh though. Here is some background info on FRK in the Lehigh.

Florida Rock on the Lehigh, a quarry at the intersection of NW 25 ST and 127 AV in unincorporated Miami-Dade county has in the past mined train loads of rock. I caught them pretty religiously between 2009 and 2011 on video until the "summer slump" of 2011 where not a train load even bothered to run following June 8's K974. All of the hoppers got sent to Krome Quarry, where the Yelvington trains usually go, and the Taft distributor ordered their aggregate there. I believe the next time they shipped out a train was April 2012 where Tim alerted me, but all I could get was limerock dust as I narrowly missed it.

October 10th came and two AC4400s, 461, 462, came fleeting light on the Lehigh at NW 107 Av as seen from La Carreta. What was just so nice was that that same day, Brooksville Cemex got its first coal train in two years, N036. Some quotes on the FRKX hoppers that day did say that they were placed at Lehigh October 10th, leading me to believe that was why the power came back light. I believe it was either the 12th or 19th that the rock train left, and when it came back, the cars went to Sterling. Here's something interesting though: As FRKX 195 was seen heading that way on the 28th, somehow it went north on a K978 and came to the Lehigh as it was seen yesterday on the K978.

Why did they change their routing? The quarry was sued for some environmental issue and placed on moratorium for a while. It began mining last spring but only a handful of rock trains actually ran.

Here is a flagship video of O721 on the Lehigh Spur with a Florida Rock train in Oct 2010.

Here, towards the end of the package is a video of O721 on the Homestead Sub with the Florida Rock train in 2012 coming from Krome. 11:48 mark.

And here, in broad daylight (rarity), a spiel of photos of the train on January 13, on the Miami Sub. This is the first time since 2007 where I could shoot one of these northbound loaded drags in daylight south of the Miami terminal. I was eating brunch or even barely awake when this thing ran the Lehigh so I caught up to it when it waited on authority to dog P670 into the high iron.

Let's hope that there will be MANY MANY more of these rock trains. Yes, some people may not like to be sitting around waiting at a grade crossing for these to clear, but they are an indicator of how the economy is doing. 

ROCK ON!

2012: A Year in Logistics

Throughout the year, within the scope of my life I have been able to focus on trains quite a bit. I'm not sure if it's more than I should but at least for me to have maintained decent grades, I guess it will do.

This  blog post will reflect on the "Winners" and "losers" of the SFL area in terms of industry...

First, the losers... Yes, we gotta get that over with.
The Lehigh Spur has not been taking in nearly as much as it did back in the day. When I started filming in the spur, activity occured 3-4 times a week, just as much as the Homestead Sub. This was 2009. 2011 presented the biggest flop when FRKX stopped producing rock trains and since then, there have been only two rock trains to date coming from the Lehigh Spur's plant. Coal ash/flyash/whatever goes in the First Union hoppers or "Green Gons" of the past has been down since 2009 but has not shown much picking up. It may appear given the current schedule that the Lehigh is all but abandoned, but the thing is now Y322 works the spur in weekday mornings. Carloads have topped 2-3 per week of the construction material on average. There was one Q453 (Dec 2) that brought optimism given it had about 9 loads, and the 29th had one load.
The coal on the other hand has been in good shape and unit trains have been maintaining a mostly monthly pattern. V149, 48, 47, and 45 have run in total January, February, April, June, July, August, October, November, and December. 9 coal trains have run this year which is pretty good compared with years past as I think the annual records were about 8. But what could deceive things is the December coal train came at the very end of the month so perhaps there could be one less expected train in January.

The Downtown Spur has been so-so this whole year but has been in better shape come the end of the year. Any cuts that look like it on Q452 trains seen throughout have been fairly short especially in the summer. However, the number of cars have really shot up at the end of the year with up and coming railfan Timothy Duggan bagging a Y322 with 13 cars. I have also noticed back to back Q453s with high scrap gondolas for Miami Iron in the "Last Railfanning Weekend of 2012" (Video coming soon). Things appeared as though Trujillo, Family & Sons, Sun Gas, CBI, Miami Iron, FPT (which had 2 gons on Q453-28 December), et al are receiving, in the end.

