GE Power on Mon Line and PIttsburgh Sub - October 1, 2014

October 1, 2014
The beginning of October brings the official start of the Fall season, and this month we start off with a great collection of trains running through the Steel City.
The first train we catch is at the Homestead Waterfront's main entrance. To get into the Waterfront you must cross the Mon Line tracks and the single Pittsburgh Subdivision track. Here at the level crossing we catch southbound NS 9381, with BNSF 4344 in the lash-up. This train was a long and fully loaded autorack consist.
Just about a block from the previous spot we turn to catch NS 8970 on the Munhall Yard siding, pulling empty bethgon hoppers headed south. Once the signals at milepost 12 show green on the northbound track, sure enough a light power movement with two NS ES44AC's speed past the slow moving hopper train. After the empty coal train passes we learn that it eventually stopped in the yard and then the two GEVO units that had passed, coupled onto the rear of the train. They had been ordered to wait for dispatch to send them on their way.
To the south, CSX operations near McKeesport Yard had called for a light engine movement on the southbound track through the end of the Pittsburgh Sub and onto the Youghiogheny Branch.
Straight across the Monongahela River in Dravosburg, NS 9518 is the hot shot coal train on the NS Mon Line South extension. This line continues southwest through the US Steel Plant and then onward to Shire Oaks, PA where trains depart or terminate.
Back in familiar territory, CSX 7742 pulls an AC4400, and the rest of a single stack container train through the Waterfront, over the Pinkerton's Landing Bridge, and into Braddock. CSX runs only single stack containers because intermodal freight is not priority on the Pittsburgh Sub. You will mostly see autoracks, mixed freight, and coal trains more than you see intermodal.
Finally, the valley fills with echos of CSX 5449 rolling through the Pittsburgh Sub headed south. Interestingly hauling nothing but empty gondola's. I believe this consist is being transported to US Steel operations in Union Railroad's yard in Duquesne.