NS 60U with Penn Central: Newport & Morehead City, NC - 12/28/2022

December 28, 2022.
Norfolk Southern 60U (Potash loads for the state port in Morehead City) eastbound at Newport and Morehead City on the EC-line (former Atlantic & East Carolina) just after sunrise with the Penn Central heritage unit trailing.

In this video, eastbound 60U is seen in downtown Newport at dawn, and arriving in Morehead City after sunrise. They had to cross the Newport River onto Radio Island to shove back into the state port yard. The Carolina Coastal Railway normally uses the Beaufort & Morehead era draw bridge for port overflow storage on Radio Island, but inbound NS unit trains will use it for head room. This was the first time an NS heritage unit ran on former Beaufort & Morehead trackage between Morehead City and Beaufort, and one of very few times a heritage unit came east of New Bern.

Unit Potash/phosphate trains are fairly new east of New Bern, which started at the beginning of 2022. Potash from Saskatchewan, Canada is loaded onto ships at the state port in Morehead City. The Potash is being shipped to Brazil and Europe, along with a few other places. Occasionally they will run with Canadian National run-through power.

After 60U arrived in Morehead City that morning, NS P29 (the New Bern to Morehead City turn) came east a couple hours later - running light power to Hanson Aggregates west of downtown Morehead City. P29 picked up empty rock hoppers and went back west to New Bern before noon.