I spent a lifetime at Raceland Car shop as a a Carman welder. I don't believe there was an inch of that ground I haven't been. Stayed there until 2010 when CSX ended their operations with Progress Rail. I had to finish my last few years in Russell yard. I still miss the car shops they were certainly in my blood. Thank you so much for including it in your video!
I noticed a lot of diesel engines and gen sets at both Huntington and Russel yards. I'm guessing since GE no longer makes locomotives, the railroads are opting to rebuild and modernize old power units. Watching other railfan videos, I've noticed quite a few SD70's leading NS manifests, and CSX still employs a lot of old SD's and GeeP's. And a large number of heritage units are SD70Macs .. I think we all love the ol' EMD's. Thanks again, Micah.
I'm going to disagree with you about GE not building new locomotives, there are still new es44act4s coming out of Erie for CSX, freightliner locomotives going to the UK, and I think other orders are coming Along as well plus the rebuild projects
16:55 at the bottom right, I see a locomotive cab that looks like a SD75M. If it is, then it's ex-ATSF heritage. I think there's two in the section of the yard.
Awesome catches Micah! Also, speaking of the Dash-8’s returning to Storage, I’ve found out that 65 Dash-8’s (All 31 remaining 7600 series (7649~99) and 34 7700 series (7701~59)) are on Recommended Retirement.
Interesting to see the GP-30’s in the line. They used to be the yard engines for many years in Huntington but have been retired. There were some SD-40’s as well in that line. Shame to see them all out of service.
That steamer is more than likely a Buffalo Creek and Gauley loco. Elk River was actually the lumber company that used some of the same tracks. ER used geared locos.
Not much variety in that area anymore other than KRT and the C&O signals on the Big Sandy. Makes me so glad I went trackside in that area when I did over 10 years ago. I still think back to when I could say hi to dispatcher RGL arriving at the Huntington Division dispatch office for work. At least I can still hear him on the Big Sandy on certain nights.
I think I saw CSX 312! It might be that 312 was retired and then rebuilt into an AC4400CWM after this unit was wrecked in the Standstone, WY train collision in March 2023!
I so want to take one of those wide cabs like a Dash 8 or 9 and give it a drivetrain, steering in all axles, and put big ol mud tires on and have a mudding train. Call it CSXtreme. 😂
On your next visit to Huntington WV go see the C & O steam locomotive 1308 at Safety Town it is the second to last locomotive built at Baldwin Locomotive works in 1949, it's on static display.
@@bubbabubba2013 There are deadlines there too, probably more than Huntington. They are moved and relocated as needed and according to whatever projects each shop is working on
I have two history tidbits from Kenova WV at one time a passenger station served the NS formerly NW and CSX formerly the C&O during the times both had passenger service but alas it was set on fire by maybe an arsonist. Also in Pritchard WV there is a NW coaling tower which can be accessed from a local road see Hobo Shoestring's god rest his soul video, also another coaling tower is in West Hamlin WV going south from Huntington WV it's at a right turn toward the town look right down the tracks and you can park and walk to it. Also a web site has a list of surviving coal towers
I hope some of these engines gets repaired and bring back to service instead of scrapping them and sold them to the other companies in the special units they got to be repaired in some of those rare engines those engines need to get repaired to
I never really got to see much of the Huntington rail yards as I never really got to go deep into Huntington when I was younger. About where the Amtrak station is for me but I live in Ashland so Russel was like my next door neighbor and I would use the city bus almost every day until the shorten the Russel route to watch the trains all day threw out the weekend coming and leaving the rail yards in the 90s. It was my favorite childhood past time as I didn't have any friends when I was young that was into trains so I just enjoyed watching the real ones go by as I grew up.ahhh I wish the Russel rail yards use to be what it was like per 9/11 where on Russel rail days for a donation threw out that weekend they would give tours of the rail yards to multiple groups of people and even let us ride on one of the trains for a few feet in the yard *blissful sigh*
Wish you would had shown off the pnc bank in Ashland ky. It use to be the main train station in town and still looks the part on the outside with an old pullmen coach around back and the inside is full of railroad history pictures from the stations life time
Also a nice trip would be to travel the old N & W line thought WV the state government at the time blocked it and N & W built the Tug fork and Big Sandy bypass. The state wanted to prevent the other railroads from the southern WV coalfields.
