Northhampton & Bath

Take a look at the N&B yard just over main st. I thought this was just a few spurs as it is now 3 or 4 tracks. Here is the image from 1939. What industry did the N&B serve that required such a yard. I can't belive how large it is. Along the CNJ there was a yard almost as big where the current single switch is today. In this photo north is looking up. Main st and the CNJ are at the bottom.
By 1971 both yards were basically gone.

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Hrmmm.. What major heavy rail-intensive industry is predominant in both Northampton and Bath, and was even more-so then?

Think about it.

Consider that besides the LV and CNJ, Catasaqua just a few miles away had also the LNE, RDG and IRR for the same reason. Then you'll see why so much rail was in place years ago.

Micah

56-57 wrote:Hrmmm.. What major heavy rail-intensive industry is predominant in both Northampton and Bath, and was even more-so then?

Think about it.

Consider that besides the LV and CNJ, Catasaqua just a few miles away had also the LNE, RDG and IRR for the same reason. Then you'll see why so much rail was in place years ago.

Micah

When I was growin' up we called that area the 'cement belt' and you could tell cars from there by their grey finish.

Kind of funny to think that there's still a global shortage of good cement. China buys up everything for their economy, which grows at an exponential rate, and for their massive infrastructure projects.

Makes one kind of wish that some of those abandoned cement mills were still in business.

The name was Universal Atlas Cement, but U.S. Steel somehow controlled the railroad.
Both steel and concrete use lime, that may have been the reason.

Mr. Faithful,

There are some mills still in business. Five or Six I believe. Two or three on NS' Cement Secondary.. So it's not a total loss.

-MJK

The N&B was a subsidiary owned by US Steel. I believe the only thing the N&B did was act as an interchanger of cars between the CNJ and LNE. It was a single track that connected the 2 lines. On 4/1/76 with the LNE and CNJ lines now both CR no interchnage was needed so CR instantly abandoned the N&B.

Did you also know that bagged cement used to go by rail? I the LNE book the various yards along the slate belt line were packed with boxcars. The boxcars transported bagged cemement. I have a pic of Tadmor yard in the late 50s and it's full of boxcars.

Isn't it something how much traffic the RRs have lost and don't even bother trying to get back.

carajul wrote:The N&B was a subsidiary owned by US Steel. I believe the only thing the N&B did was act as an interchanger of cars between the CNJ and LNE. It was a single track that connected the 2 lines. On 4/1/76 with the LNE and CNJ lines now both CR no interchnage was needed so CR instantly abandoned the N&B.

Lehigh & New England was abandoned in 1961 with portions in PA picked up by the CNJ, who pulled out of PA in 1972 leaving their lines to be inherited by the Lehigh Valley -

carajul wrote:The N&B was a subsidiary owned by US Steel. I believe the only thing the N&B did was act as an interchanger of cars between the CNJ and LNE. It was a single track that connected the 2 lines. On 4/1/76 with the LNE and CNJ lines now both CR no interchnage was needed so CR instantly abandoned the N&B.

Conrail had no ownership of the N&B. You said it yourself...it was a subsidiary of U.S. Steel. The N&B was not "instantly abandoned" when CR came into existence, but in fact operated until February 1979. They served the Universal Atlas and Keystone Cement and at one time also had a few other small customers along the main.

Whose decision was it to pull the plug on the N&B and for what reason? I know US Steel is still in business, although they are broke. Taking losses of $1-2 BILLION per year.

Whoever it was that decided to pull the plug, it was because there was virtually no traffic to handle by 1979. Railroads like the N&B and Ironton that almost solely depended on the cement industry for their revenue started losing money back in the mid 1950's when the ICC gave permission to Matlack Trucking to haul bulk cement in pneumatic highway trailers. Obviously cement still ships by rail even today, but it's clear that trucks stole more than half of this business away from the RR's, which hurt -and ultimately led to the disappearance- of many lines like the N&B and the Ironton...

obsessed railfan wrote:Whoever it was that decided to pull the plug, it was because there was virtually no traffic to handle by 1979. Railroads like the N&B and Ironton that almost solely depended on the cement industry for their revenue started losing money back in the mid 1950's when the ICC gave permission to Matlack Trucking to haul bulk cement in pneumatic highway trailers. Obviously cement still ships by rail even today, but it's clear that trucks stole more than half of this business away from the RR's, which hurt -and ultimately led to the disappearance- of many lines like the N&B and the Ironton...

That is a good observation, in the early 70's I worked summers during college at Hercules Cement off Rt 191 in Stockertown in the Chem Leaman shops. We had 45 power units and 105 trailers w/ three drivers in the yard just loading trailers. Summers were busy w/ road building projects. Alot of the interstate construction used portable mills to mix the concrete. These were fed by 'Portabins' which were huge protable storage pnumatic tanks that held around 5,000 cu ft of cement and had self-contained unloading systems using pony engines to feed the mix mill. Hercules owned a bunch of them and CLTL had some too.

These were set up at a temporary location and filled daily from a convoy of trucks. Most of Rt 80 in PA & NJ was built this way. The 'pigs' held around 4 trailer loads each. That's about one railcar or about 180,000# to 190,000# of cement. As the highway was built the location of the mill and it's 'pigs' would be relocated so the trucks bringing the mixed concrete to the construction site wern't running long enough for the mixed concrete to start setting up. Rail service wasn't up to this sort of activity.

Each winter the portabins came back to Stockertown and were refurbished by the CLTL maintenance staff while alot of the drivers were laid off except for the top of the list who were delivering to redi-mix plants and bag loads on flatbeds to home center distribution facilities. Trucking was more flexible and rail kept the volume business that was not time dependent.

In the case of the Ironton RR I don't think it was trucks but rather 100% of their online customers were out of business by the 70s. All those cement and iron mills were closed by that time and the Ironton had nothing left to serve.

Then why did Conrail operate the former Ironton lines until 1986?

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