New Haven Belle Dock

[Ridgefielder]

Yes, Connecticut Southern handles the through traffic between West Springfield and Cedar Hill, and the Conrail/CSX terminal operation in New Haven has been an isolated island for a couple decades now. I have to presume that CSX makes money off their Cedar Hill business since otherwise they (or Conrail before them) wouldn't have kept it when the Shore Line East freight was spun off to P&W. CSX serves the two surviving freight customers at Mamaroneck and Darien out of Oak Point, and runs no through freights between Oak Point and Cedar Hill. Customers in West Haven and thereabouts are handled by a Cedar Hill crew. P&W got the Belle Dock line from Conrail, ran down there before all the construction mess began, and will serve any future customers that appear in the harbor neighborhood.

Thank you Tom and boatsmate. Everything more or less makes sense now, although I guess I don't understand the building of this new branch to the dock by the City of New Haven, or was there an old spur before that was ripped out at some point? From Aerial imagery, there seems to be quite a bite of track down along there, and clearly all of the track is not new, but my contact sent me a photo of a brand new track that terminated at a gate fence, encased in a concrete crossing, which is high $$$$.

I think there's been track down to Belle Dock from basically the dawn of railroads in CT in the 1830's. IIRC the Belle was a Long Island Sound steamer on the New Haven - New York run before the Civil War

[CannaScrews]

An abbreviated reply on the history of Belle Dock.

Starting on the East side of the Forbes Avenue bridge, originally, the spur went into the New Haven Terminal yard north of Forbes Ave.
The spur heading south served various wharves and terminated at the old coke plant (they gassified coal to turn it into coke (solid carbon)).

Here is an aerial view from 1949 which will give you an idea of how much business was there. The tracks ran on the Forbes Ave drawbridge at the time.

BTW Belle Dock was on the West side of the Quinnipiac River.

Belle Dock 1947 aerial N.jpg (176.74 KiB) Viewed 7826 times

Belle Dock 1947 aerial S.jpg (80.39 KiB) Viewed 7826 times

[ebtmikado]

There was track building equipment on the Waterfront Street trackage this past week. I was on the highway bridge, and unable to see what work was being done.

Lee Carlson

[fl9m2004]

Is there a schedule because every time I go up 95 I don't see any trains or cars there

[ebtmikado]

There has been service down there since at least 2013, when I snapped photos.
Videos from last week to follow shortly.
Lee

[ebtmikado]

VIDEOS on the Belle Dock Branch from last week:

Switching on the Belle Dock 8/4/2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEgolzdrJIA

NH-1 crossing the Tomlinson Bridge 8/13/2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEgolzdrJIA

Lee

[ebtmikado]

Traffic on the Belle Dock Branch in New Haven has picked up to a level where it currently being served 3 times per week or so, by NH-1, which has been reestablished as a regular job.
Here is a video of NH-1 switching the branch on August 4:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEgolzdrJIA

Lee

[craven]

What do those odd shaped CSX Rail cars hold? I've never seen anything like that.

[BobLI]

The CSX cars carry coiled steel. The covers on the car protect the coils in transit from getting contaminated and rusting.

[MEC407]

Excellent video! Very nice camera work and editing.

[johnpbarlow]

On Saturday Feb 27, the GRWO had about dozen cars of steel billets and rebar interchanged fro Pan Am that were destined for the Gateway terminal at Port of New Haven. Any ide where this steel originates?

[YamaOfParadise]

Actually, the April issue of Trains magazine has an article on the P&W, and it does mention quite a bit about different traffic:

Gondolas, carrying steel "billets" from several producers in the eastern U.S. and Canada, arrive on the P&W through various interchanges and make their way to Gateway Terminal in the Port of New Haven. Gateway is a deepwater marine terminal operator that stores and delivers the incoming lengths of steel to local finishers that produce rebar and steel rods. Some of those same gondolas leave New Haven with imported Asian steel that arrives there by water.

Not exactly a proper location of what producers particularly, but it gives you a good ballpark.