Well here goes. The long lines of stored locomotives, are from a variety of reasons. PSR,decline of coal usage, the use of AC drive,the decline of yards and switching. Some of those units have been stored for years. The CM44 rebuild program now has enough units for CSX to finally store the C40-8W's. The AC drive units have more tractive effort at the railhead and can 'dig in',better in low speed/ high tonnage applications. They can take it better than DC drive. The switchers,slug units,and low horsepower units,just don't have a place in todays railroading. Railroads evaluate units by their history,age etc. Most units that go into deadlines,like these have had some manner of major failure and were deemed not worthy of repair. The railroads are a business,they have a responsibility to operate with the newest,most efficent equipment available.
I suppose that when they aren’t in a power shortage, excess power just piles up until needed. I’m guessing that they will sell off their dash 8s before too long
Thank you for the sightseeing flight over the repair works of the CSX. The fact that locomotives will be scrapped when they are of a certain age, the railway company has less to transport and therefore too many machines are available is just common practice. that's what our Deutsche Bahn does, too. The Deutsche Bahn sells the machines to scrap dealers, who then take care of it. If you are interested, I have 2 links here, the first one is from the Alstom repair shop in Stendal, the second one shows the scrapping of locomotives at the Bender company in Leverkusen. ua-cam.com/video/m-Y75G1PDvM/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/R0qIXYW61kI/v-deo.html The first video is from me and has english text in the video description. Greetings from Berlin/ Germany. Sven
At the right things are going in this country Freight traffic is down so bad that the railroads are going to be forced into pulling the rails all across their system and eventually a lot of their Freight and locomotives are going to face the torch pretty soon they will be rebuilding from time to time but I don't see a very positive future with our railroads anymore and as much as a lot of rail fans do not want to accept it they better accept the fact that railroads are on their way out the demise is very real railroads only survive off stockholders right now because they are all going to go bankrupt and very soon
An interesting take and a great read! Personally I don’t think our country could ever reach the point where the railroad was obsolete. Too much freight and other goods is moved via rail every day, that also includes coal as it continues to boom once more in the coalfields, yet not many are talking about it and claim it’s done for. Maybe one day we can find a better alternative, yet for now I feel the railroad is here to stay 😊
Alan, You really have no idea what you’re talking about, the only major rail commodity that’s in a clear secular decline is thermal coal, other than that how do you think all the heavy non valuable commodities like grain, aggregates, lumber, chemicals, plastic pellets, and high value freight like new automobiles and intermodal get to and from market? It would be impossible for trucks to move the current tonnage that rails today handle, could never be done. Also do you realize that the big rails actually earn a lot of money doing so. After paying all expenses including taxes, the major rails keep anywhere from 25 to 30 cents of each dollar of revenue, which is a very impressive after tax net profit margin. So there’s not a lot of top line growth but the big rails are cash flow machines
Great video. I drive by all of those Locomotives parked at the Huntington shop quite often. I’ve always wondered why there are so many parked there.
Awesome!!
I spent a lifetime at Raceland Car shop as a a Carman welder. I don't believe there was an inch of that ground I haven't been. Stayed there until 2010 when CSX ended their operations with Progress Rail. I had to finish my last few years in Russell yard. I still miss the car shops they were certainly in my blood. Thank you so much for including it in your video!
I noticed a lot of diesel engines and gen sets at both Huntington and Russel yards. I'm guessing since GE no longer makes locomotives, the railroads are opting to rebuild and modernize old power units. Watching other railfan videos, I've noticed quite a few SD70's leading NS manifests, and CSX still employs a lot of old SD's and GeeP's. And a large number of heritage units are SD70Macs .. I think we all love the ol' EMD's. Thanks again, Micah.
I'm going to disagree with you about GE not building new locomotives, there are still new es44act4s coming out of Erie for CSX, freightliner locomotives going to the UK, and I think other orders are coming Along as well plus the rebuild projects
Really enjoyed. Good work
16:55 at the bottom right, I see a locomotive cab that looks like a SD75M. If it is, then it's ex-ATSF heritage. I think there's two in the section of the yard.
Awesome catches Micah! Also, speaking of the Dash-8’s returning to Storage, I’ve found out that 65 Dash-8’s (All 31 remaining 7600 series (7649~99) and 34 7700 series (7701~59)) are on Recommended Retirement.
What about dash 8s that are 7760-7799? Or 7800-7899?
@@Buckskin1290 you forgot engines 7900-7929 too.
Another great video, Micah. Thanks for taking us along. Awesome drone footage.
Hi Micah Turner! Great video! Thanks for sharing this with us!!
