Arthur Kill Lift Bridge

Greetings Jersey-ites
Could one of of you kindly direct me to a string on this forum concerning this project? I know I have read something here on this subject within the last year, and recently while flying into Newark-Liberty it appeared that some serious progress had been made in earth moving on the Jersey side.

If the answers you seek are not on this thread, then try here:
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=114
Regards

As I was driving over the Goethals Bridge at 750am I saw the bridge down but I did not see anything going over it. They may have been running a test which comes to shock that they are doing it at this time in the morning they must have had a gap of time to do it. On my way home the bridge was up , no cars in arlington yard nor fresh kills plant. Anyone have anymore information?

The Ak bridge was down again at 745am. I guess more testing. I spoke with my friend who is in charge of New York Container Terminals Rail opps, he said sometime janurary MSW will be rolling over the Ak. And they are trying to work out a deal where the MSW train will take any containers they have in arlington yard bound for NJ. This was explained to me today and its nots definate just letting everyone know whats going on.

The bridge locking and signal systems are being tested prior to putting the bridge into revenue service.

As reported in the Star Ledger (3/12/07):

Railroad bridge is found shaky in tests
Link to Staten Island has had problems with track alignment, officials report
Monday, March 12, 2007
BY JOE MALINCONICO
Star-Ledger Staff
Much depends on the reopening of the dormant railroad bridge between Elizabeth and Staten Island.

The traffic-choked Goethals Bridge would handle about 150 fewer tractor-trailers a day when the rail connection opens.

Elizabeth residents would no longer have to put up with New York City's garbage trucks rumbling through their streets.

And the Port of New York and New Jersey would gain a vital asset for handling the anticipated growth in cargo shipments over the next decade.

But all that has to wait, because the bridge -- which is almost a year behind schedule -- has not done well during recent testing.

"The delay has been too long. It's starting to cause alarm over here," said New York City Councilman Michael McMahon, chairman of the council's committee on solid waste management. "The longer it takes, the worse it is for everybody."

Most parts on the bridge -- an old-fashioned vertical lift mechanism that originally opened in 1959 -- are the same as in 1990, when it stopped operation, officials said.

Officials need to make sure there are no kinks in the lift apparatus; if the bridge were to get stuck in the down position, it would block traffic on the bay, and if it got stuck in the up position, rail freight would get stranded on Staten Island and be late for delivery.

That hasn't been a problem during the preliminary tests, said Joan McDonald, senior vice president of transportation for the New York City Economic Development Commission, the agency that owns the bridge.

But several times during 40 test runs, the railroad tracks did not line up when the bridge was lowered, McDonald said. In those instances, within a minute or so, the bridge was raised and put back down in the proper position, she said.
"I don't want to minimize this, but I don't want to blow it out of proportion, either," McDonald said.

This week, Conrail is sending one of its movable bridge experts to the Staten Island span to try to solve the problem with the track alignment, McDonald said.

Conrail officials, however, were reluctant to discuss the project, referring questions to the city agency.

[snip- copying and pasting of whole articles is not allowed. Please link back to the original story. -ov]

It sounds like the AK bridge works as well as Amtrak's Portal bridge over the Hackensack River.

myfavscr wrote:....
But several times during 40 test runs, the railroad tracks did not line up when the bridge was lowered, McDonald said. In those instances, within a minute or so, the bridge was raised and put back down in the proper position, she said.
"I don't want to minimize this, but I don't want to blow it out of proportion, either," McDonald said. ...

Mister Midtown wrote:It sounds like the AK bridge works as well as Amtrak's Portal bridge over the Hackensack River.

But at least AK has the excuse of 16 years of being welded in the upright position.

AK will be operational by the end of march. There is a new hot train out of Oak Island, the OI7, trash train the departs from cp stock to south karny yard and back to cp stock. This train is so important that it has its own train master the does nothing more than makes sure its on time.

Glad to hear AK will be OK in a week.

Operator Hack wrote:... There is a new hot train out of Oak Island, the OI7, trash train the departs from cp stock to south karny yard and back to cp stock. This train is so important that it has its own train master the does nothing more than makes sure its on time.

What is so important about the trash train? Gettign it out fast because it smells so bad? More seriously, while i don't know much about the track configurations trying to get from P&H to South Kearney, I think I read something on a CNJ forum somewhere about how getting a trash
train to/from some loading facility in South Kearney
was tying up some important track leading to MMC or something
like that. The issue was so bad there was speculation about
trying to put back in the CNJ bridge on the line from Brill's yard
to South Kearney. Maybe that's why the new O17 has to be on time - to avoid
blocking something else at the wrong time?

JS

pumpers wrote:I think I read something on a CNJ forum somewhere about how getting a trash train to/from some loading facility in South Kearney was tying up some important track leading to MMC or something
like that. The issue was so bad there was speculation about
trying to put back in the CNJ bridge on the line from Brill's yard
to South Kearney.

Speculation by CNJ Railfans?
While that sounds like a great idea to me, I think if this line was so important it would have been restored in the 1940s, before the bridge and surrounding infrastructure was removed - well, at least half of one abutment still exists off Doremus Ave...
And Mr. Hack...sorry if I sound a bit skeptical - I could have made good money betting against the AK/Staten Island routing start-up date on this board...

I don't remember where I saw or heard that, but I heard that too - Something about NS serves the line, but CSX controls the lead track, which is also the lead to South Kearny Yard and they are not real helpful in moving the train, as it fouls up South Kearny Yard (which is right behind the MMC)

Operator Hack wrote:AK will be operational by the end of march. There is a new hot train out of Oak Island, the OI7, trash train the departs from cp stock to south karny yard and back to cp stock. This train is so important that it has its own train master the does nothing more than makes sure its on time.

The train you're talking about, is the SAA yard job that's responsible for taking the inbound 64J empties into the NJRC facility, and bringing the outbound 65J loads out. NS used to run the cars in and out of Croxton, to Kearny, but CSXT wasn't exactly cooperative ... just like when NS used to serve APL right after the takeover. The trash cars were backing up in Croxton, and taking up valuable room for the intermodal equipment. MMC had nothing to do with the issue.

SAA has taken over the yard operation, because CSXT is smart enough to realize that if they screw around with SAA accessing NJRC, that their own UPS trains will likely face "retaliatory delays" from SAA's dispatchers. So, now SAA handles the spotting and pulling for NS, and is given much better access to the Central Industrial than NS enjoyed.

The reason the train is so "hot," is that there is a severe financial penalty if the train isn't out on the road in a timely manner. The cars runs a rather strict loading cycle (so the trash doesn't back up at the NJ Rail Carriers loading facility), and must be in or out within the allotted times.

To the best of my knowledge, the trash train you mentioned above has nothing to do with the Staten Island operations.

off pending is exactly right.

But i will add the first trick north jersey dispatcher and the first trick yard master at south karny, not such a good mix.

Is there a place to photograph trains on the bridge? What time do Q195 and Q196 operate? How often is the lift bridge up?