CNJ main past High Bridge in 1972

IIRC around 1997 CR's SE-AL ( Selkirk-Allentown ) dumped 30 or more cars at South Plainfield blocking the Lehigh Line for 72 hours. CR as per it's detour agreement with NJ Transit ran over the RVL from Bound Brook to Aldene. A CR Trainmaster, and brakeman tasked to line the hand throw switches in Bound Brook yard, were assigned 24/7 at Bound Brook station along with a NJT trainmaster to facilitate the detours. The pattern was for a CR freight to follow eastbound locals to Aldene and vice versa. I think upwards of 40 freight trains ran over the RVL during the detour window. Every evening after 9 pm, at Aldene, CR fleeted 4 westbounds behind a High Bridge local. I was working an evening job out of Raritan at the time and the usually sedate evening period was interrupted every 10 minutes or so as another freight would pass us heading west. The whole deal went quite well as CR was a night time/early morning railroad on this end and had free reign of the RVL after midnight until 5 am when rush hour started cranking up. As the RVL is not clearanced for double stack movements Piggy back and double stack trains detoured both ways over the Port Reading secondary to Port Reading then headed east or west over the Chemical coast branch to/from Oak Island, Croxton or the Meadows/ South Karny.

Regarding piggyback operations at Somerville the First Rock would go down to Bound Brook first thing in the morning and pick up the set off in BB yard and bring the pigs back to Somerville and set up the circus style ramps. The Somerville wye was in service so if a piggyback car was facing the wrong way it was turned on the wye. The wye was the remnant of the CNJ's out of service Flemington branch. The second trick Rock would pick up the outbound pigs and take them to Bound Book and wait for the Chicago bound CR version of the LV's Apollo and either facilitate the pick up by placing the cars against the train or just let the road crew make the pick up. The service was quite reliable and the Somerville pig yard was booming back then. The old CNJ conductor on the second trick Rock still referred to the move as "taking the Apollo's down to Bound Brook."

rr503 wrote:

kilroy wrote:You might see detours like that again. I remember a few years back NS ran 212 or maybe 214 over the CNJ as a test. I couldn't stick around to see it so no pictures.

I'm assuming that this was Bound Brook-Aldene, correct?

That's correct.

Question - they bring/brought freight down the Aldene ramp? I'd never seen it before, just trying to picture how that looked. Anyone see that?
Any chance it'll happen again?

I guess it could happen again as long as NS and/or CSX have trackage rights or in an emergency. I would think that westbound going down the ramp and taking the Reading Secondary to the Garden State Secondary east would be the preferred routing as long as the problem on the Lehigh Line was between Aldene and Bound Brook.

As I said, I couldn't stick around to see the one train I know of.

Anybody know how Conrail routed traffic when the dropped the TV train on the ground in Cranford?

Big Dell there is a 1974 ( I think that was the year taken) photo of Lehigh Valley COJ-32 ( C & O Niagara Falls- Jersey 32 hour train ) going up the Aldene ramp in afternoon light. IIRC some poster on RR.net here around 2005 or so included the picture and the reason: derailment of Lehigh Valley OP-5 at Potter resulting in a blocked main. The CNJ let the LV train detour over its rails from Bound Brook to Aldene. The picture was taken from the engineers side at the bottom of the ramp and showed the first two locos of four, a yellow jacket and a fresh repainted Alco C-420 in red storming up the ramp. The photo was somewhat grainy though but it proves a big Valley freight did go over the CNJ at least once.

Thank you Zeke, I'll look for it! I'm sure there's no reason a freight couldn't use the ramp, it just seems "steep" and tight... Would love to find the photo - will search.