Thursday, April 05, 2007

Hot Box on NS in NJ

I put this news in the heard on the grapevine category because I got it at least third-hand.

Saturday afternoon, 3/31/07, the NS line from Allentown, PA to eastern NJ was all tied up when a stack train tripped a hot box detector at Neshanic Station. The conductor said that the train was over 2 miles long. NS had several crews "outlaw" due to this tie up. The train was 24V, a stack train from Harrisburg, PA to dockside in NJ. 24V ended up setting out the shop car at Royce, where it was in turn picked up later in the evening.

But 24V on Friday had a bad car too, which was set out on the hotbox siding at the tunnel.

All this news leaves me with several questions. How do they pick up these cars and where do they take them? How do they repair them? What happens to the cargo? And as these questions are answered, the answers could raise more questions. I guess this is what happens when you hear it on the grapevine.