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  • What was the customer on Murray Road?

  • Discussion about the M&E, RVRR and SIRR lines of New Jersey, and also the Maine Eastern operation in Maine. Official web site can be found here: www.merail.com.
Discussion about the M&E, RVRR and SIRR lines of New Jersey, and also the Maine Eastern operation in Maine. Official web site can be found here: www.merail.com.

Moderators: GOLDEN-ARM, cjl330, mikec

 #860152  by X4401
 
Hi,

I was driving around lost attempting to get to route 10 and I took a wrong turn through a warehouse area on Murray Road in East Hanover. The place appeared to have a number of old sidings which branch off to a series of old warehouses. None of them appeared to be current rail customers, not a single boxcar to be seen. Some of the crossings had trucks parked on them or close enough to foul the tracks at least. A check of Bing maps confirms that this does connect to the M+E Whippany branch. So my question is what customer was this built for? It appears to have been quite an investment in its time. I remember Whippany residents talking about paper mills being prolific along this line, but this doesn't have any of the trademark environmental super-fund signs indicating that it couldn't have been a paper mill.
 #860214  by joe k
 
The track(s) you saw on Murry Road is the former Vornado / old Two Guys complex..........The Vornado Spur was built around 1971, this included a shiny new bridge over the Whippany River and there were traffic signals installed at that time, now OOS or might be removed?

It must have been ten years since a customer was last served there.....now the M&E stores equipment on the branch that can be seen from the Whippany main line...........sad there is no interest for customers here with the buildings / rail and highway location?
 #860241  by SemperFidelis
 
I remember seeing boxcars on all of the sidings around the time the Home Depot opened up over there. I think that was the early 90s. After about a year or two, the boxcars stopped showing up and the branch slowly started growing over.

There was an M&E owned FL9 or two stored back there a few years ago and perhaps a coach or some other equipment too, but I'm not 100% on that.

I know at least one of the former warehouses is now almost entirely office space, but Vornado Properties or whoever the current owner is (the last I checked) still had "warehouse space" available at the site. The site would probably make a decent transload/distribution center due to its proximity to Route 10, Eisenhower Parkway, I-280 and I-287 (little longer hop to I-80). Traffic is kind of a mess on Route 10, though, even during the non-rush hours. Something like a cold storage warehouse would probably be a good fit as the population in a 10 mile radius of the site must be in the millions.
 #860825  by SemperFidelis
 
I'm sure R36 is correct for regular service. It pretty well coincides with my hazy memories.

However, I would like to reiterate that there was an FL9 on the tracks only a few years ago. Doesn't really count, I know. When they were clearing brush I was sure hoping someone had moved in who needed service again.
 #860874  by blockline4180
 
SemperFidelis wrote: When they were clearing brush I was sure hoping someone had moved in who needed service again.

Thyey really love to fool you a lot like that!!! :P :( :P
 #863050  by Greg
 
SemperFidelis wrote:I'm sure R36 is correct for regular service. It pretty well coincides with my hazy memories.

However, I would like to reiterate that there was an FL9 on the tracks only a few years ago. Doesn't really count, I know. When they were clearing brush I was sure hoping someone had moved in who needed service again.
It actually derailed and I was able to watch them rerail it. There was also a delivery on a flat car after '91 (maybe 96 or 97). I believe it was something that was off-loaded onto a flat bed and trucked to Novartis.