The Conrail Lincoln Secondary is CSX's link to the Conrail Detroit SAA, borne of its share of the June 1999 acquisition (NS got the Michigan Line and the Detroit Line).
It links the CSX Toledo Terminal Subdivision at North End Carleton milepost CC105 (mileage from Saginaw) and the Norfolk Southern Detroit District at Ecorse Junction mp D5.6 (mileage from Fort Street Depot, present site of Wayne County Community College).
Conrail owns and maintains the Lincoln Secondary. CSX's BX desk dispatches it on AAR channel 35 160.635 using radio stations located in Carleton or Dearborn.
The North Yard and Livernois trains bound for Carleton must talk to the CSX BX Dispatcher before they pass Delray Tower. All trains need block authority from the CSX BX dispatcher to move on the Lincoln Secondary.
The Blocks are defined as follows:
YDRR-20 is southbound at Lincoln Yard 4/26/91. In the distance we can see the Marathon Oil refineries in Lincoln Park, Michigan. I-75 is out of sight on the right. It parallels the Lincoln Secondary from Lincoln Park to Penford Crossing in Southgate.
Photograph © 1991-2001 Jeff Feldmeier
It was thought that CSX would send 20 trains a day (as expressed to local communities by CSX and CR brass in the summer of 1998) up and down this 20 mile long single track railroad with no sidings.
Reality knows better, and these days, as of 4/20/00, it sees the following trains:
The yard jobs work out of Conrail River Rouge Yard. They access the Lincoln Secondary by way of CP-YD on the Detroit Line, to the Junction Yard Secondary, to Ecorse Junction. They secure permission from the Conrail Detroit Line Dispatcher and the CSX BX Dispatcher to do so.
The Glass Man trains go as far as the Guardian Switch at QQL 117.2, just a stones throw from CP-Carleton. BX will occasionally want him to clear up when he arrives at Guardian Glass if he has traffic pending.
The Brownstown jobs go to the Brownstown switch at QQL 128.
A friend of mine in Plymouth, not a railfan, complains that train traffic through the CSX junction town has increased dramatically since the Conrail acquisition. This seems to indicate that a lot of the Conrail business that CSX gained is being sent through Rougemere and west over the CSX Detroit Subdivision to Plymouth, where it turns south to Toledo on the Saginaw and Toledo Terminal Subdivisions. The five scheduled trains are a net increase in traffic over this once neglected part of the Penn Central and Conrail, however, and it makes Carleton a good place to park it and wait for some trains.
Back to Conrail Detroit SAA Page
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