Interesting to see the GP-30’s in the line. They used to be the yard engines for many years in Huntington but have been retired. There were some SD-40’s as well in that line. Shame to see them all out of service.
I had the pleasure of touring this facility along with the car shops back in the early 1990s. It’s quite an interesting operation.
Also in Ashland Ky at the PNC bank is a Pullman passenger behind the bank. The bank itself was the freight depot for the B & O railroad.
great drone footage, and thanks for the update!
What will Csx do with their dash 8s?
It’s unknown at the moment, though quite a few are recommended for retirement.
@@railfanmicahturnerNot all! I think they should keep getting rebuilds like Ns,s dash 9s did!
Nice Catches, Also, Thats PSR For You.
Why are some Csx ES44AHs and et44ahs in storage? There not even that old!
Most of the ones here are damaged to some degree and are waiting to be repaired 🙂
They ain’t worth scrap, let ‘em rot in the weeds!
@@railfanmicahturnerWhat about the other ones? What will happen to them?
@@rustyrailspikeproductionsWhat do you mean rot in weeds?
Excellent
Anyone notice the f40 cab at 3:41
That steamer is more than likely a Buffalo Creek and Gauley loco. Elk River was actually the lumber company that used some of the same tracks. ER used geared locos.
Hey, this sortof video really isn't my cup of coffee, but you do make a very good looking video, first class.
7:45 Still sucks that 4500 is still Stored
Not much variety in that area anymore other than KRT and the C&O signals on the Big Sandy. Makes me so glad I went trackside in that area when I did over 10 years ago. I still think back to when I could say hi to dispatcher RGL arriving at the Huntington Division dispatch office for work. At least I can still hear him on the Big Sandy on certain nights.
Love it!
nice editing
Nice video Michah :)
I think I saw CSX 312! It might be that 312 was retired and then rebuilt into an AC4400CWM after this unit was wrecked in the Standstone, WY train collision in March 2023!
I so want to take one of those wide cabs like a Dash 8 or 9 and give it a drivetrain, steering in all axles, and put big ol mud tires on and have a mudding train. Call it CSXtreme. 😂
I live in Huntington and have often wondered why all these locomotives were lashed up just sitting for a mile or 2 rusting away?
At 17:24, are those engines lined up outside the locomotive maintenance/repair shed?
Those are more than likely fresh deliveries progress rail has recently purchased
On your next visit to Huntington WV go see the C & O steam locomotive 1308 at Safety Town it is the second to last locomotive built at Baldwin Locomotive works in 1949, it's on static display.
I hope that 602 will be able to be put in service
Also what happend to Csx engines 7300-7399 and 7400-7599 or even 7600 through 7699?
7300-7399 were sold to gecx or ltex and the 7400-7599 were sold to mec
If I recall right Cumberland MD. has a large locomotive repair shop, why don't they send some of those idle locomotives there?
@@bubbabubba2013 There are deadlines there too, probably more than Huntington. They are moved and relocated as needed and according to whatever projects each shop is working on
I have two history tidbits from Kenova WV at one time a passenger station served the NS formerly NW and CSX formerly the C&O during the times both had passenger service but alas it was set on fire by maybe an arsonist. Also in Pritchard WV there is a NW coaling tower which can be accessed from a local road see Hobo Shoestring's god rest his soul video, also another coaling tower is in West Hamlin WV going south from Huntington WV it's at a right turn toward the town look right down the tracks and you can park and walk to it. Also a web site has a list of surviving coal towers
I saw 7765 just months before it was put in storage
Why has nobody barely seen Csx 4600s engines? Ever? Why? I wonder where they’ve been!
The CSX SD70Ms were sold to prlx
So many locos😢
I hope some of these engines gets repaired and bring back to service instead of scrapping them and sold them to the other companies in the special units they got to be repaired in some of those rare engines those engines need to get repaired to
I wonder how many in the deadlines will end up at LTEX?
There have been several in past years, such as many in the original 7300 series
Do you know where those sd70ms were going?
I never really got to see much of the Huntington rail yards as I never really got to go deep into Huntington when I was younger. About where the Amtrak station is for me but I live in Ashland so Russel was like my next door neighbor and I would use the city bus almost every day until the shorten the Russel route to watch the trains all day threw out the weekend coming and leaving the rail yards in the 90s. It was my favorite childhood past time as I didn't have any friends when I was young that was into trains so I just enjoyed watching the real ones go by as I grew up.ahhh I wish the Russel rail yards use to be what it was like per 9/11 where on Russel rail days for a donation threw out that weekend they would give tours of the rail yards to multiple groups of people and even let us ride on one of the trains for a few feet in the yard *blissful sigh*
Wish you would had shown off the pnc bank in Ashland ky. It use to be the main train station in town and still looks the part on the outside with an old pullmen coach around back and the inside is full of railroad history pictures from the stations life time
@@Heroduothecomedian I’ll make a note to prioritize that for the next trip! Great story! Thanks!
