Conrail on the Lackawanna Cutoff

Last year I saw this truck parked alongside a grade crossing on the former lackawanna cutoff near green twp nj. I posted a question on one of these forums and asked everyone if they had ever seen any blue conrail vehicles, new blue not the old ones. Nobody believed me and well I found the picture on my old computer and here it is. A dark blue conrail truck, has anyone besides me seen this?

I've never personally seen a truck like this, but I'm sure someone on this forum can provide a better answer. Did it have Commercial plates?

My guess it might be privately owned by an individual with a Conrail emblem on the door.
I have never seen any Conrail vehicles that looked like this and this is a relatively new vehicle as well.
Noel Weaver

That was my guess. Probably a magnetic sign.

i didn't notice the plates, I've seen the newer conrail chevy pickups in and around south plainfield but they are all white, i had to spin back around and snap that photo

the truck problay belongs to one of those nut jobs running around with overals and a engineer cap and blowing a woodn thomas whistle
toot ttooot
toot

What about the "jobs" driving around with a small air compressor and large air horn under the hood?

Not Conrail related, but there will be some work being done on the cut-off......the following is a snippet:

Lackawanna Cutoff restoration work begins
Published: February 25, 2011
ANDOVER, N. J. – It’s only a short segment, but preliminary work on a $551 million project to restore 7 miles of the Lackawanna Cutoff in western New Jersey has begun, the New Jersey Herald reports.......

http://trn.trains.com/en/Railroad%20New ... egins.aspx
*Note* Must be a subscriber of Trains Magazine to access......

Charlie

Pretty clearly a standard public issue 1/2 or 3/4 ton truck, not a fleet truck; about the lightest trucks the Class I's use are 1-ton pickups. Other giveaways are that it's an extended cab, conventional bed, aluminum wheels, has the 4x4 dressup lettering on it; etc.. Last but not least, the Cutoff hasn't been Conrail property since the early 1980s or so, so there's no reason for Conrail people to be there.

On the subject of who owns the Lackawanna cutoff, I think NS owns it. I remember seeing a post on the EL mailing list about NS' fiber-optic network and how one of their fiber optic lines uses the ROW of the Lackawanna cutoff. (Although that also could mean that NS only owns the rights to string fiber optics on the ROW and nothing more.)

GulfRail wrote:On the subject of who owns the Lackawanna cutoff, I think NS owns it. I remember seeing a post on the EL mailing list about NS' fiber-optic network and how one of their fiber optic lines uses the ROW of the Lackawanna cutoff. (Although that also could mean that NS only owns the rights to string fiber optics on the ROW and nothing more.)

The State of New Jersey owns it. I can't remember who owns it on the Pennsylvania side, though.

It could very well be NS on the Pennsy side of the river. I do recall seeing fiber optic markers along the ROW last time I was on that end of the line. None in Jersey, though.

Conrail sold the whole thing to a developer named Turco (IIRC) who had plans to remove the fill and use it elsewhere, but they never came to fruition. NJ took back the portion in their state via emenent domain. I'm not sure who currently has the segment in PA, but there was a short segment that also belonged to Turco at one time.

lvrr325 wrote:Conrail sold the whole thing to a developer named Turco (IIRC) who had plans to remove the fill and use it elsewhere, but they never came to fruition. NJ took back the portion in their state via emenent domain. I'm not sure who currently has the segment in PA, but there was a short segment that also belonged to Turco at one time.

Conrail removed most of the the trackage in 1984 by rail train (the section between Slateford and the Delaware Viaduct remained until March 1989). In 1985 the ROW was sold to Jerry Truco (I believe was his name). Then came rumors that the Cutoff fills would be used as landfills for New York trash, which sparked outcry, resulting in a 1989 ballot act approving state control of certain former rail lines for development anf other purposes.

I was too lazy to really look it up, but if you can't just google the info anyone with a decent set of magazines from the 1983-1986 period you should be able to find the details... Trains, Railfan, Railpace, maybe Rails Northeast... what I posted previously was taken from one of those old articles.