NEWSLETTER
CLNA NEWS – NOVEMBER 2011
Editor – Kelly Bass
Quarterly Review
The late summer and early fall saw a lot of activity on CLNA. On the main line, we began handling a stone move out of the Hanson quarry at Neverson. This move goes to Aurora, NC, with CLNA interchanging the traffic to NS at Chocowinity. We have added an extra crew to handle this business to get timely turnaround on the equipment. Thank you to all who worked hard getting the cars cleaned and repaired for this service, as well as to our extra crew. We expect at least one additional stone move to begin before the end of the year. Elsewhere on the main line, our traffic into Southern States at Farmville has more than doubled from previous years. In addition, we have begun handling outbound wheat from Bailey Feeds in Bailey.
On the Belhaven Branch, we have recently started moving cottonseed outbound from the Cotton Gin at Terra Ceia and will soon be receiving DDG’s at Pantego for Rose Acre Egg Farm. On the Nashville Sub., we have handled 5 unit trains since taking over the operation at the end of May and we expect at least two more trains before the end of the year. At Morehead City, we have recently handled rail ships and acid ships. We have also handled more borate and aragonite than expected, with more traffic expected in late November. This traffic is destined to our operation at Kings Creek, SC. We expect that by the end of the year, all of our branches will have handled more business than they had in 2010.
CLNA has continued to add new personnel. Just since August, we have added Sammy Phelps (train crew), Curtis Hileman (mechanical), Tony Desien (track), Josh Boseman (train crew), and Philip Reynolds (track), and brought back Dusty Baker (mechanical/signals), while moving Ethan Helmick from track to train service.
We should have our tamper in service in November, starting on the line from Wilson to Chocowinity. We will start to receive more than 11,200 new ties for a major project between Chocowinity and Plymouth and 3,000 ties for the Wilson-Raleigh line; while we have purchased several thousand relay ties for installation on the Belhaven and Nashville lines.
CLNA’s annual Christmas party will be at the Wilson Country Club on Saturday, December 3. We look forward to celebrating another successful year for CLNA.
Meet Our Customer
J & J Commodities, Wilson, NC
J&J Commodities is located right across the tracks from our offices in Wilson, NC. They’ve been at this location for 11 years with 2 employees. What do they do? They are “commodity traders”. They buy and sell soy, corn, wheat and milo. Doug Pierce explained to me that they buy these farmer’s products, collect them, and then sell it to processers. He tells me that business has been steady overall but fluctuates up and down as the farmers harvest fields at different times of the year. On average, they have around 75 farmers dropping off product from around the area. They have roughly 25 different processors buying product from J&J to use for different needs. Mr. Pierce tells me that they will hold a product between six months to a year till it is gone. “We have to get rid of the old product before the new product comes in the following year so it doesn’t get mixed up”, he said. The soy seems to move faster and can be turned around and gone in about 3-4 months. He tells me that some of their customers can’t hold their entire order they have purchased at once, so it gets delivered a little bit at a time over a period of time.
Beans are coming in from the farm by the truck and will be sent out by rail.
J&J moves around 300,000 bushels of product out by rail while bringing a couple 100,000 bushels in. Right now and for the next few months are the times that soy beans are moved by rail up to Raleigh to be delivered to Cargill. Carolina Coastal has purchased a fleet of covered hoppers to use with several of our customers, including J&J, in order to have cars on hand and ready for use. During peak season of harvesting, we needed to have cars here and ready for spot. Owning our own railcars allows us to place cars at some of our seasonal customers for use at their convenience as the season progressed. It saves a lot of money for us and them because of the rates we offer till they are actually using the car. This move has also brought a lot of additional business to CLNA and our customers because of its savings and the ‘no pressure attitude’ of having a car and loading it when they are ready. Mr. Pierce says he likes our service and if he ever did have a problem, all he had to do was just walk across the way and tell someone face to face. He laughed when he said that because I think he really enjoys being a stones throw away from us.
Meet Our Employees
Stacy Hobson- Track and Structure Supervisor
Stacy has been with Carolina Coastal since it’s beginnings in ’07 when it leased the NS mainline from Plymouth to Raleigh. Stacy comes to us from ATW out of Sanford NC for transportation service but quickly moved to track. He adjusted nicely taking on the role of Track Foreman for a couple years before moving up to his current position. CLNA sent Stacy to a Track Inspection class and a Bridge Inspection class to better his knowledge with his main duties. Being open to taking these classes has given him opportunities to become a great asset to the company along with being able to do some contract work on different occasions re-decking some bridges. Stacy states he would like to create a more stable business on the side to do the contract decking on a more often basis, but is satisfied for now with some occasional weekend work to gain more and better experience.
