Delaware and Raritan River Railroad-General Discussion

Tanker1497 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 19, 2023 10:40 am

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2023 12:32 pm Huh? Amerigas is still there as of yesterday. Trucks parked in there and no signs saying for sale.

I thought BG only went with the trucking from Freehold because Conrail agreed to cover the cost? A lot of the old Conrail crews and some of the longtime railfans told my friend that’s why BG in Toms River stopped getting cars…

My understanding was that they gave them a better delivery rate to stop getting cars on the Trit that may have covered the rate that it cost for trucking at that time.

I wonder if that deal is still in effect, since now there is another railroad involved that isn't just CR. That being said, BG in Toms River is pretty tiny and received maybe one to three cars at a time from what I heard.

Speaking of very small carloads, has Marjam received anything recently?

Freehold Team Track is indeed being rebuilt, per Facebook. Seems like it will be longer than the original, since much of the original was buried, so I assume they are expecting some decent use of its rebuild.

Marjam hasn’t gotten anything since before the takeover.

The deal was terminated a few years ago by Conrail.

I was also over there the other day and noticed that a tree at the end of the team track had been marked for removal. The Earth barrier is gone too…

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 19, 2023 3:51 pm Marjam hasn’t gotten anything since before the takeover.

The deal was terminated a few years ago by Conrail.

I was also over there the other day and noticed that a tree at the end of the team track had been marked for removal. The Earth barrier is gone too…

Whoah. That means for real that they will be having a pretty large team track there.

Is 31 gonna bring the train down to Red Bank tomorrow?

JB-1 brought 8 cars to Jamesburg for Conrail to pick up today. They had 1888, 2005 hasn’t been used at all lately…

AFAIK 31 didn’t run to Red Bank tonight, so I doubt RB-1 will run tomorrow. If they do I might not be able to report it, minus what I hear on the scanner.

Means a big train for RB-1 on Friday

SA31 went to Dayton today. Chances are no RB-1 until Friday.

What is the latest with Okerson Rd to Howell Rd?

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I’ll get some more pictures Friday.

From what I can see from the road, they have proceeded, with ties and rail, between a third and half the distance from Okerson to Howell.
This is not going near as fast as the clearing or roadbed prep. nor would I have expected it to.

I'd be shocked if this project was done before November.

I just passed by Okerson and Howell Rds today. They are laying ballast! There's a big mound of it by Okerson Rd. Some sort of wheeled, non-railroad vehicle was doing the ballast laying while on the tracks.

CharlieL wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 7:37 am From what I can see from the road, they have proceeded, with ties and rail, between a third and half the distance from Okerson to Howell.
This is not going near as fast as the clearing or roadbed prep. nor would I have expected it to.

The track laying seems to have gotten to just under the Rt 33 bridge, which isn't too far from Howell Rd. Maybe a quarter of a mile to go before they reach Howell Rd? Maybe less? I can see them reaching Howell Rd by the end of this week.

Let's say they take two weeks to get the 0.6 miles between Okerson and Howell Rds done. There are around 5-6 miles between where they started at Okerson, and Railroad Ave in Farmingdale. At that rate, they would finish the project in about 8-10 weeks at minimum, and we're 2 weeks into that time frame so far. At that rate, they could finish the track laying by late April or early May.

April or May is probably too early too account for whatever holidays/issues/etc. may arise, especially as there's no sign that crossing work will start soon.

They only started laying tracks last week IIRC, and we had just had the 3 or 4 day President's Day holiday weekend, so I don't think the speed of work last week (or even this week) will be the speed from here on out.

CR7876 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 11:29 am I'd be shocked if this project was done before November.

I'd be shocked if they didn't get the project done by summer. They've cleared the entire ROW of thick growth, and have begun leveling and grading quite a bit of the ROW. I'm not an MoW guy, but I'd imagine you'd want to get the project done ASAP before you have to start fighting the thick Spring and Summer vegetation growth before the tracks are even laid, before the elements start to affect the clearance and the grading that is being done now.

Any idea why they are using up the wood ties and yet none of the steel ties? I had thought perhaps they would use the wood ties for the grade crossings and approaches and the steel ties for the rest. But that does not seem to be the case. I expect progress with steel ties to go a bit faster because the gauge is already set with tie plate holes punched, and no spike driving, just slamming the E clips in. From what videos I saw steel tie track goes much faster.

Even more confusing is the fact that they are using the old rail. Where’s the 27500 feet of rail they called for in the grant going?