The Homestead Sub south of Sterling has spelled desolation, desolation, desolation. AFEC appears not to be taking in much if any at all, even though they had cars in January. Part of this could be noticed by O721 having 6-axle power most of the time, whereas the 75lb section of track is 4-axle only. Properties that once housed Stock and a boxcar customer in proper still carry For Lease signs, current to last Saturday the 29th.

The Winners:
Homestead Sub  between the GPC Spur and Hialeah has been strong industrially. Almost every time I catch O721, it would have something additional to its mix for Conrad Yelvington. Covered "Tubs" (gravity discharge covered hoppers) have shown up much more frequently, and so did Probuild's centerbeams. At times they would receive two maybe three beams of gypsum. Cars for Orr have also started showing up on Sundays as they would most others and shipments could top 10 cars (July 31). I have also at times seen cars for Seal-Tite Plastics.

East Rail held out strong especially around SALCO. The demand for freight apparently prompted CSX to add job Y121 beginning June 2. However, I believe that job is either rare or no longer. Cars are still delivered almost daily on job Y220. Tompkins has also been very strong, especially whereas in June I saw a whole line of boxcars spotted at an industry.

The biggest winner is the Pompano corridor. O717 has always had its work cut out for it, rain or shine, and 2012 was no exception. Especially towards the end of the year, there would be ample freight waiting for it in Dania's "Middle Track" and "Back track". The cut of cars has been recently noticed to go to the curve in front of the airport's runway whereas it hasn't for much of the year. I have noticed at year's end plenty of cars for Cross Dock, Boise-Cascade, Home Depot, and Amerigas. Amerigas is one really active customer, sometimes prompting the train to work weekends to set out cars for it.

Rock has slowly shifted upwards, especially at years' end. There has been a time peaking in the Summer where both FEC and CSX rock shipped well, but at some point CSX rock went mute for some undisclosed reason (end of July). K996 has been the most prominent rock train, probably for the 618-I-4 connector construction.

In the end, this was a great year for railfanning and business is slowly improving, even though the signs are subtle. Let's hope 2013 will be even better!

CSX Meets Tri-Rail At The Diamond...

Up-and-coming South Florida Railfan Timothy Duggan bagged a really good catch. It came with good timing, and GREAT business news for the Downtown Spur.

Train Y322-18 Looks like CSX is doing great on the line and it's surely due a check. Cars from FP&T, Family and Sons, Miami Iron and Metal, Sun Gas, and a hodgepodge of boxcar customers. This is a 13 car train which about ties my 13 car Y322 from July 2011, and shot on a Wednesday. I hope to be getting action here on the 26th or 28th, and will be focusing on the monitor to know which days are choice for the catch. What makes this more appealing is as you'll see below in my archives, I had a catch from June 18th that was only 4 cars of length, and when scouting the spur, found it to be almost desolate and on near-abandonment, for lack of a better term.

2 High Gondolas (Miami Iron)
3 low gondolas (FP&T)
2 LPG Tankers (Sun Gas)
4 Boxcars (Either Trujillo, Miami Waste Paper, or some surprise customer)
1 Tanker (Oil) (Family & Son)
and 1 Boxcar (Family & Son)

The 2011 catch: (13 cars) 

The 6/2012 catch: (4 cars)

Train P619-19 Tri-Rail's SB 9:00 train from West Palm Beach had an all Hyundai-Rotem consist.

Santeria on the Lehigh Spur & O721-11

Miami is known for it. Chicken sacrifices placed spiritually on a set of railroad tracks, with a Cuban person's bad luck and the expectation that the train crew will pick it up. Now what makes this case particularly interesting is the fact that the chickens I saw are not covered.

It is without a doubt gross to catch one of these sacrifices in plain view. But historically and sociologically, it is utterly fascinating. When spotting on Tuesday, Dec. 11, I managed to see these while running after O721-11, the Sterling Switcher. Belief has it that the crew of Y322-10 ran the chickens over.

