Hello everyone! On the last Tuesday of August (August 29th, 2023), I ventured on down to one of my favorite railfanning locations with a couple of friends including fellow KZreadr Cincy Railfan Productions. This was both a fun day but also a slow day at the crossing of the N&W and the C&O. We only saw a grand total of eight trains (four CSX and four Norfolk Southern trains) for the entire day. Cincy Railfan Productions and I believe the lack of trains on this day is due to the PTC issues Norfolk Southern had experienced the day before on Monday, August 28th. For context, the day before we came to Kenova Norfolk Southern experienced a system-wide failure of PTC and shut down all traffic.
Though Norfolk Southern re-established PTC on this day of railfanning, it only did so on the core routes and ran only a few trains elsewhere. The former Norfolk and Western Mainline (aka the Pocahantas District) is not exactly a "core route" unlike its Chicago to New Jersey mainline or the Rat Hole Line. As a result, we only saw three local trains and a mainline coal train. The one good thing about the Norfolk Southern action was the mainline coal train with double-DPU in the middle of the long coal drag. The local coal train coming from the Port of Kenova also had DPU power on the back which was a nice sight. A sad fact about this day of railfanning from the Norfolk Southern perspective was the lack of intermodal and even manifest traffic. As for CSX, traffic was just slightly below average with two coal trains (one in each direction) and manifest trains L210 and M317. M317 featured one of my favorite engines on the CSX system; CW40-8 7764, still boasting its YN2 paint scheme on the westbound manifest to Cincinnati.
There was one incredibly unique aspect on this day of railfanning, and that was meeting the KZread legend JawTooth; yes, that JawTooth. He just so happened to come to this location like we did for some railfanning. This was my second time meeting JawTooth while railfanning; the first time was at the National Train Day Festival in Toledo, Ohio. JawTooth came with two of his friends from the Cincinnati area, and for those of you who are curious, he does appear in a couple of my shots throughout the video. JawTooth in person is basically who he portrays himself as on KZread.
Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoy the video!
-N&W475.