Freight on the M&E Division

Speaking of freight trains on NJT territory...Does anyone know all the customers left on the Boonton line east of Denville and Dover west to Hackettstown?? I was just curious because 2 days ago I saw a 47 car freight + caboose go west from Dover to Washington...They must be generating all this traffic from somewhere.

Thanks,
Steve

That was a rare train. Mike DelVecchio placed on one of the Yahoo lists that the train would be running with that many car and caboose. He noted that it was a pretty uncommon occurance.

East of Dover
1) Lumber Company in Denville, just west of Route 80
2) Steel stud company (new customer) on the Boonton / Montville town line.
3) One or Two customers on the Totowa Industrial branch
4) Customers on the Newark Branch

West of Dover to Hackettstown
1) M&E at Lake Junction

I don't know of any others off hand

Chris

njt4172 wrote:Speaking of freight trains on NJT territory...Does anyone know all the customers left on the Boonton line east of Denville and Dover west to Hackettstown?? I was just curious because 2 days ago I saw a 47 car freight + caboose go west from Dover to Washington...They must be generating all this traffic from somewhere.

Thanks,
Steve

I would have liked to catch that one if I could. Pretty cool.

cjvrr wrote:That was a rare train. Mike DelVecchio placed on one of the Yahoo lists that the train would be running with that many car and caboose. He noted that it was a pretty uncommon occurance.

East of Dover
1) Lumber Company in Denville, just west of Route 80
2) Steel stud company (new customer) on the Boonton / Montville town line.
3) One or Two customers on the Totowa Industrial branch
4) Customers on the Newark Branch

West of Dover to Hackettstown
1) M&E at Lake Junction

I don't know of any others off hand

Chris

I think you mean Orange branch, not Newark Branch. One customer on the Orange, apparently drilled overnight Thursday eve/Friday am. Newark Branch is worked by jobs out of Suffern. Don't think there is too much business there anymore, although there are still tank cars way down into Newark near the end of the Route 21 Freeway.

Also on the Boonton Line there is a consignee between Little Falls and Great Notch (plastics) and Drakes, which is just east of Mountain View.

There was a place in Wharton that was getting plastics for a while, but not sure if they still are active. Wasn't there a plastics place in Dover by Salem Street, also?

M&M at Hackettstown?
Reheis at Berkeley Heights on the Gladstone.
Nothing on the Morristown Line itself since Atlantic Brick in Chatham closed down.

And down far to the east NS still uses the Morristown Line to get to the lower end of the Harrison Kingsland branch at Harrison. I think there are two customers there. Sometimes the train comes from Croxton down to West End and then out the M&E, other times it uses the Northern Branch/P&H to Center Street and then comes across the M&E at Kearny Jct.

gravelyfan,

I had thought a new brick company was supposed to go into the old Atlantic Brick facilities, but I guess that never really materialized.....I wonder if NJT is gonna rip out those tracks in there......

Steve

Juice place in the complex where Thatcher Glass used to be in Wharton. I think they get tanks.

Thanks for all your responses on this topic!

Steve

On the Totowa Industrial, I believe the pizza place on Riverview gets tank cars of sweetners and covered hoppers of flour regularly. Possibly also press board.

I don't immediately recall any other regular shippers, although there's been talk of possible new tenants in several buildings.

NS job out of Dover was working today (Sunday 11/21/04), Weekend work is highly unusual. I saw the train come west off the Boonton Line at Denville around 130 pm. PRR 3053 and 8 cars (mostly boxes, including 2 Providence & Worcester cars). Perhaps this is connected somehow to the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.

gravelyfan wrote:

cjvrr wrote:That was a rare train. Mike DelVecchio placed on one of the Yahoo lists that the train would be running with that many car and caboose. He noted that it was a pretty uncommon occurance.

East of Dover
1) Lumber Company in Denville, just west of Route 80
2) Steel stud company (new customer) on the Boonton / Montville town line.
3) One or Two customers on the Totowa Industrial branch
4) Customers on the Newark Branch

West of Dover to Hackettstown
1) M&E at Lake Junction

I don't know of any others off hand

Chris

I think you mean Orange branch, not Newark Branch. One customer on the Orange, apparently drilled overnight Thursday eve/Friday am. Newark Branch is worked by jobs out of Suffern. Don't think there is too much business there anymore, although there are still tank cars way down into Newark near the end of the Route 21 Freeway.

