Strasburg Rail Road and Freight Services

junior · **Posted:** Fri Sep 13, 2019 11:33 pm

bigjim4life wrote:

S. Weaver wrote:

junior wrote:

What is the number of cars currently handled by SRC on an annual basis?

Census is trending @ 700/year.

Is that considered good? Bad? Mediocre? Just curious.

Most short line/tourist railroads would be more than happy with 700 cars annually...

I was once told a rule of thumb to keep class one track (10mph freight/15mph passenger) maintained properly needs the revenue equal to 100 cars per mile per year. How true that is, I dont know....and of course there are many variables to the revenue but 700 is certainly not a bad number for a 4.5 mile road.

Kelly Anderson · **Joined:** Tue Sep 14, 2004 7:52 am **Posts:** 2477

bigjim4life · **Posted:** Sat Sep 14, 2019 1:26 pm

Kelly Anderson wrote:

bigjim4life wrote:

Is that considered good? Bad? Mediocre? Just curious.

I believe that 700 cars per year is a record for us. In the 1980's we were working about 50 cars per year.

A couple of weeks ago, we were hosting 50 foreign cars on SRC rails for a brief period. I wouldn't have thought that we could take that many cars and still operate, but we did somehow and avoided gridlock. Made for some interesting switching moves and hard work for our SW8.

Sounds like it’s about time to expand or get a new/supplemental yard, isn’t it?

Kelly Anderson · **Joined:** Tue Sep 14, 2004 7:52 am **Posts:** 2477

Ed Kapuscinski · **Posted:** Mon Sep 16, 2019 2:53 pm

Just think how beautiful a shiny Conrail SD40-2 shoving on the rear would be.

TrainDetainer · **Joined:** Wed Nov 23, 2016 7:05 pm **Posts:** 283

Ed Kapuscinski wrote:

Just think how beautiful a shiny Conrail SD40-2 shoving on the rear would be.

SD38 with hump control and MT6 slug. But I hear you, and I'd love to see a pair/trio of operable CR SD40-2s at a museum somewhere.

Dennis Storzek · **Posted:** Mon Sep 16, 2019 7:03 pm

Naw, whatever happened to that Union RR 0-10-2 that was in the roundhouse with B&LE 643 and 158? That would be the perfect hump engine for Strasburg!

TrainDetainer · **Joined:** Wed Nov 23, 2016 7:05 pm **Posts:** 283

Come to think of it, IIRC PRR used hippos as hump power - there's just one left and I'm sure Kelly and his crew could have it earning it's keep again in the manner intended in short order...