Strange activity on Lodi branch

I live right near where the Lodi branch goes through a grade crossing at Essex Street, in Lodi, NJ. Right off to the side are two rail cars, right up against Essex Street. Yellow tape covers it.

I've never seen activity on this part of the line. The tracks are in poor condition, and the Route 17 grade crossing would surely be a no no these days. Anyone know what is gonig on?

The Suskie bravely made their monthly attempt to run done the one mile Lodi spur, but came undone just short of Essex Street. A rented crane outfit is out there now rerailing the car. Luckily, there is no runaround anymore on the Lodi Branch, so the crew must shove the loads down to pull and spot, therefore putting the car on the ground and not the locomotive. They were taking two loads in and removing two empties from Flexwrap, the last and only customer on what is left of this branch. One wonders how much longer the Suskie will service this increasingly rickety branch with a very dangerous crossing of Route 17.

I was just getting my car washed today at Jax right next to to the spot, and looking at the tracks right at Essex, they look to be in horrible condition. But, I have seen that the cars were moved backwards further from the street, as they were just up against the sidewalk.

I did not know that this branch was still active.

So how do they cross Route 17 and Essex Street? Do they have other people that get out and hold up signs while the train moves across those crossings?

There are crossing flashers on Route 17. I also imagine the conductor walks the train over the crossing with a fuse in hand. Highway congestion and trains never mix too well, but this type of operation is quite common place in many urban ares.

Tim

Actually, for their own safety,the train crews stay on the locomotive at Rte 17. The traffic does eventually stop when they lay on the horn long enough. As for Essex St., it has a track circuit that pre-empts the traffic light at the crossing to 4 way red.
WN

I just missed the crossing at Essex recently, and I noticed flares were also placed on the ground near where the track meets the road.

By the By......noticed that there is a 15 mph speed limit sign still standing on the Lodi branch just north of Essex street. Anyone trying to do 15 miles an hour on that track would be seriously demented. Walked up a ways and found a siding still intact, although spiked open. I also thought about how much better the rail is on the dormant Passaic branch. No customers active on the Passaic branch and no activity there for many months, yet it is still shown on the NYS&W website map. The Lodi branch which is still in service with a consignee is not.

This was a once mighty branch with a TON of diversified industry.

Does anybody have any photos of this branch being drill (old or new)? I have never once in my life seen anything touch 17 and it would be awesome to see a picture of it.

The only train I ever saw cross a highway was when a Conrail GP38 and a tank car crossed over Rt. 46 up in totowa.

There are a couple of photos in the Morning Sun Susquehanna book. There is also one of an RS-1 and tank car sitting at the end of the branch in front of the Lodi yard office (on Main St.) in Mohowski's recent book "New York Susquehanna and Western".

While stuck in traffic on Rt. 17N in Lodi yesterday, I noticed a black NYSW maintenance pickup truck pull over to the left side of the highway onto the grass just past the crossing. The guy got out of his truck and walk towards the tracks. Not sure what he was doing, but I found it interesting that they are still paying attention to that spur even though it looks like it hasn’t been used for a while. Anyone know if NYSW will be using this spur again?

They still go down there once, or twice a month. I saw that guy too - I think he was the signal maintainer - at least thats what he appeared to be futzing with.

i've seen them cross rt.17 when i was younger, about 10 years or ago or more. but never see them now. But most of the track has been ripped up west of rt.17 along the road to the dmv when they did construction to fix the drainage pipes to help protect lodi from flooding.

L&HR C&S wrote:Actually, for their own safety,the train crews stay on the locomotive at Rte 17. The traffic does eventually stop when they lay on the horn long enough. As for Essex St., it has a track circuit that pre-empts the traffic light at the crossing to 4 way red.
WN

I've seen them do NJ 17 both ways in the past few years.

Shove the loads into NJ 17 and let the traffic deal with it. And, have one or two guys try to flag the crossing, whic is totally worthless and prob violates multiple safety laws, too.

Same problem back when CR and EL tried to cross US 46 in Totowa to get down to the PV Water plant. Six lanes of 60 mph traffic, one guy trying to flare / flag his way across.

There's enough serious traffic (18 wheelers, cement mixers, garbage trucks) on these roads that they could do serious damage to the crew on a GP-18 or an SD-45.

Never bothered me, when I did it, with the 116, or one of the 1800's. We used to just "blow & go", with the horn held wide open, minimum on the brakes, and a couple of notches on the throttle, with everyone in the cab. Ran a few cars off the road, but never hit one, and never got hit, although we did cause more than one accident, but technically, wasn't our fault, and we didn't bother to stop. No time to worry about idiots, who don't have time to worry about trains. We never stopped when we hit parked cars in Patterson, either. Some idiot wants to park too close to the rail, I sure don't mind moving him out of the way. As long as the engine isn't derailed, or damaged, we just kept right on knockin', and went about our business. One of the perks of the job......... Just a side note, if I didn't have a camera, and it didn't happen, how the heck did I get paid for it. Seems to me I was there, and it DID happen. Just a thought......