These photos of a CSX ballast train were taken Friday, May 14, 2010 at Union Station in Little Rock, AR at dusk, part of a 13-train rush in 3 hours.


CSX 5344 and 4 other CSX units hauling a long string of hoppers at 7:43 p.m. May 15. It was cloudy and dark, thus the blur.


CSX 4822 and 8067 were the 4th and 5th units on this train, which probably was a detour train for CSX over the UP because of the flooding still occurring in Tennessee.


I had asked what type of cars these were. Here are some answers I received from Internet sources, such as Trainorders, Railspot, emailed members of the Arkansas Railroad Club, and other places: Zach Pumphery:- The solar panels power the dump doors.  They're ballast hoppers.  UP and BNSF cars have them, too. ********** Ron from Trainorders: They are ballast cars. They are quite old and have been modified to enable the doors to be opened and closed electrically, instead of with the big old back breaking pry bar. That's what the solar panel is for. Also, I would imagine that they wouldn't need as large of crew to unload these. Some ballast cars, Herzog comes to mind, can be unloaded remotely from the locomotive by a crew member with a laptop computer, and at a pretty good speed too. I've never seen the operation first hand but, I've heard others talk about being on a ballast train that was unloaded like that. They said it was real quick and they got right across the road without delaying other traffic.  **********  bnsftrucker from Trainorders: On the cars we have, we have a big battery box on one end to power up the electric powered hydraulic pumps, the solar panels on our cars just keeps the batteries charged up.

Bob King from mailing list and Railspot:  You are probably correct about this being a rerouted CSX train.  This was forwarded to me:CSX Nashville-Memphis tracks could be out for six weeks
Memphis Business Journal - by Mark Szakonyi of the Jacksonville Business Journal Nashville, TN- It will be up to another six weeks before CSX reopens its flooded rail lines connecting Nashville to Memphis. CSXspokesman Gary Sease said the company will restore service to the line in phases, thus allowing some local customers to gain service earlier. Much of the line, which eventually connects to Chicago, runs along or near the Harpeth River, which washed out much of the line when it rose above its banks Saturday. The flooded rail line from Nashville to Springfield, Tenn., will be operational by the end of the weekend at the latest. Sease said the 10 trains that run daily on the Memphis-Nashville line are being rerouted to other rail carriers. The cost of bringing the rail lines back online is unknown, he said. CSX’s line to Memphis is important because it is a major gateway to lines operated by West Coast rail companies Union Pacific Corp. and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.

KS: CSX lost 24 or so miles of it's Memphis line west of Nashville. UP may have been the only source of ballast to repair the track given that the line was cut off from the rest of the CSX system.
********** Charles Hitchens from mailing list: I think it was Trains Magazine back about 6 months ago that somebody wrote in asking what type of cars they were. They are ballast cars and the panels are solar panel with heating elements inside the car. They are used to keep the ballast from freezing together.  



CSXT 966314 is one number on a car. Note the two panels on the top of each car and one on one end of each car.




This train went on and on.




White crushed rock was the loads.






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