NS at Bethlehem + Great NS Map

I stayed at the Sands Casino Hotel in Bethlehem on Saturday and had a great view of the NS line along the south
side of the Lehigh River. More activity than expected as there were a couple times there were three trains
outside my window.

Later, I downloaded this great map on the NS website with excellent detail of the NS system and other lines, including
a detailed inset of Allentown Bethlehem Easton.
(Very large file.)

http://www.nscorp.com/nscorphtml/pdf/system-map.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Imagine the activity of the area when Beth Steel was in operation AND the RDG branch was still in!

I was looking at old arials and surprised that the casino only occupies a tiny portion of the steel property. Where the casino is was a huge pit with cranes above it. Anyone know what that "pit" was? They filled it in and built a casino ontop of it and kept one of the cranes as a billboard.

carajul wrote:Imagine the activity of the area when Beth Steel was in operation AND the RDG branch was still in!

I was looking at old arials and surprised that the casino only occupies a tiny portion of the steel property. Where the casino is was a huge pit with cranes above it. Anyone know what that "pit" was? They filled it in and built a casino ontop of it and kept one of the cranes as a billboard.

it was a sorting and storage yard for the mountains of steel coming out of the mill, hence the gigantic traveling bridge crane.

jtaeffner wrote:

carajul wrote:Imagine the activity of the area when Beth Steel was in operation AND the RDG branch was still in!

I was looking at old arials and surprised that the casino only occupies a tiny portion of the steel property. Where the casino is was a huge pit with cranes above it. Anyone know what that "pit" was? They filled it in and built a casino ontop of it and kept one of the cranes as a billboard.

it was a sorting and storage yard for the mountains of steel coming out of the mill, hence the gigantic traveling bridge crane.

Take a look at the 1962 photo at http://www.historicaerials.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; . Just to the right (east) of the Minsi Trail (Stefko Blvd) bridge . It looks more like a loose bulk material, like sand, coal, ash, etc, although photos can be deceiving. Carajul, is that the picture you were looking at?
JS

The area with the huge crane was where the ore was stock piled that was brought in by rail and dumped where the parking deck is now. The PBNE engine shop was locIt ated where the casino is now almost under the Minsi trail bridge. There where 10 finger tracks that fed the ore dumper. The Reading and later Conrail crews would shove the ore directly to the finger tracks. The LV would deliver the ore to Iron Hill yard and the PBNE would then shove it to the ore dumper. If they ran the dumper 24 hrs a day they could do 300 to 400 cars a day. Its amazing the amount of traffic that went in and out of the Steel at one time and is all gone now.

Not really 'gone'. It's still around... just in China now.

Beth Steel never kept up with the times. Their management sucked and they never updated their plant in Bethlehem. They also had increasing foreign competition. And the financial burden was the retirement packages employees got. There were 300,000 employees at one time who got 80% of their pay until they died. There simply was no way of funding the pensions with the income that was being generated in the later years.

The factories in China pay their employees $1 per day and work them like slaves with no benefits. So they can undercut the US manufacturing.

There was three huge clam shell buckets; one to each of those traveling cranes, everything going into the furnaces was weighed. Riding across the Minsi Trail bridge you would see them dumping huge amounts of ore into the start of the process.

jtaeffner wrote:

carajul wrote:Imagine the activity of the area when Beth Steel was in operation AND the RDG branch was still in!

I was looking at old arials and surprised that the casino only occupies a tiny portion of the steel property. Where the casino is was a huge pit with cranes above it. Anyone know what that "pit" was? They filled it in and built a casino on top of it and kept one of the cranes as a billboard.

it was a sorting and storage yard for the mountains of steel coming out of the mill, hence the gigantic traveling bridge crane.

The beam yard was a the east end above the sewer plant north of where Rt 412 turns toward the casino just east of the BOF & it's rotary car dumper. That whole area was jammed w/ all kinds of equipment and jammed w/ rail.