Rail activity in the cement region

With the new publication on railroads in the cement region of Pa. , say Nazareth, I was wondering if there is still activity in the area and if so when and where might it might be found. Thanks

NS runs the 'Cement Secondary' (ex LNE) from Bethlehem up to Bath, then east out through Nazareth to the Stockertown area. It's at least a five, if not six day a week operation, up one day, and back the next. There are two or three cement mills providing the bulk of the revenue on the line, with a few smaller shippers here and there.

Hope this helps, I know it's pretty generalized.

Micah

As per cement you have Hercules which is a very busy place, Essroc which has two locations both with a decent amount of activity and Keystone whose activity levels I am not aware of.

There's also 84 Lumber up by Hercules that used to get a few cars a week and I heard that Crayola offloads cars on the extreme east end of the line.

There used to be dozens of customers along the line but I don't know too much about the history of it. I do know that Casillio Concrete in Bethlehem used to accept sand by rail, but truck competition killed that move. They still have one or two siding tracks in place, I think.

I used to live within site of the tracks in Bethlehem and I loved watching them.

It is still a busy branch but NOTHING compared to what it used to be. Looking at arials even in the mid-70s every cement mill had a huge yard out front jammed with as many as 50 cars. There were a lot more cement mills too. Tadmor yard and Bath yard were huge. The main st in Bath where the single track crosses by the apartments was once an 8 track xing.

Both the LNE and DLW had parallel lines.

Today just a single track and each remaining cement mill has a single spur.

You also had the N&B that served Hercules on the west side.

I was at Hercules a few months ago. They had around 10 cars on their single spur. Their PR dept told me they only ship long haul bullk by rail nowadays and that the RRs were horrible at customer service and wanted 2-3 times what truckers were charging.

Also in old pics from the 50s the yards were full of boxcars to transport bagged cement. Safe to say trucks got at lease 75% of the biz that used to be the RRs. And after severals emails back and forth to NS...I can tell you that the RR could care less.

I'll second what was said above about shipping cement, although NS has been very helpful to my present business and should be congratulated for their efforts. Railroad movement of cement was basically killed off by the invention of the pneumatic bulk tanker and the improved highway system. While I think most railroads purposely sabotage short movements through high prices, it is very hard to compete with trucks over the short distances that most cement has to move. As said, however (like most other freight), cement that moves long distances is still dominated largely by rail.

I have always thought that one cement transload location near Totowa, NJ (or somewhere thereabouts) would be a decent money saver should the economy ever choose to recover. 20 or 30 railcars of cement inbound every day distributed by truck to the dozens of batch plants would easily beat the long haul out I-80 and PA-33 or I-78 and PA-33.

Don't forget it was also illegal in Penna to haul bulk cement on the highways until the PennDOT changed this rule in the early 1950s. The RRs were guaranteed a monopoly until that time. I was really shocked looking at the amount of freight traffic on the NS Portland Secondary (as they call it now) even in the mid-70s. Hercules, and the other mills, had 40,50,60+ cars jammed in their yards.

That line was run three tricks a day through the early CR years. Allentown Branch of the LNE was busy until then as well.. NS rolled some rail over under a GP40 serving the last customer, and called it quits a few years ago.. Just a streak of rust now.. Lots of trees for ya!

MJK

Bethlehem, when I lived there, had long term plans to turn the old Allentown Branch into a trail. No progress on that, though. The last customer on the line now transloads the lumber they recieve in part of the old Bethlehem Steel complex and truck it the last few miles. NS had added a $500 per car switching fee to the branch just prior to its having been embargoed for lack of traffic. There is still some slim potential for traffic on the branch, but I'd expect to see it removed within a few years.

Semper Fi Is Hercules a town or a plant ? If the latter what town is it located in. Also thanks to the other writers. I think I will drive up there a day this or next week for a look-see. I think I have seen the train whcih leaves Bethlehem abot 9:00 AM I once followed it for a few miles out of Bethlehem before giving up as I had no idea where it (or I) was going.

SemperFidelis wrote:As per cement you have Hercules which is a very busy place, Essroc which has two locations both with a decent amount of activity and Keystone whose activity levels I am not aware of.

There's also 84 Lumber up by Hercules that used to get a few cars a week and I heard that Crayola offloads cars on the extreme east end of the line.

There used to be dozens of customers along the line but I don't know too much about the history of it. I do know that Casillio Concrete in Bethlehem used to accept sand by rail, but truck competition killed that move. They still have one or two siding tracks in place, I think.