For more information: http://www.lancemindheim.com/lore.htm

Note: O721 had 1 for ProBuild, 1 for Seal-Tite, 1 for Cemex (loaded) and about 15-20 CYDX empties.

Thanksgiving Holiday Train Annullments

As Thanksgiving is a pretty big holiday, local railroads operate on a much slower note during the holiday, Black Friday, and into the weekend ahead.

(copied from FECRailway)
FEC: 
Wed. Nov. 21,2012 - 335
Thurs. Nov. 22,2012 - 123-224, 193-292, 336, All locals except 963 & 965
Frid. Nov. 23, 2012 - 101, 109-210, 202,All locals except 963,965,970,937
Sat. Nov. 24, 2012 - 109-210, 202

CSX:
All trains that would operate on Thanksgiving day proper that are not of priority.
Expected: ALL SFL area locals, which are O721, O722, O717, O718, Y322, Y121, et al
Q453 and Q452 MAY run. New Years saw them running.
All K Trains are usually annulled. If a V-series coal train for Miami is coming, it may run.

Amtrak:
No interruptions

Tri-Rail
Weekend Schedule. P600-P649 do not run, instead P660-P675. Thanksgiving day only.

Record Length CSX O721 & New Camera

I have gone on a trip to Central Florida on the 27th and will be reporting on that soon.

On Sunday the 28th, the whale of the Lufthansa A380 came back. Also, I'd take the time to spot planes and watch for CSX  train O721 which had freight from Q453 plus what happened to be two rock trains' worth of hoppers. Tony (Train Hunters ) would join me.

This record train clocked in at 115 cars, 6,000'. Here are a couple of pinnacle shots from my Nikon S4000, the last train historically that would be shot with that Point-and-(you know what).

O721, led by SD60I 8738 and GEVO 5378. The last time this power would go on the HS before going north.

Nice little wave from the engineer.

So all I can say now is the winter season is back. And it is with a fresh start:

I purchased a Canon Rebel T4i with the 18-55 mm lens. It's a great deal and an excellent cam. Above's a night test shot, representative of a feature that I will really appreciate when it comes to catching the likes of Q453.

CSX K951 w/ ES44AH & SD40-3

Check this one out. Daylit catch and our second SD40-3 in SFL... ever.

Of note, today is a good day to be a SFL Railfan. Perfect weather and also O717 is running.

CSX NEW Hoppers on the Lehigh Spur

Did a short hop to the Homestead Sub after the doctor's appointment I had today and found a cut of the brand spanking new hoppers on the Lehigh Spur.

October 10, 2012 - A BIG Day for CSX Operations!

It was 9:53 PM when for the first time since April 26, 2012 I have heard a horn on the Lehigh Spur in regular hours. It was an eastbound power move, running as Y220, which had freshly set out a cut of Florida Rock NSC hoppers at Lehigh Spur's very own Florida Rock plant. The spur was reborn.

Information provided by my CSX sources was too vague that evening. Either the power just arrived into Miami or the cars were Progressively Stored in Hialeah. But today, I got the confirming answer that they were "Placed at Industry: Lehigh, FL" after midnight.

Meanwhile, in Tampa, on a similarly fated Brooksville Sub, CSX N036 has brought in the first cut of coal to Cemex in over two years. This action has spurred cheerful conversation on the mailing lists and has brought new hope to business on the line.

Both of these lines, sharply changing from desolate to active, are bringing hope that the economy is recovering. Things are finally getting back to normal, and for that I am very happy.

CSX N036:

CSX Juice Train New Profiles

For the second time in the last 10 years, CSX has resymboled the Tropicana Juice Trains.

For all five northbound runs, the new Northbound ID will be Q140.
For southbound runs out all days but Thursdays that go in all days but Saturday, the new ID is Q141. (Sound familiar?)
For the Thursday run that goes in on Saturday, the new ID is Q121.

This ID change was unnecessary. I believe they belong with the Q7## or high Q0## series. The only understanding I can make however is the fact that intermodal is carried from Philadelphia to Jacksonville. Maybe this change relates to how "hot" the train is. I suppose my first taste of the new IDs will be on the Central Florida blitz on October 27.

