Northhampton & Bath

cjvrr wrote:Also note the cement mills used lots of bituminous coal in their facilities. So there were a lot of inbound loads and outbound empties.

Keystone Cement uses waste oil and waste solvents as a RECRA disposal facility to power it's kilns. The French owners of Lonestar Cement on Rt 248 coming into Nazareth installed a modern rotary kiln burning gas, I believe, instead of coal.

The remaining cement mills were forced to incorporate stack emissions controls starting in the late 60's/early 70's. Alot of the smaller/marginal mills closed as the material availale in their quarry may not have supported the investment to modernize.

I remember growing up in Easton, pre-malls, when people shopped in the towns. Easton, Allentown, and Bethlehem were each open two nights a week [everything was closed on Sundays] and you could spot the autos from Egypt, Coplay, Bath, or Nazareth by their cement grey tint.

Working summers in Stockertown [1972/1973] on middle shift you could see when leaving work the particulate falling in the light of the street lamps on rainy nights. The mill opened the stack dust collectors up to get max efficiency from the kilns knowing the rain would knock the dust down. Even w/ the new controls the area immediately surrounding the mill had a dusty look...think grey grass.

They had one quarry dump truck running out from the mill across Rt 191 to a dump site dumping the 'fines' from the stack dust collector. That truck ran several trips every day, 'cept the day after it rained. I used to spot the dump pile when driving on Rt 33. Now these fines are used in chemical admixtures used to promote adhesion when pouring new concrete over old so what was once useless waste is now sold and used...

Plants that couldn't support the cost of moderization closed. Air pollution controls cost money. You can drive around the cement mills today and the grey grass is gone!

Wisbang,

Thanks for the info. I knew the remaining plant weren't using coal. Assumed it was gas or other fuel.

I vaguely remember in the early 1980's going to that area with my father once of twice. He worked for a company that installed conveyor systems and kilns for the cement industry. It always felt like taking a step back in time when you visited some of those plants....

Chris

cjvrr wrote:Wisbang,

Thanks for the info. I knew the remaining plant weren't using coal. Assumed it was gas or other fuel.

I vaguely remember in the early 1980's going to that area with my father once of twice. He worked for a company that installed conveyor systems and kilns for the cement industry. It always felt like taking a step back in time when you visited some of those plants....

Chris

Yeah, some of them were truly pre-historic! That's why so many were closed. I recall one Pen Dixie plant where the new plant had been built alongside the old one, out by Gracedale. I think both of them are closed now...

Keystone was burning waste solvents by the early 70's, I remember making parts runs from Nazareth in 73 - 74 going down Rt 512 and seeing the DCNR car parked south of Keystone just watching for black smoke so they could fine them...he was parked on the side of the road every sunny day...

You can still follow the old row of the N&B quite clearly. In fact it looks as though it's a walking or bike path now. It's completely still intact. A housing development was just built in Northampton near the cement factory. The row (still intact) goes right across the houses' driveways and thru their front yards. It looks paved. It paralles the residential street "Hollow Ave".

I don't see what the N&B served except for the 2 cemement factories (one in Northampton still served by NS and the other in Bath). It appears that all the N&B did was run a few miles from the CNJ connection in Northampton to the LNE in Bath and only had the 2 major online customers.

56-57 wrote:Then why did Conrail operate the former Ironton lines until 1986?

Because the Saylor Mill in Coplay and the Giant Mill in Egypt still used rail service. From what I was told, the Agway in Ironton, when it was on Mauch Chunk Rd, used to get a car every now and then but i'm not sure about that.

According to my friend in Northampton, the cement used in the Panama Canal specifically came from the old quarry on Savage Road. Also, the N&B connected with the CNJ at Northampton and the L&NE plus the DL&W in Bath. I also heard that a CP steamer was stored on the N&B in the 1970's.

Do either of those cement factories still exist or are they defuct? I've followed the row on live maps but all I see are foundations.

carajul wrote:
I don't see what the N&B served except for the 2 cemement factories (one in Northampton still served by NS and the other in Bath). It appears that all the N&B did was run a few miles from the CNJ connection in Northampton to the LNE in Bath and only had the 2 major online customers.

Aside from Universal Atlas and Keystone Cement, N&B served the Quality Service fuel dealer that had a coal trestle out at Weaversville (still there today), and also a small grain mill at Jacksonville which is long gone.

Canadian Pacific Royal Hudson 2839? was stored in a secret NorthEastern place in the Northampton & Bath Engine house in the early 1970s.