New Jersey Seashore Lines: was CNJ being cleard Woodmansie>N

NJWG wrote:The New Dredge is now there at the woodmansie pit. I havent seen it yet but I am told its about twice the size of the old one.
I hope this means more sand for sand trains.

No it means more sand castles to play with!

Jtgshu wrote:

southern sec. kid wrote:That gp-7 will be able to handle 40 car sand trains?

Well, it moved those exact same trains on those same tracks 30 plus years ago, so I think it will be fine, and anyway, whos to say that the trains are going to be 40 cars long? They might be a handful of cars a few times a week, something that a Geep 7 could very easily handle by itself.

Or if necessary, there may eventually be a double headed set of CNJ GP7s in sand service. . .

Would NJT will be willing to part with a couple of it's ex-CNJ units? Any operable but ready for retirement?

As much as NJT might wanna get rid of old stuff I dont see the CNJ geeps going too soon. It seems like every time they wanna get rid of them they end up staying. I havent been on the hoboken side so I havent dealt with them much other than in the yard. How are they on everyday relyability? I know at track speed they ride a heck of a lot better than the other engines do.

when do they plan on gettin the route cleared by? It might have been said already so sorry

ApproachMedium wrote:As much as NJT might wanna get rid of old stuff I dont see the CNJ geeps going too soon. It seems like every time they wanna get rid of them they end up staying. I havent been on the hoboken side so I havent dealt with them much other than in the yard. How are they on everyday relyability? I know at track speed they ride a heck of a lot better than the other engines do.

Amazing how real quality never dies isn't it............

southern sec. kid wrote:when do they plan on gettin the route cleared by? It might have been said already so sorry

No. In fact the STB still has not ruled on the NJSL's pettition, so for now NJSL is not a Class III railroad.

I just got a crude cell phone picture from a friend down at a crossing in Whiting of that road/rail piece of equipment that was originally pictured in Lakehurst.

Also - I was wondering where the info came from that the former GP-7 1523 would be used on this line? I only ask because there have been some wild speculations on this thread about what is going on with the line.

I do agree also about age not being an issue with equipment either as one of the regulars on the southern secondary is former PRR/PC/CR GP-38-2 http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1767993

CNJ1554 wrote:A single GP7 might shuffle a few cars at a time under optimum conditions. However, when the CNJ handled the Woodmansie turn, they used 2 SD40's and an RS3 (odd lash-up, but it was common). One thing that must not be forgottewn was that the sand was hardly ever dry and more than once the wet sand caused hoppers to buckle. One reason for the sand in the gauge is because the CNJ crews dumped the hoppers and drug a tie in front of a truck of the buckled hopper to spread the sand out. I have several photos of that operation. Another oddity was the use of a hack on every sand train and many times it was a Chessie hack.

post the pictures!!

Another oddity was the use of a hack on every sand train and many times it was a Chessie hack.

What's a hack?

scottso699 wrote:

Another oddity was the use of a hack on every sand train and many times it was a Chessie hack.

What's a hack?

Hack is RR slang for caboose.

Here's my update on the clearing. The brush hog has made it to Manchester and Pleasant Vally Rd.Looking back towards Lakehurst is all cleared on one side and about 500 ft needs to be cleared on the other.They were working on the brush hog when I was there. This makes them about .8 of a mile from Rt 530 in Whiting. I went down to Heritage Minerals and they cleared from the crossing towards Whiting. Looking back towards Lakehurst the rails are covered with sand, in some area's as high as 5ft. I believe that this is where the backhoe is working from Lakehurst. steve
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanker1497/4053070437/
http://s443.photobucket.com/albums/qq15 ... G_0002.jpg
http://s443.photobucket.com/albums/qq15 ... G_0008.jpg
http://s443.photobucket.com/albums/qq15 ... G_0016.jpg
http://s443.photobucket.com/albums/qq15 ... G_0001.jpg

As a added note here, the clearing is not as great as was in Lakehurst. That is they are clearing the ROW only as far as they did back in 2006 and not 25ft from track center as they did in Lakehurst. I think that's because along Manchester Blvd. larger trees are too numerous along that section.Like being in the deep woods. They are trimming back branches, but not cutting the trees down outside of 12 or 15 feet. This all fits in with the previous post of leasing URHS engine?s. Driving through the Pine Barrens and scraping up those paint jobs wouldn't float well with URHS for any amount of money. I also noted that the old guy in Whiting continue to cleared most of the talk weeds (via hand tools) over the last two weeks for about 150 ft both direction from in front of his house. I would like to be there tomorrow when the brush hog plows through and cuts them down to ground level. When I talked with him a 3 weeks back I told him the train was coming back he laught at me. I'll get out Sunday to take pictures of the Whiting area. steve

That stretch of track thru the sand field in front of Heritage Minerals is going to be a situation that needs to be addressed. In that they cleared the track in 2006 and it is covered again like that, they may have significant flooding in that section. This may be do to changes in the landscape that Heritage made during production work after the train stopped running which may have diverted previous drainage. In that Clayton would be permitted to only excavate within the bounds of the ROW, I hope the issue can be resolved with basic drainage ditches. If not, a different solution will have to be worked out with Hovanian who currently owns the property. And because of all the restrictions on the property, it could be "challenging" to resolve.

In looking at picture with the sand covering the tracks, is it possible this is also caused in some part by the sand blowing into the lower RofW? In looking at the picture, the sand almost looks like snow drifts. Also it doesn't help that there is vehicular traffic at the very front of the picture. 4-wheelers can tear up a roadbed and with the "road" created by their coming off the bank and then back up in another area, it loosens the sand and causes it to be prone to washing out and in this case flow over the tracks. It looks like they need to stabilize the bank and keep the vehicles off of it.

that last pic with the sand definitely looks like drifts, but im sure offroaders have assisted in it getting like that too.