I used to live within site of the tracks in Bethlehem and I loved watching them.

Hercules doesn't get many (if any) cars anymore it seems. 84 Lumber was sold to a tire company, and they don't get cars. There are however at least one or two industries east of Stockertown which have sprung up lately.

kevikens wrote:Semper Fi Is Hercules a town or a plant ? If the latter what town is it located in. Also thanks to the other writers. I think I will drive up there a day this or next week for a look-see. I think I have seen the train whcih leaves Bethlehem abot 9:00 AM I once followed it for a few miles out of Bethlehem before giving up as I had no idea where it (or I) was going.

It's in Stockertown. The crew (operating as H75) is on duty out of Allentown around 0800ish I believe Mon/Wed and Stockertown Tue/Thu. Friday is a turn job from Allentown.

carajul wrote:Don't forget it was also illegal in Penna to haul bulk cement on the highways until the PennDOT changed this rule in the early 1950s. The RRs were guaranteed a monopoly until that time. I was really shocked looking at the amount of freight traffic on the NS Portland Secondary (as they call it now) even in the mid-70s. Hercules, and the other mills, had 40,50,60+ cars jammed in their yards.

There was more to this. In 1972 & 1973 I worked summers @ Chemical Leaman's shop @ Stockertown. Originally the pnumatic trucks were all freight 'prepaid' by the Cement producer. Chem Leaman had 105 trailers and MTS had 55 serving Hercules. Any end user wanting to transport their own bulk cement had to pay the same 'freight included' price per ton giving the 'house' motor carriers a strangle hold. There was always a 2nd 'smaller' motor carrier giving the impression of competition plus the master Teamsters contract had a 'cement haulers' agreement section that was $1.00/hr less than the liquid tanker across the board...

The still expanding interstate highway system was taking large amounts of cement, by truck, and these 'road jobs' utilized batch plants fed by 'Porta-Bins' AKA 'Pigs'. Each pig held 5 loads of cement [about 5,000 cu ft] and was equipped w/ a pony engine to feed the batch mill. Hercules and Chem Leaman each owned a fleet of pigs that were brought back each winter for repair/overhaul b/4 the next road building season. The motor carrier's shop did this work during the slower winter months when most of the drivers were laid off.

The huge Silo group you can see from Rt 33 bearing the Hercules name was divided into two loading facilities, one half was rail and the other for trucks. They were brought in and sat on a scale while this huge hose was dropped into the trailer center 20" manhole. There was a huge metal bin above the hose w/ an air valve that opened & quickly closed & 'Woomph' the truckload dropped into the trailer, next! Chem Leaman had three drivers re-loading every trailer [cranking the dolly legs] while MTS had one guy w/ a Bartlet hydraulic 5th wheel and dragging them further to their parking lot. That made around 210 truckloads every day Plus about two dozen 'bag' flatbeds.

The rail side was just as busy w/ a steady conga line of cars moving constantly thru the other silo set. It was a busy place.

The redi-mix suppliers who wanted to transport their own product had the cement companies in court. It took them years to beat the 'prepaid' pricing. I think it was an anti-trust case b/4 they won. I know that the two summers I worked there only Steckel Concrete from Phillipsburg, NJ pulled their own loads. I think he was so close that the pricing wasn't an issue.

Once the court case was settled the larger carriers [Matlack, Chemical Leaman, Schwerman], all using union labor, started to leave the cement game and the smaller, non-union, carriers took over and a lot of end-users started hauling their own.

Then came 1980 and the deregulation of trucking dropped rates so low that the rail could not compete except for the super long haul. Of course the interstate system was close to completion and the perpetual rebuilding doesn't require the massive amount of concrete needed in the 60's and early 70's...

SemperFidelis wrote:I do know that Casillio Concrete in Bethlehem used to accept sand by rail, but truck competition killed that move. They still have one or two siding tracks in place, I think.

Casilio owns the old Saucon Roundhouse and some of the Saucon Yard property. A few years back when a few of us wanted to trespass in Saucon Yard and the old roundhouse I went to Casilio in Bethlehem to ask for permission and spoke to one of the owners. In the conversation I asked about the sidings. Apparently Conrail killed that deal. She told me they made it IMPOSSIBLE to consider rail with the ridiculous amount of money they wanted to install/repair/maintain the sidings. BTW - She was incredibly nice and allowed us to explore their property!

FWIW - I fish a lot in the Monocasy Creek along the Cement Secondary. It is almost a guarantee to see a northbound in the morning and a southbound in the PM. This has been the case in my experience for a LONG time.