[..CSX..] 4719

News hot off the press!

Just in from Ben's FB Group Roseville Yard Productions, CSXT 4719, an SD70MAC, now has the boxcar logo applied. Amid a bunch of repaints into YN3 that never got it, this is the first non-ES44AH locomotive to have it. Let's hope it's not a photoshop!

I find it cool. The logo allows CSX to get competitive and market their product better. As DH puts it they are getting serious about their corporate image.

Links:
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/404689_413992165334836_454070219_n.jpg
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/284260_413992282001491_2017664646_n.jpg

Railfan Economy - Group Trips Afar

For ages since I got more into this (I've been train"watching" since 2000) my parents haven't really recommended for me to be on these large scale, long haul trips with railfans in the area. It took some time but it was at RAILWATCH that I had the green light for future trips, and the last week that I had a small scale pilot trip with my friend Rudy. Of course it takes time to establish that kind of trust code, but it happened.

RAILWATCH 2012 was, in my end, half time with the SFRM group, and half the folks of Central FL, north FL, and pretty much the SE United States. I was with fellow South Floridian Ryan N. the whole day in town but the group, Tim, Mike, Rudy, and Paul, left. Though on Sunday, the return day, I was with them for the majority! My catches were limited due to an AS Spanish Language exam but I still had a great time and great pickings. I had takeout lunch with them and learned a nice lesson about carryout lunches from Subway the hard way... Get your coca-cola by the bottle when carrying out. I got to "know" the GMC Safari van and its facilities.

In May 2012 I did a short range all South Florida trip with Rudy and later on an O721 chase. We 'agreed' to miss K951 on the terms that its resultant train would be chased Ted-style the next day. Saturday as expected pickings were slim, and as sort of unanticipated, the weather took a crap, but we still had a great time. A key part of it was me at his house being super lazy while figuring out the problem with his Trainz downloads. It was ridden with two cops approaching me, one at CP Manatee, and one at Boca Raton. Now the BR cop was pulling in to 7-Eleven and had to run and errand and of course I was the first person he saw, set up with Tri-corder. But the BSO hassle was a bit more annoying and they watched us filming the trains to the moment we left. The BR Cop was NOT a hassle as opposed to the latter but either way nothing bad came out of it. Yet that is the experience of railfanning. Sunday it was a nice chase with me playing as tour guide, and we insisted on and did treat him to dinner.

Saturday - FEC 202 has a dragging scrap load

Sundays video:

This is the economic doctrine of train chasing with other people as opposed to your folk:

• Two or more gas bills are combined into one as one car is utilized instead of two. With the discretion of the group, the beholder of the bill is decided or split evenly. Needless to say, this is carpooling. 
• Time management... I still have to have a ride up to Rudy-land. So my folks can go to the mall instead of wasting the day chasing a number of trains, as uninterested they are. At times an AM Tri-rail may even help the trip out.
• Combined interest - everyone on board is interested with trains. Lunches are take out or sit down as decided.
• Unfamiliar territory--- I am in charge of the Trainz Tampa terminal and of course the Homestead Sub is my own turf. Don't want to brag here but my timing on the latter is pretty good. As for the Lakeland-Tampa Area I can guide people that do not know the ropes since I know the roads and pacing stretches more or less. The tours with Paul would on the other hand probably have him knowing the area very well too, namely being out of South Florida. 

This summer, expect the number of Central Florida trips to skyrocket as well as even the north Florida trips. In one Central Florida trip, two gas bills are incurred per vehicle, maybe a third at the end if the chasing is very plenty. So, as can be seen, the cost of a central Florida day trip can be half of what it would normally be! It becomes a quarter of it when we take two trips, four people are in charge, and the bill is split to the four. So all I can say is keep checking our YouTube accounts; you never know what video will pop out!

LOOOOOONG O721

I like O721 when it has a different consist than a flat rock train. This one had lumber, tubs, gravel, empty CYDX and empty FRKX. A variety train at that.