I have posted some videos on YouTube, and someone inquired what Q train that it was. Now I know CSX uses "Q" designations, but I haven't a clue as to how it works. Can anybody brief me on the nonclemature?
Q100 Series trains are Intermodal trains Q200 Series trains are Automotive trains Q300 Series trains are E-W Merchandise on the Northern portion of the network Q400 Series trains are N-S Merchandise on the Eastern portion of the Network Q500 & Q600 Series trains are Merchandise trains operating in cross corrider services all over the system Q700 Series encompas such services as the Juice Train, Trash Trains and Rock Runners. There are no Q800 or Q900 series trains as of yet.
An upcoming issue of Railroads Illustrated magazine will have an extremely comprehensive look at CSX train symbols.
Q 700 series trains, such as the Juice Trains, mark a departure from previous practices... (The NB Juice train used to be K650 thru these parts and is now Q 740) Interesting change.... Harold
Over the past 2 months, Q171 & Q173 have been combined and are running as L173 through Baltimore with no Q171. Have also noticed the rock runner using a different train ID on the weekend.
I was the guy who asked you what train you posted on Utube. I get all my info, as someone else noted, from The BullSheet.Com. There is great train id info as well as a complete and up to date roster. If you have a scanner you should be able to hear the crew call out the train id as the enter each signal block.
CSX L173 is a Sunday run of Q173 but it starts in South Kearney, NJ. Q171 does not run on Sundays. I have seen both Q171 and Q173 several times during the week lately but times are variable.
It appearently is not running on saturday either. Again this past weekend, L173 rolled though St Denis and there was no Q171. With 2 sets of work limits, we have been able to clearly get ID's on the scanner. Another strange ID was K502-12 which was a gondola (empties) unit train. We checked The BullSheet.Com as it was stopped and they did not list a K502. Oh well, it is CSX. I am going to see what happens this weekend.
