NS has opened the Shelocta Secondary according to an article posted on the Trains News Website... http://www.trains.com/trn/default.aspx?c=a&id=667 Nice to see another company expanding its territory and market, especially in the Eastern US.
Would somebody give a paraphrase, or brief synopsis? I'm not a subscriber. (Argh! Already have too many log-ins!) So cannot read the article. :sad: Boxcab E50
Out of sympathy for our poor beleagured and over extended member, I will paste the article below...... August 4, 2006 PHILADELPHIA - Norfolk Southern announced Thursday that the first train will run on the its new Shelocta Secondary in central Pennsylvania on Monday, Aug. 7. The line's opening culminates a five-year, $44 million project to establish a direct rail connection between Norfolk Southern's east-west through routes - in this case, the Conemaugh Line in Saltsburg, Pa., which parallels a portion of the main Pittsburgh-Altoona route - and the coal-powered Keystone Generating Station in Shelocta, Pa., a small place just northwest of the city of Indiana, Pa. "The Shelocta Secondary is a new link in our network providing the Keystone Generating Station with an efficient direct connection to western Pennsylvania coal fields served by Norfolk Southern," stated Wick Moorman, Norfolk Southern's chief executive officer, in a news release. The regulatory approval process for construction of the Shelocta Secondary began in December 2001. Construction of the line, which began in April 2005, involved building about 5 miles of new track and right of way between Saltsburg and Clarksburg, and rehabilitating 11 miles of existing out-of-service railroad between Clarksburg and Shelocta. To construct the new segment, more than 1.4 million cubic yards of soil were moved to establish efficient grades. The Shelocta Secondary replaces a circuitous, limited-capacity route 51 miles longer than the new route. It is estimated that more than 3 million tons of coal will move over the line annually. According to a Nov. 22, 2002, TRAINS News Wire, the route from the Monongahela coal fields of southwestern Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia to Reliant Energy's Keystone plant in Shelocta, only about 50 miles by the most direct highway route northeast from Pittsburgh, was extremely roundabout. At that time, NS was sending about five loaded coal trains a week to the plant. They would first go northeast from the Pittsburgh area, then east, then southwest to Shelocta, which was on a branch that dead-ended there, 5 miles short of the Conemaugh Line. The coal loads began their trip at Shire Oaks Yard in Elrama, Pa., on NS's Mon Line along the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh, and made their way up through Pittsburgh to Freeport Junction, Pa., on the Conemaugh Line. From there they moved by trackage rights on two of the Genesee & Wyoming family's short lines, first the Pittsburg & Shawmut northeast to West Mosgrove, where they had to climb up to gain the Buffalo & Pittsburgh's high Allegheny River bridge. From there they proceed east on the B&P to Riker Yard near Punxsutawney, then have used B&P's Riker Running Track to nearby Cloe, where they gained a former B&O branch, still owned by CSX, to head southwest to Creekside. (See the February 2003 issue of TRAINS Magazine for more information comparing the new and old routes). For the coal loads and then the empties, it was a round trip of 443 miles. NS's new railroad trims that to a 341-mile round trip.
