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There have been some pretty good car traffic on the Peavine of late like more than 25 car loads up east. The Ag must be very busy for this time of the year.

I read an interesting article yesterday about the low price of fuel and empty tankers sitting on railroad Class 1 lines. CSX, CN, UP and NS don't want empty taker storage sitting on their rails as they can be dangerous as vandals could damage the takers start a fire as there are still fumes inside the tankers. They prefer to have the short rails companies store the cars on their rails.

I would suspect the CCET will be getting more storage here soon with tankers if this is the case.

Most of the class one railroads don’t have many places to put them either.

northstar16 wrote:... dangerous as vandals could damage the takers
I would suspect the CCET will be getting more storage here soon with tankers if this is the case.

Is a railcar less likely to be vandalised on a shortline?
The CCET website claims they have capacity to store over 1,000 rail cars. Not sure if that number is up to date, but that is roughly 15 miles of cars coupled together or around .3% in numbers of the total cars currently stored in North American. I'm sure they are looking at ways to increase that .3%.

JoJames wrote:Most of the class one railroads don’t have many places to put them either.

As of Mar 1st 2020, there were over 393,000 rail cars in storage and if you coupled' em all together you would need a length of rail totaling over 4,000 miles. Of the 102,000 tank cars currently in storage, The CCET could only handle about 1.3% of the total if they do indeed have storage for over 1,000.

Even at 1.3% that is plenty of revenue for the CCET. They have plenty of siding and plenty of space after Plum Run. Some siding in Batavia as well. I bet all together they can store plenty of cars. I know east of Clare they have two tracks one rarely is used can get at least 70 tankers on it plus they have an additional track out to the west of Clare they can put another hundred or so tankers on.

Generally the leasing companies who own rail cars will work out long term storage agreements with railroads for the storage. WATCO, which owns numerous railroads across the country lists the charge as $100 per car per day for storage when a storage agreement is not in place. This is why most railroads will have agreements in place with the leasing companies for a fraction of that fee. I recall reading somewhere that the fee is generally around $5 per car per day or less. For a railroad like this, Even if they are only getting $1 per car per day, 1000 cars in storage adds up quickly. If they store 1000 cars, at $1 per day per a storage agreement and the cars are stored for 90 days, they are getting $90K in revenue, not including the switching costs to place and remove the cars from storage. There is a reason shortline railroads are so open to storing cars, they make money off it.

64 cars went out east this week all going to Plum Run for storage. Check that some went to the Ag but most went out to Plum Run. They were all down the Penn Tracks at Clare west.

Was down at Clare today ran into a few crew guys from NS who just picked up some food from McDonalds. They said the CCET is going to get another engine from out west some where going to be here in the next few weeks. The engine is a older model of course a GE B23-7. The CCET is going to need more power this summer when they start hauling more rock on the Peavine. With the new contract plus with the increased tanker storage that the CCET has in the works now they are really going to be rather busy out east. They may even need more rail out east if they continue to get more tankers to put in storage.

I was just out past Plum Run last week the tracks out that way are looking pretty good might need some tie work but the foundation looks pretty good for miles.

Does anyone know their current engine roster? Don't they have a GP49 and SD40?

2414 - MP15DC
1011 - B23-7
5857 - B36-7
5895 - B36-7
332 - SD45-2

Thank you for the updated roster. What happened to the GP49?

scraphauler wrote:2414 - MP15DC
1011 - B23-7
5857 - B36-7
5895 - B36-7
332 - SD45-2

2 yellow and blue ones are out in Washington State. Black one still hidden on line somewhere stored out of service (does not run). Whenever the owner of it needs it, it will get dragged out, worked on to return to service and shipped out.

I can't believe how active the CCET is this past year. During the week the CCET drops off and picks up several cars a week. The storage business has been a great source of revenue for the short line plus they added a few new customers on the line. NS has been keeping busy picking up and dropping off as I have been walking my dog and NS crew pulls up to eat at McDonalds a few times a week.

I was out in Newtown Ohio today think i saw the new green power the CCET just brought in the B23-7. Not brand new of course used most likely from the 80s or 90s needs a paint job looks a little dated. As long as it does the job that is all that matters. Soon they will be transloading pulling rock and stone out of Plum Run so they will need extra power to run longer loads on the Peavine.

So hope this works as an old goat my computer skills are not the best. Here is a picture of the new or maybe old engine the CCET has just included in their lineup.

Your old skills are up to par. Man CCET seems to buy all their power off the dead line.

Thanks for posting the picture.

Wow it did work I'm impressed! Yeah I agree that power is not the best looking and the cost to put a paint job on it would cost several thousand bucks. Can't see the CCET painting any engine in the near term. That thing has plenty of rust on it I guess that is what the brown stuff on the top is but could be paint. Well for a small short line and a track that only goes out 76 miles one can't expect much. Yet they continue to plow ahead getting some new business and are building two transloading sites.

They will be rather busy in the next six months. The Ag has been very busy all year. Looking forward to seen the new green slime working the rails here soon,

northstar16 wrote:Wow it did work I'm impressed! Yeah I agree that power is not the best looking and the cost to put a paint job on it would cost several thousand bucks. Can't see the CCET painting any engine in the near term. That thing has plenty of rust on it I guess that is what the brown stuff on the top is but could be paint. Well for a small short line and a track that only goes out 76 miles one can't expect much. Yet they continue to plow ahead getting some new business and are building two transloading sites.

They will be rather busy in the next six months. The Ag has been very busy all year. Looking forward to seen the new green slime working the rails here soon,

Hundreds of short lines have nice painted locos, even lines a few miles long. What is "the Ag"???? Capital "A" tells me it's a name of a company, but having the word "the" in front of "Ag" isn't making sense. Is the company called "Ag"? Sorry, used to proper English and just confused as to what kind of a company "Ag" may be. Is Ag the scrap yard by chance?

It's a grain elevator. A stands for Agricultural but they use it as a generic term. I don't recall the name of the company.

TC Man wrote:What is "the Ag"?