Southern Tier - East of Binghamton

If only that map was accurate.....

SecaucusJunction wrote:If only that map was accurate.....

Okay, I'll bite.......why is the map not accurate? And where is there a map that IS accurate? No offense,
but a six word sentence doesn't give us much to go on.

Charlie

The map shows port NJ to Toronto traffic currently routed over the eastern Tier to Binghamton, which is obviously not true.

SecaucusJunction wrote:The map shows port NJ to Toronto traffic currently routed over the eastern Tier to Binghamton, which is obviously not true.

Is this map supposed to show NS or CSX traffic? I would assume CSX would run on the NYC main line Selkirk to Buffalo (Niagara Falls). It would be far shorter, and if they wanted to go via Quebec, they have their own line from Syracuse going north.
So I assume this might be NS traffic. But why would NS would use this routing (vs via Buffalo...). But I am not an insider, I don't really know.
Jim S
I don't know who uses what bridge to Canada in the Buffalo/Niagara Falls area . Are they (and the route to/from them) not cleared for double stacks, perhaps?

The map is actually somewhat accurate for the shipments to Toronto. I've been saying for years that it doesn't make sense. The route from NJ to Toronto looks exactly like that except the traffic is pulled on 22V to Allentown and was picked up by CP 259 to Binghamton and then taken north on CP trains to Montreal and then an additional CP train to Toronto. The routing still exists, but I am not sure which NS trains handle this traffic south of Albany now. With this routing, it is no wonder why the traffic has never grown. I assume this was a deal made with CP a while back for traffic to Toronto. Maybe CP forced this routing because they had the presence at the ending point? I'm not sure but I'm certain the Buffalo routing has clearances. The new "proposed" routing makes a lot more sense and hopefully can be used in the future. That would be somewhat competitive in time with CSX. NS has been talking about making Buffalo an "inland port" for years but it, so far, has never materialized. Theoretically, containers could be offloaded in Buffalo and driven to anywhere in SE Ontario, which is a big market.

Here we go......more news to discuss. New York State just awarded the Syracuse area millions for economic development.

http://www.syracuse.com/business-news/i ... ative.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Guess what one of the awards went to? An Inland Port near Jamesville at an old quarry.

http://www.syracuse.com/business-news/i ... eator.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They are talking about rail service from the Port of New York and New Jersey to the Inland Port near Jamesville and also connecting to the Port of Oswego. Shall we ponder this for awhile.

This is just a small blurb from the article; Planners are modeling the project after a similar facility that has created 8,000 jobs and attracted $750 million in private investment to a rural Virginia town.

The Virginia Inland Port opened in Front Royal, Va., 60 miles west of Washington, D.C., in 1989, becoming what officials there say is the nation's first "inland port" tied by rail to a deep water port. The facility is 220 miles from the Port of Virginia.

Since the terminal opened, 39 major companies have built light manufacturing, warehousing and distribution facilities nearby. Most of the 8,000 jobs the hub has created are at those associated facilities.

It would be nice to finally see East of Binghamton (and North of Binghamton) tied back together as a fairly active main line again. Not to mention the Portage bridge that is finally being built. The map is getting bigger!!!

Someone mentioned on a nysw fb group or yahoo group that NYSW has an agreement in place with Conrail for interchange traffic at CP marion for intermodals from the port.

Steve F45 wrote:Someone mentioned on a nysw fb group or yahoo group that NYSW has an agreement in place with Conrail for interchange traffic at CP marion for intermodals from the port.

where is CP Marion, exactly? I think of Marion Jct. as where the old NYSW & the Erie connected with the PRR on its way to Journal Square and then the Jersey City Waterfront back in the day. But I think in the Penn Central era or thereabouts, NYSW sold the stretch from this junction up to Marion Yard by County Rd. Is CP Marion around this yard - maybe on one end or the other?
Jim S
PS - Is that big US post office facility still there on County Rd?

NYSW only connects to NS at Marion and I can't see them handing off the traffic there. I'd be skeptical of that. I think Binghamton is more likely

SecaucusJunction wrote:NYSW only connects to NS at Marion and I can't see them handing off the traffic there. I'd be skeptical of that. I think Binghamton is more likely

I only mentioned what was posted. NYSW has recently put in another long siding that parallels the main from north of Paterson Plank Rd south to the Marion switch. So they have the extra track that far south for it. But I now wonder if any of this happens, will they need more power for it?

NYSW connects to Conrail at CP West Croxton, which is between North Bergen and Croxton yards. The only things they interchange (as far as I know) are general freight. No intermodal. They do interchange autoracks though

Hi Everyone, I'm a conductor that works the yard side of NS out of Croxton. I would love to see a road train on the teir. I have heard from the older guys here that many years ago a road train went up the teir before, does anyone have any information on that? I would really appreciate it. Also will a road train ever go west out of Croxton again? I have heard that it's faster to route a train to Chicago through Buffalo than Harrisburg. Is that true? And why wouldn't they do it?

The road freights to which you refer were 46G (eastbound) and 47G (westbound), which NS ran for a few years after the Conrail split.

Matt Langworthy wrote:The road freights to which you refer were 46G (eastbound) and 47G (westbound), which NS ran for a few years after the Conrail split.

But remember NS' good intentions at the time NS and CSX were planning Conrail's breakup in the late '90s?

DSCGCX-1, DSCGCX-2, DSCXCG-1, DSCXCG-1, DSCXCG-2, IMCXSL, IMSLCX are
representative of new schedules NS will operate as through service
from Chicago via the Southern Tier Route from Buffalo to Croxton, NJ.
Six intermodal trains a day will be operated in and out of the Croxton
terminal. Four of these trains will be doublestack, and the third pair
between Croxton and St. Louis will handle both doublestack and
conventional intermodal traffic. The St. Louis trains will connect
with the Kansas City trains at the Toledo (Airline) hub, providing
48-hour service between Northern New Jersey and Kansas City, with
traffic pre-blocked for western connections.

NS really had their rosy colored glasses on during that time and made all sorts of statements they would never follow through with. They've also made statements since then about freight from port NYNJ to Buffalo a few years back. Now they are running a handful of stacks to Buffalo via the RBMN.

The problem is that NS's main terminal is Harrisburg and the rest of the lines east of there are basically feeders to that point. A train traveling the tier would have no access to block swap in Harrisburg, which is what most trains end up doing. I don't know if there are any trains that exit PA exactly the same as they enter it.

Now we're all hearing that the RBMN trains will be rerouted and that more service will start once Portageville is replaced. The CEO of NS could tell me personally that trains will start on the Eastern Tier and, at this point, I still probably wouldn't believe it.