Detours-rare over the years?

I remember a CSX trailor train being detoured over the NYSW and then being re-detoured over Moodna Viaduct because of a derailment on the Hudson Secondary around late 1999 or 2000. The train stopped in Suffern to pick up an NS cab signalled unit to put in the lead and then continued down to Passaic Junction where it went back on NYSW tracks

Is there any further information online about the Amtrak detour due to Conrail's 1977 Metuchen wreck?

December 1946. The PRR Philadelphia & Long Branch trestle over Barnegat Bay burned, severing Camden-Whitings-Toms River-Seaside Park-Bay Head-Long Branch service forever. Five days later, the NY&Long Branch trestle over Matawan Creek burned, putting it OOS.

Within two days CNJ & PRR trains were running Bay Head to Matawan. PRR trains were running from Long Branch west (south) to Sea Girt and then across the Freehold & Jamesburg Agri RR to Jamesburg, then east (north) to South Amboy. CNJ trains were running from Sea Girt (PRR) to Freehold and then Matawan via the CNJ Freehold Branch. CNJ and PRR trains were running down the Southern from Red Bank to Farmingdale and then to Freehold and Jamesburg. Matawan provided bus service around the trestle, and trains ran to each end of the trestle at Matawan and Morgan, while other trains ran a complicated series of detours over each other's lines. It worked too!

Sure can't do that today.

During the mid to late 80's, I saw an eastbound Conrail man detour via the Raritan Valley Line to Aldene. Interestingly, it happened during rush hour and he was doing his best to get out of the way. Listening to him climb the ramp was quite an experience.

Back in 2010 (or maybe 2009) NS ran 212 up the Aldene connection onto the Vleey. It was on a Sunday and as I recall it was sunny but quite cold when the did it. Sorry , no pictures.

last year, when CR/NJT were rebuilding the connection inbetween the Lehigh Line and the RVL in Bound Brook, several nights a week, they were detouring the local freight that serves the RVL down the ramp at Aldene and using NJT engineer pilots for it - unfortunately i didn't catch any of that work

RAHWAY VALLEY wrote:During June 1978 Conrail piled-up a freight train along the Northeast Corridor in Metuchen. Amtrak detoured trains via several odd-ball routes, including at least two trains running via the Aldene Ramp, Raritan Valley Line to CP Brook, and the Trenton Line to Philly. The most interesting Amtrak detours operated via the North Jersey Coast Line to ESSAY, the Amboy Secondary via Brown's Yard to Jamesburg then to Monmouth Junction and back onto the Northeast Corridor. Those trains operating via Brown's Yard were powered by GG1s. Photos of those detours were published in the Tri-State RHS Block Line sometime in 1978.

Not to bring something back from the dead, but just found these cool photos (courtesy of one of RR.net's own) of I believe the wreck that RAHWAY is referring to:

http://www.jhalpin.com/metuchen/wreck.htm

Must have been quite a sight to see a GG1 hauled Amtrak train coming through Helmetta...

Great Metuchen pics. What was the white powder all over the ground? Something they'd be in hazmat suits to handle today?

I read in the Philadelphia newspapers of 2 different freight train wrecks on the Reading's New York line (Bound Brook RR) in Pennsylvania. One was a coal train at Langhorne, the other a rear end collision between Southbound Jersey Central and Reading Co. freights in the same area. Both times, the morning Wall Street and Crusader R.D.C. trains were combined and detoured via Bethlehem, where they changed ends and ran via Phillipsburg, N.J. to Bound Brook and their regular route. The 2nd detour was in the early 1970s, probably after the Central RR. of Pennsylvania had been abandoned between Freemansburg and Easton, so part of the detour had to be over the Lehigh Valley. I don't know if it took the LV all the way to Hunter Tower, or crossed over to the Central RR of New Jersey somewhere West of Bound Brook. The Reading's "New Yorkers" were scheduled to discharge passengers at Bound Brook on the morning trips. The LV does run next to the CNJ station.