C87 // U.S. Sugar - a photo on Flickriver

C87 // U.S. Sugar

            NS C87 shoves a single hopper back to the ready-for-use line at U.S. Sugar on a frosty December night in 2021. Around this time, I had my first two chances to document one of the more mysterious rail industries around WNY. One of my railfan friends had acquired a contact at NS, who was able to point us in the right direction for a general window of time, during which one of the yard jobs might head over. Sure enough his intel was accurate, as both of us were able to shoot it twice within a few days. Prior to that, little to no documentation of U.S. Sugar had been done in the community. Located in an area known as "The Market," a spur track branches off of one of Bison Yard's lead tracks on the north side of SK Yard, leading down into a former satellite yard where several more customer and team tracks used to branch off. This is the only remaining customer out of at least 10 tenants who used to occupy the area in the 1980s. (Sourced from a 1987 Conrail ZTS map of the region.)
For a while leading up to these shoots, it was essentially a guessing game based on visual observation alone. The plant employs a front loader with a railcar coupler on the rear, moving cars in and out of the garage door seen behind the conductor riding the shove. They tend to only move one car at a time, and in fact I've caught them out and about a few times myself since my first shots here. NS shoves inbound cars down the spur which runs along Bailey Ave for the plant to use on their own time as they see fit. Empty cars are pushed out, seemingly at the mercy of gravity as the cars will end up on the S curve just out of view to the right. When NS works over here, they must first pull the empties out of the way before spotting more loads. Without this knowledge of how or when U.S. Sugar was serviced, to an outsider the stored line of hoppers changed lengths and position at random every day. The fear was this was all done overnight when no one was around to see it, but as it turns out a switch can take place any time of day depending on who the yardmaster decides to send over.
A second track on the opposite side of the building, lovingly referred to by crews as the "mud track" for its dilapidated condition, used to take box cars shipped up north from Mexico. Operations on that track have ceased as of June of this year, which I was thankfully able to document prior to that point. Presently the box cars are delivered in the same line with the hoppers along Bailey Ave Occasionally a tank car of molasses will be delivered as well for whatever the production process entails. Going into the warmer months the following year, I shot quite a few instances of daylight runs here, of which one followed a drenching downpour across the area one morning, making for one of my favorite shots in 2022. Nevertheless, there's something still magical about returning to the original night shots which got me to that point. Afterall, these were some of my first instances in dabbling with night photography. Everyone starts somewhere.
   

Taken on: December 21, 2021

Tags:

Buffalo

Norfolk Southern

Trains

Train Photography

Railroad

Railroad Photography

Industry

Industry Photography

U.S. Sugar

City Lights

City Streets

Street Corner

Street Lights

Night Life « less

Sets appears in: • Industry Shenanigans • Norfolk Southern Buffalo Shenanigans more » • Hometown Shenanigans « less

Groups appears in: • Customer Service Rail Photos

Camera: Panasonic DMC-G7, f/1.7, 1/100 sec, 43mm, ISO 3200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Panasonic DMC-G7
Lens:	LUMIX G 42.5/F1.7
Aperture:	f/1.7
Exposure Time:	0.01 sec (1/100)
Focal Length:	43mm
ISO:	3200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Lightroom 9.0.1 (Android)
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