T.G.'s Photography Blog

The Seneca River Montezuma Bridge, commonly called the Montezuma Trestle, spans the Seneca River and part of the Montezuma Marsh on Hog Island, between Savannah, New York, and Montezuma, New York. The bridge is part of CSX's Rochester Subdivision. This line is a former Conrail, Penn Central Railroad, and New York Central Railroad line. The Seneca River at this location is the dividing line between Cayuga County (to the east) and Wayne Country (to the west).  Seneca River and NMWMA at Montezuma Trestle Looking north, at Hog Island (right of the river) as CSXT 3453, CSXT 5461, CSXT 5314, CSXT 7793 lead Q367-15 west. The Seneca River flows from Seneca Lake, one of the Finger Lakes, east and northeast to the Junction of the Three Rivers, north of Syracuse, New York. The Seneca River flows from the south to the north here, but it is not the main river channel at this location anymore. The Erie Barge Canal is the primary channel now. The canal borders Hog Island from the southern t...

While out on a drive to see if the tree leaves had accelerated their fall color change, we heard the track detector at milepost QC323.6 of the Rochester Subdivision (Savannah, NY.) start talking for Amtrak's eastbound Lake Shore Limited. We therefore headed over to Pottery Road to wait for it.  CSX 3453 leading train Q363-21 First up was CSXT 3453  (a General Electric built ET44AH) leading train Q363-21 west on the Track 1 of the Rochester Subdivision at Pottery Road (MP QC297.76). Train Q363 is a daily manifest train that runs from Selkirk, NY., to Avon, IN. Below, the train is coming west around the curve just to the east of Pottery Road (milepost 297.76). CSXT 3453 leading Q363-21 This was a long train. The defect detector a few miles to the west of Pottery Road at milepost QC302.6 (Warners, NY) reported an axel count of 572. Subtracting twelve axles for the two locomotives (CSXT 3177 was the mid-train DPU) works out to 140 four-axle freight cars on this train. Below, the ...

Today I traveled west to Brutus, New York, along CSX's Rochester Subdivision. Brutus is the largest town in Cayuga County. On its east side, it borders Jordan, New York, in Onondaga County. The town of Weedsport, New York, is the largest village within the town of Brutus. Q162-13, with CSXT 3453 The first, and only, train I photographed today was train Q162-13, which was sitting just to the west of the Bonta Bridge Road crossing. Q162-13 had CSXT 3453 (a General Electric built ET44AH) as the only locomotive on the front of the train. The train did have CSXT 3283 serving as the distributed power (DP) unit  on the rear of the train. CSXT 3453 on the point of Q162-13 Q162-13 had been stopped to the west of CP308 (milepost QC308.7) to allow a number of trains to pass by it on Track 1, before it would cross over to Track 1 from Track 2 to proceed east. I believe Track 2 had a maintenance worker checking something near milepost 297.76 (Pottery Road) further east of here. A tighter shot o...