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U035 // Comstock Rd, Lockport, NY
Niagara Yard's Saturday extra U035 blasts through a mighty snowdrift at Comstock Rd near Lockport, heading back to the Falls with a handful of hot cars from the prior day's Falls Road Railroad run.
While regular old L035 runs weekday evenings, U035 gets called as an extra just about every weekend now. It started back in 2023 when a new CO² transload popped up in Medina, NY on the Falls Road. The tank cars, once loaded, demand fast freight service and an immediate ticket out of town, necessitating CSX running an extra trip out to Lockport every week. Up till this business arose, normal fare was the twice a week Tu/Th interchange. However, Falls Road runs their road trains Wed/Fri, the mornings after CSX delivers, thus if not expedited those tank cars were sitting the whole weekend and another weekday till the local crew gets back out there. The result was an unhappy Falls Road, and unhappy recipient. Supposedly the cars go down to a Pepsi bottling/canning plant in New Jersey, whereby the tank cars carry the carbonation factor for my father's favorite brand of pop. Initially they were making L035 take the extra trip on Fridays, either before or after their normally scheduled customer work in the Tonawandas depending on the workload. But some weeks the crews would simply spend all their time switching the customers till it was too late to run to Lockport, resulting in angry trainmasters and shortlines alike. At the same time in 2023, L035 was also on duty at 1800, an hour I considered to be late at the time till I shot L355 this summer. Talk about putting things in perspective. I wasn't the only one who thought that was late though, as crews regularly marked off of the job, leaving spots vacant and laying the job in quite a lot of nights that year. The most common day L035 didn't run? Fridays. And so the Saturday extra started gaining traction as a regular move, not just for Lockport but to switch the customers neglected from the weekday absences also. On a handful of occasions, the Buffalo to Niagara transfer L032 even made the jaunt light power out to Lockport on Friday or Saturday evenings if they couldn't find a crew for L/U035. That stopped when the trainmasters refused to pay out the penalty days for L032 since Lockport isn't part of the job's territory.
By summer of 2024, the Tropicana traffic had started populating the area, which gave even more reason to keep the U035s they were already running to make up for other missed work. In the middle of the summer, the trainmasters finally conceded and let L035 go back to its original 1600 start time, no longer needing U035s to switch customers with crews actually wanting to work L035 again. Now that the Tropicana traffic was on the rise though, there were two points of hot traffic to pull out of Lockport: loaded CO² tank cars, and empty Tropicana reefers. I originally thought it was the inbound loads which dictated the extra schedule, but in reality it's actually more important that the empties get moving back to Florida quickly so they can be re-loaded. And so U035 has been kept on the docket as the easiest means of getting those hot cars where they need to go.
WNY saw a lot of snow this past winter. More consistent than any of the previous years. 2022 was the last big year for snowfall, both early in the year and during the Thanksgiving and Christmas storms later on. Given the recent yearly trends this upcoming winter might not deliver what we're used to. But then again it's Buffalo, so you never really know. While all the crossings had been cleared by the eastbound trip out to Lockport a few hours before, I just happened to choose Comstock Rd as my first shot chasing back west. The bitterly cold wind gusts which were in abundance that day had pushed a lot more snow back into the tracks. I had to high-step my way through it all into the field adjacent to the line, and quickly as my dudes Nick the Dick and Caged Lion were closing in on my location. (Niagara is a yard for colorful nicknames.) I planted my feet in the knee deep snowbank and braced for any errant flakes which might scatter in my direction. After struggling to find snowburst shot opportunities like this the last few years, 2025 delivered quite a few for me to rake in with ease, notwithstanding the otherwise bone-chilling temps. Ironically, the 2008 in this photo is still leading the northtowns locals all these months later. Those dash three varieties are good for 180 days at a time. Normally the crews can't stand them, but this one runs well and most importantly is without an inward facing camera. When you know you crews and the crews know you, there's shenanigans to be had.
