Business is Down

by Steve Eshom

Railroad business is down and this isn’t a surprise to anyone who follows our economy. My next statement won’t surprise you either. Business is down in Central Montana too. Last year at this time BNSF ran daily trains between Sweet Grass, MT and Laurel, MT. This year they are no longer daily and only go as far as Shelby, MT with a local handling the CP interchange to Sweet Grass.

M-LAUSHM, the lone through train on Thursday, crosses Otter Creek near Armington.

Looking at things from a manager perspective fewer trains and different management of power at Shelby probably are more “efficient” for the bottom line. In a tough economy, that’s what you have to do. These changes do mean delays to freight though as cars can sit at Laurel, Shelby, or Sweet Grass for an extra day before being moved to the opposite end of the line for delivery. A calculated decision I’m sure.

The lone through train on Friday, the M-SHMLAU, passes the unused elevator at Windham.

In addition to the reduced traffic cars are stored everywhere. In the back tracks at Armington, Geyser, and Stanford are enough 1970s steel coal cars to make a full coal train. Down at Cushman the passing siding is full of TOFC flats. The Lewistown Sub, which has traditionally been storage, is packed. The most telling sign of our economy is the 120+ aluminum coal hoppers stored on the Central Montana at Moccasin. Modern cars that were part of the constant growth of Powder River basin coal shipping are now just sitting.

Got coal train? Stored coal hoppers at Stanford.

Economic doom and gloom aside there are some positives. Despite being less than daily the trains are running longer than last year which means there is still business. Farming around Central Montana appears on the outside like it did a year ago. The wheat is ripe and being harvested, the cattle are every where and are being shipped for processing, and the grass is green and being cut for winter feed. The Great Falls local pulled a cut of 50+ stored boxcars off the Lewistown sub Thursday an whether they are headed back to service or for scrap it means something good for someone.

Healing the economy will most likely take some time so hopefully by next year’s visit operations around here will be back to normal.

The Shelby-Laurel train approaching Judith Gap.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, BNSF, Central Montana, economy, farming, Armington, Stanford, Geyser, Judith Gap, Montana

This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 2:19 pm and is filed under trip reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.