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  • Question about the "WAKE", the Tropicana Juice train in 1979

  • Discussion related to the operations and equipment of Consolidated Rail Corp. (Conrail) from 1976 to its present operations as Conrail Shared Assets. Official web site can be found here: CONRAIL.COM.
Discussion related to the operations and equipment of Consolidated Rail Corp. (Conrail) from 1976 to its present operations as Conrail Shared Assets. Official web site can be found here: CONRAIL.COM.

Moderators: TAMR213, keeper1616

 #1081865  by green_elite_cab
 
Hi,

I have been working on building a complete graph schedule of all trains on the Northeast Corridor. There is one train that I cannot seem to find the schedule information on, the Tropicana Juice train. In the late 1970s, this train went under the train symbol WAKE, Potomac Yard to Kearny, NJ.

Thought it is mentioned on the "Unit Train" schedules of several Conrail Freight schedules (found on Multimodalways.org), no specific times are actually listed for this train.

So....

Does anyone have a more detailed schedule for this train, or at the very least, approximately when it would be arriving in Kearny, preferably in 1979?
 #1082013  by ExCon90
 
To the best of my recollection, the train ran at the convenience of Tropicana -- when it was loaded and ready, it left, and it had 36 hours to get to Kearny, with a 12-hour cushion to maintain temperature. The cars were insulated to be good for 48 hours, but were not refrigerator cars; they were electrically pre-cooled at origin and were unplugged just before departure. Consequently the train had a high priority along its entire route, and whenever it arrived at Potomac Yard it was moved immediately onward to Kearny.
 #1082406  by RailsEast
 
Agreed, no set schedule, but when Tropicana was ready. I don't know about the late '70s, but the late '80s saw the train through Port Reading Junction (Bound Brook/Manville, NJ) frequently on Sundays during season; I seem to remember the symbol as 'OJT-01' or 'OJT-12' (whatever the originating date on CR was).
I can't say I remember hearing the symbol 'WAKE', though...
Chris
 #1101792  by Freddy
 
Worked on a signal gang following a rail gang in Bradenton Fla.(home of Tropicana). We were right beside the loading docks. You could go inside to the vending machines and just press a
button,no money needed since Tropicana was a division of Coca-Cola. That was in 88. In 79 I worked on a section gang at Kingsland Ga. the juice train came by us northbound as I remember
a little after 9am. To the best of my knowledge the route was Bradenton to Baldwin Fl. to Callahan Fl.,Kingsland Ga.,Richmond Hill Ga. Ogeechee River then Savannah and on north.
 #1113953  by ExCon90
 
JimBoylan wrote:Does WAKE mean Way (freight) Albany (division) (from) KEarney?
Normally that's just what it would mean, but such designations were only used for local freights, which frequently ran only short distances and returned to their initial terminal -- there would also be a number assigned to identify the run, such as WAKE-1. I don't have any schedule books from that period, but if they were using WA (for Washington) to represent Potomac Yard, a road freight from PotYard to Kearny would be symboled WAKE without a number (there was a time when they didn't yet append departure dates).
 #1114116  by green_elite_cab
 
ExCon90 wrote:
JimBoylan wrote:Does WAKE mean Way (freight) Albany (division) (from) KEarney?
Normally that's just what it would mean, but such designations were only used for local freights, which frequently ran only short distances and returned to their initial terminal -- there would also be a number assigned to identify the run, such as WAKE-1. I don't have any schedule books from that period, but if they were using WA (for Washington) to represent Potomac Yard, a road freight from PotYard to Kearny would be symboled WAKE without a number (there was a time when they didn't yet append departure dates).
My books indicate that the four letter "codes" mention origin and destination. WA was Potomac Yard, just outside Washington DC. KE was Kearny, NJ.

another example would be ENCC, Enola-Chemical Coast, or CREN, Croxton-Enola. These trains may be broken into sections which would then be numbered.
 #1114232  by TAMR213
 
Another example of a road freight symbol would be what was always my favorite, OIPI (Oak Island-Pittsburgh)

An example of a local train (or in this case technically a yard job): YPME-2
Y(ard) P(hiladelphia) ME(tuchen) - 2
 #1115032  by ExCon90
 
No -- WA, while derived from the name Washington, stood for Potomac Yard, in Virginia, where actual interchange took place. I'm not sure why CR didn't simply use PY, unless it was because all other trains to or from PotYard either terminated or originated there, all cars being redistributed to other trains, whereas the OJT simply "relayed" through, with just an engine and crew change (and the usual interchange inspection), with no change in the consist. I can't prove it, but I think the OJT was the only train of which that was true.