U035 // Comstock Rd, Lockport, NY
Niagara Yard's Saturday extra U035 blasts through a mighty snowdrift at Comstock Rd near Lockport, heading back to the Falls with a handful of hot cars from the prior day's Falls Road Railroad run.
While regular old L035 runs weekday evenings, U035 gets called as an extra just about every weekend now. It started back in 2023 when a new CO² transload popped up in Medina, NY on the Falls Road. The tank cars, once loaded, demand fast freight service and an immediate ticket out of town, necessitating CSX running an extra trip out to Lockport every week. Up till this business arose, normal fare was the twice a week Tu/Th interchange. However, Falls Road runs their road trains Wed/Fri, the mornings after CSX delivers, thus if not expedited those tank cars were sitting the whole weekend and another weekday till the local crew gets back out there. The result was an unhappy Falls Road, and unhappy recipient. Supposedly the cars go down to a Pepsi bottling/canning plant in New Jersey, whereby the tank cars carry the carbonation factor for my father's favorite brand of pop. Initially they were making L035 take the extra trip on Fridays, either before or after their normally scheduled customer work in the Tonawandas depending on the workload. But some weeks the crews would simply spend all their time switching the customers till it was too late to run to Lockport, resulting in angry trainmasters and shortlines alike. At the same time in 2023, L035 was also on duty at 1800, an hour I considered to be late at the time till I shot L355 this summer. Talk about putting things in perspective. I wasn't the only one who thought that was late though, as crews regularly marked off of the job, leaving spots vacant and laying the job in quite a lot of nights that year. The most common day L035 didn't run? Fridays. And so the Saturday extra started gaining traction as a regular move, not just for Lockport but to switch the customers neglected from the weekday absences also. On a handful of occasions, the Buffalo to Niagara transfer L032 even made the jaunt light power out to Lockport on Friday or Saturday evenings if they couldn't find a crew for L/U035. That stopped when the trainmasters refused to pay out the penalty days for L032 since Lockport isn't part of the job's territory.
By summer of 2024, the Tropicana traffic had started populating the area, which gave even more reason to keep the U035s they were already running to make up for other missed work. In the middle of the summer, the trainmasters finally conceded and let L035 go back to its original 1600 start time, no longer needing U035s to switch customers with crews actually wanting to work L035 again. Now that the Tropicana traffic was on the rise though, there were two points of hot traffic to pull out of Lockport: loaded CO² tank cars, and empty Tropicana reefers. I originally thought it was the inbound loads which dictated the extra schedule, but in reality it's actually more important that the empties get moving back to Florida quickly so they can be re-loaded. And so U035 has been kept on the docket as the easiest means of getting those hot cars where they need to go.
WNY saw a lot of snow this past winter. More consistent than any of the previous years. 2022 was the last big year for snowfall, both early in the year and during the Thanksgiving and Christmas storms later on. Given the recent yearly trends this upcoming winter might not deliver what we're used to. But then again it's Buffalo, so you never really know. While all the crossings had been cleared by the eastbound trip out to Lockport a few hours before, I just happened to choose Comstock Rd as my first shot chasing back west. The bitterly cold wind gusts which were in abundance that day had pushed a lot more snow back into the tracks. I had to high-step my way through it all into the field adjacent to the line, and quickly as my dudes Nick the Dick and Caged Lion were closing in on my location. (Niagara is a yard for colorful nicknames.) I planted my feet in the knee deep snowbank and braced for any errant flakes which might scatter in my direction. After struggling to find snowburst shot opportunities like this the last few years, 2025 delivered quite a few for me to rake in with ease, notwithstanding the otherwise bone-chilling temps. Ironically, the 2008 in this photo is still leading the northtowns locals all these months later. Those dash three varieties are good for 180 days at a time. Normally the crews can't stand them, but this one runs well and most importantly is without an inward facing camera. When you know you crews and the crews know you, there's shenanigans to be had.