A week or so ago, we had a good topic on here about CSX & Muncie, Indiana concerning how busy the ex-Conrail, St. Louis line is. Now that I have been in my new office for about three weeks, I am starting to get a pretty good understanding of when trains are at their busiest.
From 7:45 to 9:15 there is a ton of trains on the line in Indy, which probably translates to 7:00 to 8:30 Muncie time. There is a west bound and east bound intermodal train that consistently runs through between 8:15 and 8:30 and there is at least 4 to 5 merchandise trains in the same time slot. If NS runs any trains through Muncie during this time period, it would have to be a near train watcher's paradise.
From 10 ist to 3:30, the line is not as busy, but I still see a train better than once an hour. Also, from 3:30 to 6:30 seems to be another busy time, although not as busy as in the morning. There has been A LOT of grain coming through lately. I mean really a lot. I probably see 5 - 6 grain trains in the 10 hours I spend in the office.
I see about one train a day with UP power and one with BNSF power. Although there is some rental units, the rest is pretty uniform CSX. I am surprised to see that most of the diesels are EMD rather than GE. There are a lot of SD-70s on the line. Most all of the units are in CSX new dark blue scheme.
However, my favorite is: there will always be about two trains a day with a string of three or four four-axle EMD old power. It is too far away for me to give a precise identification, but some of them appear to be older models than GP-38s, whereas the rest are GP-38s. The trains pulled by these are well over 100 cars. Kind of makes me wonder what is up with that. There also are several locals pulled with such power.
Finally, one of my most pleasant surprises, even though I am probably a half mile from the tracks and roughly twenty stories up, with very thick glass windows, I can still hear the rumble of the engines VERY clearly. Thus, I do not need to keep an eye out the window to know when a train is visible, I know when to look when I hear the rumble.
I so love this office.
Gabe
