What type of traffic and how many trains are currently operated on the "S" Line between Raleigh and Savannah, GA as well as the "A" Line between Richmond and Jacksonville, plus the Jacksonville-St. Petersburg and Jacksonville/Baldwin-West Palm Beach lines?

Also, what are the top speeds on these lines are are they single or double-tracked?

Thanks in advance,

Phil Bell ELRRco@AOL.com

-- Phil Bell (ELRRco@AOL.com), April 10, 2002

Answers

Between Hamlet and Columbia, there are a pair of freights daily. The Silver Star travels this route late at night. THere are also one or two daily switchers along the way. There is rumor CSX may need to use this route more to alleviate congestion on the A line. Perhaps it will see a piggyback ot two?? Anybody heard this?

-- Phillip Gandy (hab1270@aol.com), April 21, 2004.

The S line from Savannah to at least Augusta, GA is single line I believe for most if not all the way. There are industries along the way where switching happens. Most mix frieghts have a caboose. There is a Amtrak that comes that way. Not to much in the way of intermodal or I have not seen many that way. A lot of unit coals and mix frieghts. Hope this helped! Jason

-- Jason Castine (Multivortexf5@hotmail.com), June 13, 2002.

"The exACL between Jacksonville is mostly gone"

I dont know what that means exactly

anyway, i will add that St. Pete is reached via SAL from tampa to clearwater, then acl from clearwater to st. pete. ACL north of clearater and SAL south of clearwater are gone. Traffic is one daily local and one additional local as needed. Not much traffic online in st. pete except a lumber yard or 2 and the st. pete times (newsprint). Power is usually a GP40-2/RD slug combo or a mixture of 2 GP40-2 and GP39-2. No more passenger trains, but you probabally knew that. Also the yard that was at 22nd ave N just west of I-275 is gone, now a home depot. Just 2 track siding off the mainline (if you can call it a mainline) to store empties. Track is in pretty pathetic shape south of clearwater too. I dont think the recent MOW blitz made it down there, they did get from the drew spur to tampa and last year got clearwater-drew spur

The traffic tampa-jax is pretty good still, lots run at night however

-- troy nolen (tnolen12@tampabay.rr.com), April 12, 2002.

The A line is averaging 40 freights ( pigs,coal,grain,etc)a day while boasting 10 Amtrak trains a day,more than anywhere else on the east coast other than the corridor.Pass speed is 79 mph,Pigs 70 mph,Freights 60 mph,and Unit Trains 50 mph.We run a wide variety of diesels from butt heads to AC6000's.Come and see why the A-Line became THE dominate line!

-- V.L.Lewis (TrkInsp5F33@aol.com), April 11, 2002.

The exACL between Jacksonville is mostly gone.The exSAL Jacksonville- Baldwin-Wildwood-Tampa line is fairly busy.Tampa-St.Pete is over the exSAL and sees little traffic.WPB and Miami traffic runs on the exSAL out of Jax,to Baldwin-Wildwood,then the exACL Vitus-Lakeland- Auburndale,then exSAL south.All Amtrak trains run Auburndale-Miami.Silver Star and Meteor run to Jax via Orlando.Silver Palm via Lakeland and Tampa. The Richmond-Jacksonville is the mainline and is usually very busy. At Folkston all trains from the north and northwest "funnel" to Florida.

-- Joseph Oates (jlosal@mindspring.com), April 11, 2002.

Between Raleigh and Fetner, the S line (Aberdeen subdivision) and the adjacent NS line operate as double track. South of Fetner, the S line usually sees one Amtrak train and local freight, and it's single track until near Hamlet. Unless I'm not mistaken, double track does not extend as far north of Hamlet as in the past. Some of the sidings on the subdivision and the double track through Southern Pines were removed in the 1990s. After Hurricane Fran, track speed was dropped to 60, but that didn't make much difference in Amtrak running time.

-- Chuck Till (ctill@nc.rr.com), April 10, 2002.