T.G.'s Photography Blog

This ariel view looking is looking across B705 in the Belle Isle siding, toward the FGLK yard at Solvay, NY.     After photographing Z520-10 on Tuesday , I noticed that loaded ethanol train B705, with CN 3863 and CN 3099, was tied down in Belle Isle siding. With the drone still in the air I captured this view, looking west, of B705 sitting at Belle Isle with the Finger Lakes Railway (FLGK) yard behind the train. The industrial complex right behind the rail yard is the former Syracuse Energy Corp. (SEC) cogeneration power plant. The coal-fired power plant supplied electricity and steam power to nearby companies. In September 2013, the plant closed when its biggest customer built and began using its own power plant. Per a news article at Syracuse.com, The customer built its own power plant due to concerns about SEC keeping the plant open. Photograph taken on October 10, 2023, at Solvay, NY.

  NYSW 3014 is eastbound, running light through CP-293 after dropping cars off at Belle Isle in Solvay, NY.   After a bike ride on Tuesday at Onondaga Lake, I heard Z520-10 call the CSX NF dispatcher for permission to shove west across CP-293 from the Geddes Street Lead to the pocket track at Belle Isle to drop a block of interchange cars. I quickly headed over to CP-293 of the Syracuse Terminal Subdivision, which sits on the eastern edge of Belle Isle in Solvay, NY. There, and just in time, I caught NYSW 3014, running light, back through CP-293 after making the drop. Z520 is a New York, Susquehanna & Western Railway interchange job. CSX uses the Z designation for foreign railroad trains. NYSW 3014 is an EMD SD40T-2 "tunnel motor" that was built for the Southern Pacific in 1978. 45 years old and still going.