Also on the Boonton Line there is a consignee between Little Falls and Great Notch (plastics) and Drakes, which is just east of Mountain View.

There was a place in Wharton that was getting plastics for a while, but not sure if they still are active. Wasn't there a plastics place in Dover by Salem Street, also?

M&M at Hackettstown?
Reheis at Berkeley Heights on the Gladstone.
Nothing on the Morristown Line itself since Atlantic Brick in Chatham closed down.

And down far to the east NS still uses the Morristown Line to get to the lower end of the Harrison Kingsland branch at Harrison. I think there are two customers there. Sometimes the train comes from Croxton down to West End and then out the M&E, other times it uses the Northern Branch/P&H to Center Street and then comes across the M&E at Kearny Jct.

You sure about those tankers? I havn't seen anything along those tracks in a hell of a long time. You used to be able to see them while driving north on 21 while the southbound lanes where on top of you.

The tracks for the most part are still in really decent shape though, so if something was still drilling the Newark Branch, it wouldnt suprise me too much.

I remember on the old RR.net fourms, i asked a question about the newark branch and another one of our crazy Light-Rail wars broke out. Good times, good times...

I was past the chemical company on Rt 21 about 2 weeks ago and saw tank cars there. You can't always see them from the highway.

Around 230 pm today (Sunday, 11/28) a freight came west through Denville, I didn't get to see the head end, but the sound was from a turbocharger-equipped unit. Hind end of the train had boxcars on it.

Second Sunday in a row that there has been a freight up this way.

Yesterday saw that Myles Kelly has taken over the old Atlantic Builders in Chatham serviced by NS. There were no cars on the siding however on the opposite side of the building looked like a new supply of roofing shingles.

Hopefully they'll be some box cars there in the near future.

crnrailal wrote:Yesterday saw that Myles Kelly has taken over the old Atlantic Builders in Chatham serviced by NS. There were no cars on the siding however on the opposite side of the building looked like a new supply of roofing shingles.

Hopefully they'll be some box cars there in the near future.

Myles Kelly may be centralizing in Chatham. Their Montville facility is becoming an office building. Do they still have their big warehouse in Harrison, next to the ballfield next to Supor's? I don't think they get rail shipments there, anymore.

Lackawanna484 wrote:Myles Kelly may be centralizing in Chatham. Their Montville facility is becoming an office building. Do they still have their big warehouse in Harrison, next to the ballfield next to Supor's? I don't think they get rail shipments there, anymore.

The facility at Harrison Ave. (near 1st St.) in Harrison is still listed as Myles Kelly's on their web site - I don't believe it has been rail served since the early 1990s at the latest, as the tracks parallel to 1st St have been disconnected (sections missing, much of the rest paved over) since that time period. For a while some scrap/salvage company (I believe the one on the east side of 1st Street, which had a long unused spur going into its yard) used to load gondolas at the end of this track (pretty much next to the ballfield), around Sussex I think, but IIRC this also stopped over a decade ago.

A slight tidbit of info which stuck in my brain; this building material facility on the corner of Harrison and 1st. was served by railfreight through the 1980s, as I remember at least one time seeing a lumber products car (not sure if it was a centerbeam or bulkhead flat) in the indoor loading dock - I also remember being irritated when the line was severed to this facility in either the late 1980s or early 1990s, during Conrail's dark and bloody "We don't need no stinking railfreight" period. At the time I was in grad school, and had access to the NYU Bobst library - which had an extensive collection of "Railway Age" from the mid-1960s on. Where this is going is that there was an article sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s (probably the latter), where they described Penn Central (this I remember) helping develop new industry in Harrison, and yes, this facility was the one pictured in the article (I would assume this was also the period where they built the Heinz warehouse along Railroad Ave. and a similar one a block West - neither use rail freight now, but during the 1980s the Heinz warehouse usually had 6 or 7 boxcars parked alongside, and was always good for a look-see).

Crap, if PC could make a go of the building materials warehouse, and Conrail couldn't - now who's the bigger bobbleheads?