CSXT 4554 leading Q212 - Syracuse Terminal Subdivision at DeWitt Yard

  CSXT 4554 was the lead the locomotive on CSX train Q212-16 last week on Tuesday. My youngest and I were over in Minoa, New York, and saw the train from the Green Bridge. We came upon Q212-16 as the crew was preparing to cut the locomotives from the train and run into DeWitt Yard to pick up a cut of intermodal cars.

CSXT 4554, an EMD SD70MAC

CSXT 4554 and Q212-17 sit on Track 1 at CP282.

  CSXT 4554 is an EMD SD70MAC. The locomotive was built and delivered to CSX in January 2000 as CSXT 754. According to the Conrail Historical Society, the SD70MAC weighs 415,000 pounds and has a 4,000-horsepower rating. In late 2007, the locomotive got renumbered as CSXT 4554, due to CSX receiving a General Electric ES44AC-H numbered as CSXT 754. 

Autorack train Q212-17 at DeWitt Yard

Looking west at CSXT 4554 on the point of Q212-17. Q212 is stopped on Trk. 1 at CP282. To the right, the end of I009 is westbound on Add-A-Block.

  Q212 runs daily from Buffalo, New York, to Oak Island, New Jersey. It stops at DeWitt Yard to change crews and pick up a cut of intermodal cars. Depending on how busy the yard is, Q212 will often stop on Track 1 of the Syracuse Terminal Subdivision at CP282. The locomotives are then cut off from the train and run lite into the yard to pick up the intermodal cars.

  In June of 2022, Q212 became M212 when CSX implemented new prefixes. "M" stands for manifest, which CSX's autorack trains fall under. In August 2022, CSX cancelled M212 and put the autoracks on intermodal train I162. The intermodal cars that M212 picked up at DeWitt Yard were put on intermodal train I010. Then in October 2022, CSX must have realized this change wasn't working, but the symbol M212 had already been reused for another autorack train that now runs from Wayne, Michigan, to Willard, Ohio. So, M218 was created to haul the former M212's autoracks between Buffalo, New York, and Port Newark, New Jersey.

Photographs taken on May 17, 2022, at Minoa, New York.

Post updated January 4, 2022.