July 12, 2023 Cincinnati Eastern and New Castle Southern have become trusted partners in the Heavy Haul and Rigging communities. In May, Cincinnati Eastern handled their 6th large transformer which transloaded at Sardinia OH. Now in July, the New Castle Southern is handling it’s first ever tranformer, transloading to truck in New Castle.
March 30 2023 New Castle Southern has teamed up with TTX to help stage equipment headed into shops for preventive maintenance and program repairs. This service along with increased car load business at our online customers has cause interchange with Norfolk Southern in New Castle to increase significantly. In 2023, we have already interchanged more cars with NS than moved over the interchange in 2020 or 2021 and have already moved half as many as we did in all of 2022. Today, we took delivery of an entire trainload of auto carriers from NS – Train ran as 12E on NS and originated on the Union Pacific in Kansas City – the UP power was used to spot the cars to storage.
September 16 2022. Cincinnati Eastern would like to welcome our newest customer, Ohio Mulch. They have officially broken ground on their recently purchased 44.8 acres at 850 Roundbottom Road in Milford OH, directly next door to our transload operations and Hanson Aggregates yard at 880 Roundbottom. This will be their flagship manufacturing facility and will replace the rail served facility at 4710 Dues Rd in Springdale OH. Ohio Mulch supplies bagged mulch and other landscape products to wholesalers, landscape contractors, and retail outlets including Speedway, Kroger, Home Depot, and others. Initial traffic will be box cars of bagged cypress mulch from their Georgia manufacturing facility with an eye to expand to additional related landscaping products. More about Ohio Mulch can be found at ohiomulch.com
July 28 2022. Click on below link for an article on raw railroad tie sourcing at McCoy Lumber in Peebles OH
July 18, 2022 New Castle Southern spotted the first 2 gondolas for scrap metal loading out of Neal’s Scrap at the south end of the newly reopened 1.07 mile long “Rushville Branch” on the south side of New Castle. This marks the first time in several years that Neal’s has shipped scrap by rail. First picture is picking up the empties on the interchange track on east side of town, second picture is shoving into Neal’s spur.
June 10, 2022 Hanson held an Open House on Friday June 10th to celebrated the official grand opening of their new Milford Terminal, located at the Cincinnati Eastern owned and operated transload terminal at 880 Roundbottom Road. The first stone for inventory began rolling back in October of 2021 and continued to move weather permitting over the winter as the CCET finished construction of the facility and Hanson began transitioning from their old Batavia facility. A “soft opening” occurred in March as the stockpiles at Batavia where being depleted leading up to the official Grand Opening.
The following pictures depict the facility and #67 Limestone being unloaded during the Open House. The higher volume grades, such as #304 Limestone and 1″ Crusher Run are handled on the extended belt system and are stockpiled via a 110′ radial arm stacker. Lower volume grades such as the #67s, as well as non Hanson products such as lightweight aggregates and marble chips come off the short stacker and are moved around the facility via front end loaders and dump trucks. The facility also has a RBT portable railcar unloader that can unload single cars independent of the unloading pit and conveyor system.
May 26, 2022 Construction has commenced on the New Castle Southern’s track rehabilitation project in New Castle. Phase 1 is to restore the out of service 1.07 mile long “Rushville Branch” to service, allowing New Castle Southern to directly serve Neal Scrap. This will allow the the sand transloading for Grede Foundry to return to Neals Property, and allow Neal to begin shipping out scrap metal by rail. Crews are shown here in the early phases of returning this line to service.
April 28, 2022 Cincinnati Eastern welcomes Jack McCoy Lumber in Peebles OH as our newest customer. McCoy returns to rail for this first time in nearly a decade. Initially they are shipping raw hardwood crossties with plans to expand into additional lumber and wood products moving by rail. Welcome Aboard!
April 12 , 2022 New Castle Southern Railroad has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Indiana Department of Transportation’s Industrial Rail Service Fund (IRSF). The INDOT IRSF was established by the Indiana State Legislature (I.C 8-3 -1.7) to assist in funding for the rehabilitation and construction of Class II and Class III Freight Railroad and Port Authority infrastructure. These funds with help facilitate a 3-tiered project to rehabilitate and restore rail service to customers in New Castle IN. The first tier of the project is a rehabilitation of the currently out of service 1.07 mile long “Rushville” branch from downtown New Castle to Neal’s Scrap on the southside of town. Second tier will be rehabilitation of 1.8 miles of mainline and sidings from downtown New Castle toward the eastern city limits. Third tier of project is the construction of a new 1100′ siding in New Castle. This work will allow NCS’s current customer to expand their volume and allow for additional customers to come on line.
March 18, 2022. Last year at this time, Cincinnati Eastern Railroad teamed up with Edwards Moving and Rigging of Shelbyville KY to move a large 138 KV electrical transformer into Sardinia OH for a new electrical substation north of Mt Orab OH. One year later, we teamed up again to move two more similar transformers. Each tipping the scales at 380,153 lbs, they measured 17′ 7″ tall, 11′ 1″ wide and 27 feet long. |
January 4, 2022
Meet the newest member of the CCET roster – SD40-2 #3512. The 3512 began it’s career as BN 7010, before becoming BNSF 7010, spending a brief time as HLCX 7010 before becoming NS 3512. The 3512 will become the primary power for the new stone trains.
November 29, 2021
Monday November 29th marked the first revenue unit stone train operated by Cincinnati Eastern (CCET) for Lehigh Hanson Aggregates. These trains originate at Hanson’s quarry at Plum Run OH and operate to the CCET Transload Facility on Round Bottom Road in Milford OH. Hanson is relocating their Clermont County Distribution Yard from Taylor Road in Batavia to this new rail served facility, eliminating thousands of trucks annually from the Ohio SR 32 corridor.
October 5, 2021
Monday October 4th marked the fist revenue train operation for the New Castle Southern Railroad (NCS), shown here at 15th Street in New Castle IN with 10 loads of sand for Grede Foundry. NCS operates 21 miles of track in Henry and Wayne County Indiana, serving New Castle IN, Cambridge City IN, and Beesons IN. Line services Homestead’s newest transload center in New Castle IN, offering customizable full commodity transloading and warehousing services.
July 28, 2021
Meet the newest member of the CCET Roster – GP15-1 # 1686, shown here in her new livery at Sardinia OH. The 1686 and sister unit 1657 began their careers at the Missouri Pacific Railroad as MP 1657 and MP 1686. We look forward to these units providing many years of service to the CCET