Hay! Who's that car for???

New NYAR Customer!!!

Belmont Park will be receiving boxcars loaded with hay. The first car is sitting in Pond awaiting delivery, and it is HUGE. More cars are on the way.

Jay

Haaaay! Fester should deliver it personally!

Good going, marketing gurus!

How will that be handled? Does NYA have access to the Belmont yard, or will an agreement have to be reached with the LIRR? Also, is there room for NYA to service Belmont, really? There are cuts of gondolas and hoppers, M.o.W. equipment and there has to be room for LIRR m.u.'s to get in with passengers for racing on the weekends.

Everything has been worked out with the LIRR. They are supposed to unload cars on track 1 in the yard there. The customer actually did most of the work to get this going, they are really eager to get this happening since they currently ship the cars to Syracuse by rail, and then truck it the rest of the way.

FYI, Belmont Park is a former LIRR Freight Customer. Way back when, I believe manure was shipped out (I'm not sure if hay was ever shipped in), and the Pennsylvania RR had specially equipped baggage cars to transport horses to and from the racetrack.

I don't know when the last time freight was handled there. Maybe JJ has a story or two for this.

Jay

If you look closely, there is a siding that runs pararel to the main line behind a fence with a cement platform and ramp that I assume was used to unload horses way back when. The siding is overgrown but is visable in the fall and winter. The cars that Jay mentioned were Pennsy class B-74's which were named after racetracks. car # 5820 was named Aqueduct and car 5823 was named Belmont Park, both were class B-74b's

Aqueduct used to get hay by rail via the Richmond Hill team tracks on Lefferts Blvd.

Talk about huge cars! Here they are, all 89 feet of them!

A common problem with keeping livestock is that the feed attracts rodents..... Be careful.....

I knew there was an excellent reason to keep them over on 11 track, near the street!

Jay

I know little about racing, but wouldn't the horses' owners be responsible for their care, as opposed to the track?

And where do these carloads originate?

Seems that these are ex-auto-parts boxcars I found a link to a photo of sister car # 8026. Anyone know which symbol freight will handle this run?
http://www.railfan.ca/cgi-bin/view.cgi? ... 4_3961.jpg

I don't ever recall seeing 89 foot boxcars on LI. Are these cars going to be able to handle the curve on the wye leading into Belmont?

I assume they will have no problem negotiating the Belmont wye since I witnessed one of them being taken down the east leg of the wye at Fresh Pond. Sure, the sound was ear piercing, but it made it around with no problem!

Are these coming in via CP Rail or CSX?