DLWR 1044 // Chapin International - a photo on Flickriver

            It's the day after Christmas (Boxing Day in Canada!) and Alco S-6 DLWR 1044 is off to the races this morning. Their first task is pulling a single covered hopper out from a garage door at Chapin International in Batavia, NY. Of all the customers the Depew, Lancaster & Western caters to, this one is the most infrequently served, taking a car about once a month. Strangely in the month of November, they took two cars within two weeks, the car pictured here being the second of those two. However, a month's wait ensued for the trip to pick this car up, having been released exactly one week prior.  I'm certainly no stranger to playing the waiting game when it comes to industry shots.
While the Batavia division of the DLWR runs mostly on the north side of the CSX Rochester Sub, this customer is located on the south side, requiring the DLWR crew to cross over CSX from the signaled siding at QC 402, onto track one, then over to track two, and finally onto the former NYC Peanut Line. From there the spur extends 0.8 miles southeast before joining with the former Lehigh Valley mainline, on which the customer spur switch is located approximately 1.4 miles west. The Peanut Line in this instance is a switchback to access the LV. The switch for Chapin faces west, so from Batavia Yard, delivering a car requires a shove move across CSX all the way to the LV switch, where then they would pull the 1.4 miles to get to Chapin.
Ironically, although I tagged the location in this post as Ferrellgas as it is the closest pin Flickr offered me, it appears they also took rail service at one time, with track remnants still visible on Google Maps' satellite view. Unfortunately I can't speak to when they stopped, but the DLWR has been in the area for over 20 years, so it's possible they were still an active customer post-Conrail years. I know for certain they were active during Conrail, as they show up on my 1987 ZTS map, back then named "Northern Propane." Their switch faced east, which could have meant using push pull in the case that both customers required a switch. Alas, we may never know. Although Chapin only uses the one track now, that same ZTS map shows all three tracks back then as they are today, still under the Chapin name nearly 40 years later. The track 1044 is pulling out of is labeled on the map as the inbound track, but I guess these days it doubles as the outbound too. It's nice to see customers still in business with the railroad, even through changing hands in who serves them. Longevity like that is hard to come by in any capacity anymore.
   

Taken on: December 26, 2023

Tags:

Depew Lancaster & Western

DL&W

Alco

Industry

Industry Photography

Low Angle

Winter Photography

Chapin

Batavia

Buffalo

Trains

Train Photography

Railroad

Railroad Photography « less

Sets appears in: • Industry Shenanigans • Depew, Lancaster & Western Shenanigans

Groups appears in: • Customer Service Rail Photos

Camera: Panasonic DMC-G7, f/4.0, 1/1000 sec, 45mm, ISO 800 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Panasonic DMC-G7
Aperture:	f/4.0
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/1000)
Focal Length:	45mm
ISO:	800
Exposure Bias:	+0.33 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Landscape
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Lightroom 9.1.1 (Android)
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