Now that’s what I call power short.
Will the Spirit of Cumberland ever run again?
@@vincethompson3475 It has actually since been scrapped in Clifton Forge, Va, so we won’t see it run again
Also a nice trip would be to travel the old N & W line thought WV the state government at the time blocked it and N & W built the Tug fork and Big Sandy bypass. The state wanted to prevent the other railroads from the southern WV coalfields.
Well here goes. The long lines of stored locomotives, are from a variety of reasons. PSR,decline of coal usage, the use of AC drive,the decline of yards and switching. Some of those units have been stored for years. The CM44 rebuild program now has enough units for CSX to finally store the C40-8W's. The AC drive units have more tractive effort at the railhead and can 'dig in',better in low speed/ high tonnage applications. They can take it better than DC drive. The switchers,slug units,and low horsepower units,just don't have a place in todays railroading. Railroads evaluate units by their history,age etc. Most units that go into deadlines,like these have had some manner of major failure and were deemed not worthy of repair. The railroads are a business,they have a responsibility to operate with the newest,most efficent equipment available.
Russell Kentucky not Russel Kentucky
I caught that after editing haha, my mistake!
If they didn't take the Lexington sub out they could have got the lumber mills fright.
i guess they scrapped all those swithers and slug units which are my favorits 1
How can they keep these out of service just sitting rusting away? Even if they are scrapped isn't worth money to CSX?
I suppose that when they aren’t in a power shortage, excess power just piles up until needed. I’m guessing that they will sell off their dash 8s before too long
@@railfanmicahturnerAll of them? But I thought Csx might rebuild them!
It would be easier if this Scrap was Recycled Vs. seeing History just Rot away out in the elements. 🤔🙏
I suppose CSX is taking a more “We can always reservice them and use them later” approach
They are part sources like a junk yard, so real recycling unlike cars for clunkers an environmental disaster that was.
Thank you for the sightseeing flight over the repair works of the CSX. The fact that locomotives will be scrapped when they are of a certain age, the railway company has less to transport and therefore too many machines are available is just common practice. that's what our Deutsche Bahn does, too. The Deutsche Bahn sells the machines to scrap dealers, who then take care of it. If you are interested, I have 2 links here, the first one is from the Alstom repair shop in Stendal, the second one shows the scrapping of locomotives at the Bender company in Leverkusen. ua-cam.com/video/m-Y75G1PDvM/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/R0qIXYW61kI/v-deo.html The first video is from me and has english text in the video description. Greetings from Berlin/ Germany. Sven
At the right things are going in this country Freight traffic is down so bad that the railroads are going to be forced into pulling the rails all across their system and eventually a lot of their Freight and locomotives are going to face the torch pretty soon they will be rebuilding from time to time but I don't see a very positive future with our railroads anymore and as much as a lot of rail fans do not want to accept it they better accept the fact that railroads are on their way out the demise is very real railroads only survive off stockholders right now because they are all going to go bankrupt and very soon
An interesting take and a great read! Personally I don’t think our country could ever reach the point where the railroad was obsolete. Too much freight and other goods is moved via rail every day, that also includes coal as it continues to boom once more in the coalfields, yet not many are talking about it and claim it’s done for. Maybe one day we can find a better alternative, yet for now I feel the railroad is here to stay 😊
I think you forget the number of shortline railroads that have popped up to serve customers that is not efficient for large carriers.
Alan, You really have no idea what you’re talking about, the only major rail commodity that’s in a clear secular decline is thermal coal, other than that how do you think all the heavy non valuable commodities like grain, aggregates, lumber, chemicals, plastic pellets, and high value freight like new automobiles and intermodal get to and from market? It would be impossible for trucks to move the current tonnage that rails today handle, could never be done. Also do you realize that the big rails actually earn a lot of money doing so. After paying all expenses including taxes, the major rails keep anywhere from 25 to 30 cents of each dollar of revenue, which is a very impressive after tax net profit margin. So there’s not a lot of top line growth but the big rails are cash flow machines