CR on the Southern Secondary

Lined and locked normal, 3:30 PM. NS 5634, NS 5311 + 17 Woodhavens, 1 brick, 1 tank

Thanks, Donny; pretty cool that two ex-Penn Central units are still working hard today in the northeast. Yes, I was practicing 'safe distancing' from the crew amidst this Covid-19 pandemic (I was about 20 feet above them, I think we were all good). A 19-car train for 3 customers on the Southern is very good to see.
Through Eatontown this afternoon.....

http://njtwom.rrpicturearchives.net/sho ... id=5286724

Be safe, be healthy,
Chris

Well done Chris!

With the weather, would've been nice to get out and see the train today. Am working from home this week, but we are required to stay on our normal schedules and I had two online meetings this afternoon. But, my son was able to catch the train coming into Red Bank.

How many customers are on the Southern now?
I remember
Red Bank Recycling ( no ?)
Is ABC Supply and active customer? ( 100 ft north of Parkway)
Extech Building Mat'ls
Mult Alloys on Oak Glen rd ? There was MOW equipment on that siding in 1988-ish.
Woodhaven Lumber
What about Clayton Block, next to Woodhaven?

That it?

Only Extech (which gets 6 cars a year give or take), Bel-Ray, and Woodhaven are left.

SA-31 permission on Church at 2:37 PM
Permission to open up at 3:14 PM
Lined and locked normal at 3:27 PM

NS 5634 shf + 12, 11 for Woodhaven & a tank for Bel-Ray, through Eatontown at 4:45 in the pm.

There's also Brick Recycling

snavely wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 4:37 pm There's also Brick Recycling

As far as we know, they aren't a customer anymore. It's been over a year since they've received a car.

Thanks for the updates on the train today. Another day at the 'home' office today.

Something for a discussion on customers as I don't know the answers to them all.

Did another business move into the former PolyOne building? That closing really hurt the SA35 and the Southern.
Another loss was the fire at Gold Lumber, though with not rebuilding, one would wonder how long they would last as a rail customer.
A good idea was the transload facility in Lakehurst. That was ceased not by the railroad as I recall, but by competitors.

Clayton did move into the former Woodhaven location which did have a siding. I don't know if Clayton would be able to receive cars of a product/mix or send products out by rail.
There was a customer who received wooden poles on the DiNaso siding. I don't remember their name, so I don't know what happened to them. There was always boxcars and centerbeams on the siding at DiNaso. And a lake after it rained.

And yes, the track is disconnected beyond the runaround at Cross Street, and Conrail would need to clear the tracks, but I think that the Joint Base would be considered active, although they haven't received anything in quite some time. Part of the merger of the three bases was emphasis on keeping them from the chopping block and having an active rail line was an added bonus.

As far as Lakehurst NAS goes, I would not expect anything there. The siding that was built was purely to haul contaminated soil from the BOMARC site over on Rt 539. Originally, IT Group, who had the remediation contract, wanted to haul the spoils to the center of Lakehurst to be trans-loaded out. The town of Manchester objected to allowing the contractor from running his dump trucks loaded with potentially plutonium contaminated soil down Rt 70 (Lakehurst sits like the hole in a donut with Manchester relatively surrounding it) for fear of a possible accident. The whole issue was eliminated when the Navy permitted the trucks to travel via dirt road through the center of the NAS to reach the siding, which had been extended from the other side of S.Hope Chapel Rd/Cnty Rt 547 to just inside the Contractor gate on NAS property.

Once the dig and haul was completed (around 2000-2001?), as far as I recall, there was a one time minor use of the siding for storing a Comet I car and then nothing since. The original tracks on Lakehurst used to enter the property at a similar point in the fence and then paralleled northwards along Cnty 547 just within the fence ( you can just make out the berm that the tracks originally were laid on in the trees). It had a switch which allowed one spur to permit a train to approach Hangar 1 (passenger pick up in the 1930's for zeppelin traffic?) and the other part of the tracks continued North and then turned inwards to the Naval facility and ran to their supply buildings.

Theoretically, they could rebuild tracks to make them useful for freight purposes.

I would think it would be more useful to rebuild the rails from south of Ft Dix through Pemberton, back through the post, past the old warehouses (are the warehouses still standing?) and over to McGuire AFB. Many years ago, McGuire used to receive coal and jet fuel before they built the pipeline. Those tracks could better support more of the Mega Base infrastructure. I think the unused tracks laid there until just after the first Gulf War and then were torn up. The old Union Transportation ROW (from the north side) is history and would near impossible to restore since they ripped up the Camden & Amboy through Hightstown.

Does anyone know if the train went back last night?

How does Belray get the oil from the other (far) side of the Brick Recycling building ??

exdirtbiker wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:31 am How does Belray get the oil from the other (far) side of the Brick Recycling building ??

The SA-38 drills Bel-Ray on the return trip North. On that property, there are two tracks. One for Brick (Which isn't used anymore) and one for Bel-Ray which runs up next to the building visible from Route 34.

Yes, train returned last night, through Shrewsbury at 0320 hours. Bel-Ray gets their product by transloading into an 18-wheel tanker truck, which then proceeds next door to offload into their large storage tanks on the property. I suspect it takes 3 or 4 trips to empty the rail car.
Chris