Ironically, most of the traffic on the Cement Secondary is made up of commodities other than cement. There's only one mill left that ships out a significant number of cement. The rest of the traffic is mostly lumber and plastics, with some other stuff thrown in.

Going north from Bethlehem; Penn Perlite (just north of Allen Jct. and Schoenersville Road) gets covered hoppers inbound. There's some sort of transloading operation going on at the old National Cement mill off Hanoverville Road in Lower Nazareth Township. They get a lot of cement style hoppers there but from looking at the truck springs it seems like a loads in-empties out business. Hopefully someone can shed some light on this. Just west of here is a cold storage warehouse that was built about five years ago. Interestingly, they put a railroad crossing in the road outside the warehouse (and I believe they got some state funding to put in a siding), but it looks like nothing ever came of it.

Bethlehem Contracting is off 512 just south of Bath. They get gons and bulkhead flats loaded with steel beams. Keystone Cement in Bath seems to be an occasional shipper of cement. I see cement hoppers parked there often but I don't know if those are cars for Keystone or if they're just staged for Essroc. There used to be a customer that got gons at the site of the L&NE Tadmor Yard, but they seem to have either went out of business or they no longer use rail. Also, when Hercules still got inbound cars of coke they used to stage the loads at Tadmor and/or Bath. Essroc (on the west side of Nazareth) is the only cement plant that ships large amounts of cement out by rail. There are usually about a dozen cars parked there. Lone Star Cement (on the east side of town) used to ship out quite a bit of cement, but those shipments dried up around the split.

There are still a handful of customers located on the various spur lines in Stockertown, although as mentioned previously the cement and coke traffic from Hercules Cement has vanished. The Hercules Industrial Track reaches Universal Forest Products, which receives a lot of centerbeams loaded with lumber. There is a runaround on the Hercules, upon which H75 ties down Monday and Wednesday night (unfortunately it's impossible to get over here legally). 84 Lumber did receive lumber in boxcars until they closed around 2007ish. The Nazareth Industrial Track forms sort of a switchback, connecting with the Hercules Industrial just north of Universal. This track was once a part of the Bangor & Portland Branch of the DL&W. The Nazareth Industrial runs southwest for about a mile to the Route 191 grade crossing, after which point a quarry pit exists where the ROW once continued into Nazareth. Prime Conduit (formerly Carlon/Lamson & Sessions) is the sole customer of this track, they get inbound hoppers loaded with plastics.

The Cement Secondary continues east to Uhlers (in Forks Township), serving a few more customers near the end of track. Customers here include Crayola (receiving inbound tank cars loaded with wax), Weyerhauser (just constructed last year, they get lumber primarily in boxcars), and Georgia Pacific/Dixie (inbound hoppers of plastics). There is another siding adjacent to Crayola that used to get covered hoppers, but I haven't seen anything spotted there in over five years. Lifetime Doors also has a siding but they no longer ship by rail. There is another lumber transload facility at the very end of the line that gets boxcars and centerbeams loaded with lumber. They also ship out a dimensional load about once a year from the same siding.

The LV's Easton & Northern Branch also ran into Stockertown. I won't type too much about the E&N since it's already been covered in other threads, but the line was intact until the early 80s. Around 1984 the southern end of the line was abandoned and all remaining E&N branch traffic came via Stockertown and the Cement Secondary. The number of shippers declined until 1995 when Conrail abandoned the line (Mack Printing in Easton was the last customer). The rails were finally pulled up south of Tatamy around 1999-2000. There is still about a mile of the E&N left between Tatamy and Stockertown, NS calls this the E&N Industrial Track. PMC Polymers (formerly Chemtron) in Stockertown is the last industry left on the old E&N. There are generally about a half dozen covered hoppers spotted there. The E&N crosses the Cement Secondary at grade around the site of Stockertown Yard. From there the tracks remain in place up to Equipto in Tatamy, although there haven't been any cars out of there in quite some time.

Stockertown is the end of the line. It used to continue past the last few customers but the CNJ's LNERwy abandoned it in the mid70s. Why I have no idea it used to connect to the other line that is still in place today.

Take a look at the old LNE book from 1988 and old arials. The amount of cement traffic was unbelievable.

Present day RRs attitudes are just piss poor. If they actually went after customers and tried to keep the ones they have, there would be a lot more traffic. It's like they just 'allow' customers to vanish and then rip the tracks up.