Stacy Inspecting some rail
Stacy has shared custody with his 7 year old son, Lane, who he loves taking hunting and fishing. They are out and about most weekends either fishing in the summer or hunting in the winter. Almost every time I talk with Stacy around the office he is telling me about some new fishing or hunting gear he is looking to get. In the last couple years, he and his brother have really gotten into salt water fishing and both have been looking into purchasing a boat, but can’t quite decide on what they really want. He tells me by next summer they will have it worked out in time to hit the water. I asked Mr. Hobson about some railroad related goals that he had in mind and he would like to get all the slow orders off the line. He also hopes that all of the new ties CLNA has purchased this year can get put in where they are needed quickly to avoid future slow orders in the next couple years. We discussed how he would like more and better track equipment. The biggest delay working on track is dealing with maintaining equipment and keeping it running. His hope is for any track personnel to turn the key on what ever they are on and get busy working on a consistent basis. Compare that to train service; most of our delays come from waiting on someone or something to get out of the way.
Along the Rails
Washington, NC
Washington as seen from the railroad bridge over Pamlico River
Washington NC is in Beaufort County nestled beside the Pamlico and Tar rivers and has tons of history dating back to the 1690’s. The area had numerous names over the years from local residents up to the 1770’s and then became officially Washington in honor of George Washington, the first President. There are many towns with the name of Washington, but this is the one that boasts of being the Original Washington and the first. Washington has played some major roles in the making of this country with big parts in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Having such a location gave Washington a unique infra structure that thrived off of the water and land. Fishing was a choice for many, while dealing with timber was another in the early years. Even though there aren’t any more log rafts floating down the rivers to saw mills located in town on the water’s edge, there are still some fisherman coming and going, though I’m sure not like it was as little as 15 years ago. Washington’s first dealings with railroading was from The Washington & Plymouth Railroad narrow gauge line that ran from Washington to Plymouth (hence the name) as a logging line. The line was constructed in 1888-1889 by the Roanoke Lumber Company. Washington paid The Atlantic Coast Line $10,000 in 1892 to connect to it and was completed in 1904 giving Washington vital daily rail connections to Parmele where trains met going further north, south and points west. The ACL built a passenger depot and a large freight annex depot that is still being used today as office space and for some city departments. The ACL quit using the rail around 1975 with most of it being picked up leaving only some buildings where tracks use to be. Around the same time the Atlantic Coast Line arrived in Washington, the Norfolk Southern railroad was taking over the Washington and Plymouth railroad and converted the line to standard gauge. Washington became a large distributing area using two rail lines and the many boats and barges that came into the docks. This was the standard with merchandise and passenger service till the automobile became more popular and roads began being paved for easier travel. The NS line is the same line that Carolina Coastal runs on today going from Chocowinity interchange to Plymouth. Remarkably, the turn span on the Pamlico River Bridge is the same span dated from the early 1900’s with most of the trestle part having to be rebuilt little later following a devastating hurricane the took out most of it. It has had very little upgrades over the years till CLNA took over the line and added more up-to-date push button controls and is currently in a re-decking project that plans to be completed over a 4-5 year span to the entire bridge, water’s edge to water’s edge. Coastal has 2 customers in Washington; Swain Gas and Riverside Grain..
Pamlico River Turn Bridge
Washington has a great grasp on its history with many projects being done to the waterfront. A park, waterfront road and a boardwalk, all designed to tie the historic district to the water and visa versa. Even the day I went over to the park to look around for this project, there was a young couple talking wedding pictures at the waters edge. As I watched the couple smiling and people buzzing around them, I couldn’t help but think to the left is a hundred year old railroad bridge, to the right is a hundred plus year old downtown area and in the middle is this brand new beginning of life and memories to carry on the next 100 years of history.
From the Editor
A little over a year ago, Doug climbed up onto the engine I was sitting on in Greenville and discussed the idea of working on a newsletter for the company website. I was a little hesitant with the thought but agreed to take on the task with one of the perks of being able to go talk with our customers. That is something I really wanted to do as one of my goals with the company. Doug and I talked about what was to be included, a timeline, and our newsletter was born. I’ve learned a lot this past year including that nothing happens quickly on the railroad except finger pointing, bills coming in, and money going out. Sitting down to talk with customers the way I have done has given me some knowledge on how most of them are ready to grow or expand in either a small capacity or on a larger scale . They just need one small piece of the puzzle to make it happen. The newsletters are not meant to be novel worthy but to give some insight on our company, our employees, and our customers. I personally think we have some of the best customers in the business. They understand the time and efforts Carolina Coastal, as a whole, puts into giving the best service possible and work with us to achieve that. I also like to try to include some pictures to give a visual on some of the things I talk about and of course they are not meant to be on the cover of a magazine, but to put a face (or object) with a name.
I have received a lot of compliments and encouragement over the past year while doing this and hopefully can continue to live up to those expectations as well as my own.
With that thought... I say thank-you.
Kelly B.
