M&E Freight schedule?

[rbenko]

I'm curios about how often M&E runs out to Whippany and beyond, and what time of day they usually run. I've lived in the Morristown area for seven years now, and have only photographed them moving a few times, always by luck.

Also, do they service their western branches every day? If so, what time do they usually head out west on the M&E? I would guess it would be sometime after rush hour.

[Jihn z]

Well there are others who could explain this a little more, but basicily when you ask for a schedule for the M&E you aren't gonna get one, cause they don't have um. They serve all their lines on a "as needed basis". So say ENDOT industries on the Dover and Rockaway has a shipment of plastic pellets due in on Tues, NS will drop the hoppers off at Lake Junction on Monday night and Tues morning/afternoon the M&E will run west pick them yup and drop them off.

When they are going to go out in the morning the crew usualy signs on anywhere between 7-9 AM, it really depends on where there going. In Nov/Dec they were runnning 12-15 car trains to the Toys-R-US warehouse on the High Bridge, they were signing on early and not gettin back to Morristown untill 1 or 2 in the afternoon.

Hope I helped a little bit, if you have any more in depth questions please feel free to E-Mail me.

[RS115]

As far as the M&E proper goes (aka Whippany line) it seems that if the cars that need to be delivered are already online then they will often do that first. I work near S. Jefferson Road crossing and sometimes catch them headed east when I'm going to work around 9. If that's not the case then they often whistle by late morning/early afternoon. I have occassionally been able to watch them switching in Whippany at lunch around 1. It's not predicatable day to day. If they have passenger stuff going on they have sometimes made 2-3 round trips to Whippany shifting things around though that is by no means common.

Arm yourself with a scanner (anyone know their current frequencies?) or you might even check with the office long as its not a constant thing.

[njtransitrookie]

It seems as though the M&E is at Lake Junction by about 12:00pm on most days.

[denvillerailfan]

Today the M&E was in Roseland around 2pm... Swapped out 2 tanks from B&G. I had stopped down to check on the construction for lunch... What a surprise!!!

M&E in Roseland (behind Quick Check)

Pulling into B&G

OH, yeh, the construction...
Passaic River bridge work continues...

[RS115]

Coming home through Rockaway borough this evening around 5:30 was surprised to see 4228 and a short train sitting by the Mill End Tavern. Stopped to check it out - turned out they were waiting for the owners of a couple of trucks backed up too close to the tracks to be located so they could proceed back to NJT & Morristown. Couldn't hang around to see how long that took (or if they gave up and had them towed).
4228 was alone so I guess she now has cab signals (unless 18 was stashed further down the line and I didn't see it). 4228 also looks like it's had a bath - the oil streaks noted last week on the bunny trains are gone. They were working on an ex-Amtrak car in Morristown yesterday with a steam cleaner so maybe they hit the engines down as well. (Hurray!)

[Jihn z]

Yeah that doesn't surprise me, there's many times I drive past and wonder how stupid some people can be. Between the people backing in for the bar, the people strattling the tracks for De Sals', and the trucks at the lumber place, the M&E has a lot of problems with clearance on that strech of track.

[7 Train]

I go to school in Morristown & sometimes see the red Alcos head west over Martin Luther King Blvd. at around 8:30 to 8:50. Are they heading to the D-R or Lake Junction?

[RS115]

The short answer is either or both. Acccessing any of their western Morris lines and their NS interchange requires them to go west on NJT over that bridge.