Citirail Local

[Hotbox]

Sat Jul 8 there was an autorack train poised to proceed west at Brooklyn Ave on the Huntington District headed by a single Citirail locomotive. Making me suspect this must be a local. Citirail are leased units, is NS short on power to the point they've leased units for local service?

[rrnut282]

It's been used on mainline trains, too. I saw it a couple of weeks ago on a Northbound rack train.

[Bob Durnell]

NS is not leasing any extra power. Most likely this unit is paying back horsepower hours to NS for whichever RR, (likely BNSF) has leased it.

[D.L.]

I've seen a lot of leased power on NS lately, too.

[Hotbox]

Most likely this unit is paying back horsepower hours to NS for whichever RR, (likely BNSF) has leased it.

Makes perfect sense, thankyou.

it does seem a little odd to me that an "hours payback" unit found it's way into local service.

[Bob Durnell]

Well, the best way to get horsepower payback is to USE the unit. If it was sitting at the pit waiting for work, why not use it?