VIRGINIA DIVISION HOPPER TRAINS

[NW Mailing List]

Lord, I hope not!  It's hard enough for us poor Southern boys to get 
across that line as it is.  The last thing we need is more traffic.

There is at least one train I know of which leaves Roanoke, and will go 
either direction, depending on tonnage.  The preferred routing is over 
the Blue Ridge, but they will run the V line if they are too heavy.  The 
V line has much gentler grades.  On the other hand, the track speed is 
only 40 mph, with a number of 35 and 30 mph curves, which means that you 
cannot make the same schedule as is possible on the Blue Ridge.  Also, 
there are a number of tunnels which are too low to allow double stack 
trains on the V line, making at least two reasons why the pig trains, at 
least, will continue to run over the Blue Ridge.

Kenneth Rickman

NW Mailing List wrote:

> A news article in the current issue of "Railroads Illustrated" says that 

> NS recently conducted fuel savings tests for its Virginia 

> Division hopper trains.  The article says that NS has found that they 

> can make significant fuel savings by routing hopper trains over the 

> ex-Virginian line from Abilene Interlocking to Roanoke rather than going 

> over Blue Ridge on the ex-N&W manin.  Will this routing now be used on 

> all hopper trains, or just some depending on eastbound traffic on the 

> Virginian?  What about general freight and intermodal traffic?  Is there 

> a possiblity that in the near future that NS will be routing most, if 

> not all, of its traffic over the Virginian?

> 

> Jeff Morfit

-- 
Kenneth Rickman - krickman1 at carolina.rr.com
Salisbury, NC

"Once admit that human life can be guided by reason, and all possibility 
of life is annihilated" - Leo Tolstoy