TP&W M-EPEF 1-2-24

When I learned that TP&W was running an eastbound freight this afternoon and that it had stopped to switch Grainland Cooperative at Cruger, I decided to forego Union Pacific's MPECL. To quote myself from March 20, 2023, "If you can catch a TP&W road freight, do it!"

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of Santa Fe's absorption of the original TP&W. The next five years marked declining traffic, and Santa Fe sold it to Gordon Fuller's TP&W Acquisition Corp. on February 3, 1989. Fuller and subsequent owners experienced ups and downs on traffic, some of the downs being self-inflicted and some out of their control.

Fortunately, Genesee & Wyoming Inc.-owned TP&W has experienced traffic surges from on-line industrial development the last several years. Many of the cars on today's eastbound are the result of that development. 

Note that there are ELEVEN salt boxcars on the head end consigned to Sweetener Supply Corp, which opened near Wolcott, Indiana in 2021. EIGHT covered hoppers on the rear are zinc oxide empties returning to Waelz Sustainable Products' Clymers, Indiana plant, which opened in 2022. 


CAPTION: Toledo, Peoria & Western Railway train M-EPEF (Manifest, E. Peoria IL to Effner IL) rolls through Secor, Illinois late-afternoon Tuesday, January 2, 2024. Later, it is shown entering El Paso. IMRR 2084, IORY 5007 and IMRR 2108 have 78 cars. 

David P. Jordan

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