L&HR customers - 1960s

I am attempting to model the L&HR in HO scale from Belvidere, NJ to Warwick, NY and am trying to learn as much as I can about the LHR's on-line customers. I know that the bulk of their freight traffic was bridge-line traffic but understand that they did have some on-line customers. A couple of customer names that I've been able to pick up from my search are: Gamma Chemical, PS Kramer, Plastoid Corp, Jones Chemical, NJZ (Zinc Mine) and Limecrest (limestone quarry). Can anyone give me some feedback as to who the on-line customers of the LHR were and what they received or shipped by rail.
Thanks wrt

Don't forget the dairy/creamery businesses as well. Sorry, I don't have exact locations, but the Boyd/Antz book on the LHR has some pix.

Yes, milk was big business on the L&H up until the mid thirties. There was Borden up in New Milford being one of the biggest. The only others I can think of off hand that weren't mentioned are the Harris Pine Mill in Tranquility, they made furniture and the Atlas Cement Co. on the atlas spur just north of Franklin yard. Good luck with the layout sounds like a great idea.

Thanks for the feedback so far. I probably should have been a little more specific on my time frame for the model railroad. I am targeting the mid 1960's (1964 - 1968). The hardest thing to date is trying to understand what the LHR delivered or took away from these companies. Many books including ANTZ's book drop names of customers but not what specific function the LHR had on delivery or pick-up of goods. Some of the customers like NJZ and Limecrest are obvious but other are not.

"Can anyone give me some feedback as to who the on-line customers of the LHR were and what they received or shipped by rail." I was just reading an article last night that said the L&H picked up tank cars of NaOH (Lye, Caustic soda) from Gamma chem, they probably made other nasty stuff but one thing we know is they shipped castic soda. Also the article said PS Kramer got a tank car a month of tar, I don't have any idea what they did with it and the town of Mc Afee got hoppers of salt for its road dept. Hope some of this info is usefull.

Thanks for the information - very useful. Due to the time that has elasped since the trains stopped running it has been difficult trying to get any kind of idea at to what some of the businesses like PS Kramer, Gamma Chemical etc looked like. Many of them have been demolished leaving no trace of their existance. If anyone has any pictures of these businesses when they were serviced by the LHR it would make my HO re-creation much more realistic looking. Thanks

In the Village of Warwick was Conklin & Strong, which is still served. Back then, it had, I think, two tracks on the ground and one that went into a building on an elevated siding for coal. One of the tracks on the ground went along the main line and ended on their property where a large concrete pad was for unloading. A little ways outside of town was a building that had a coal siding. The buiding is still there and I think remnants of the coal trestle. There was also GLF (?) in the village that had an elevated interior building siding. This was for coal and the building was open on one side. Outside the Village was Singer Sewing Machine. This is still there as a dod food company, Triumph. This is one of those modern buidings that are easily available in H-O. They had a siding with two or three doors for unloading box cars. I am pretty sure that the creamery on Prices Switch Road had their siding into the late 60's, although it was probably not used. Jones Chemical would be neat to model: they have a small switcher and are located in the old L&HR engine house. The turntable used to be used as a lead track for a siding that was used for tank cars. If you model Jones, you might want to get one of those chlorine cylinder flat cars that are now being made in brass. Used to see them down there. Maybe Marty will chime in here on what I missed or goofed up on.

Kramer was an asphalt plant, I know this because my grandfather was the road superintendent for Liberty Township and that was where they got their paving materials.

FWIW-

Onions and probably other produce were loaded in reefers at Great Meadows on the team track. Great MEadows also had Morgan's Feed Store and a coal unloading trestle located where teh creamery had previously been. Onions/produce were also loaded at Warwick and probably other locales around the "black dirt". Onions were also shipped IN from the west to suppliers during the "off" season.

The NJ ZInc traffic was shipped to a NJZ processing plant in Palmterton PA.

L&HR served the Lime Crest quarry at Lime Crest.

Historically, Huntsville had a cheese factory and livestock unloading/loading ramp.

That's about all I can remember right now off the top of my head that others haven't already mentioned.

No photos, but for Kramer think a couple of oil tank-farm type tanks, also some smaller horizontal tanks on stands, and a large garage-type building. Lots of piping around. I know that's not much, but if no photos surface that's at least the basic concept. Check out L&HR in Color, the two-volume Carstens L&HR books, and Bob Pennisi's L&HR book, these I'm sure you will find to be treasure troves of info and photos inclduing some that do show the online businesses.

"Kramer was an asphalt plant, I know this because my grandfather was the road superintendent for Liberty Township and that was where they got their paving materials."

Thanks oibu for that info I've been wondering what they did there at Kramer.

I'm from Warwick and just started doing the same type of project. I found the old L&HR I found the Boyd & Antz book to be good for the pics. I'm focusing on the RR from the 1960's to its end. Ive have downtown Warwick set up however I'm trying to fnd where the shop was located.

Potamus, hoping you're still on this thread. When going through some of the older threads today I came across this subject. I happened to find a 1964 customer bill sheet that some one gave me. Here are some additional customers from 1964:
Belvidere: 44 cars to IMCO Container
Pequest: 16 cars to Werkheiser Feed Service
Great Meadows: John Rogers Trucking Company-they do produce-still there in Townsbury
Long Bridge: Carl Gibbs 4 cars , agriculture
Allamuchy: Gibbs Farms 25 cars, Gibbs Bros. 24 cars, agriculture
Tranquility: Tranqulity Feed Supply 18 cars, Harris Pine Mills-furniture-38 cars
Andover: Miller's Sheep Ranch 15 cars, livestock, the LHR also picked up cars from Agway in Branchville-probably at Andover Yard from Sussex Branch D.L.W.
Woodruff's Gap: Umbriam Farms-38 cars-most likely agricultural, plenty of gravel was taken from here as well in the early 60's for G.W. Bridge lower deck
Franklin: Agway-125 cars; B.D. Simmons, coal-11 cars; Harden Lumber 3 cars; Barney's Hatchery-2 cars, NJ Zinc-2600 cars
Hamburg: Mills and Roy -84 cars, Plastoid 14 cars
McAfee: Sussex County 12 cars-probably the sand mentioned earlier
Vernon: Vernon Feed Supply 2 cars
As mentioned earlier on in the threads, almost every town along the way had a creamery-Price's Switch lasted the longest in Vernon
Additional customers that faded out in the 30's/40's- Bethlehem Steel-McAfee; Atlas Cement -Hamburg, Pequest Furnace-Pequest; Belford Coal-Belvidere, Lehigh/Oxford Mines-Buttzville;Alphano Muck Works-Alphano,ice from ponds in Lake Grinnell/Andover/McAfee, Sterling Hill Mines-Ogdensburg;NJ Lime in Hamburg and McAfee, Union Wax Paper-Hamburg, Windsor Lime Kilns-Hamburg, Conklin and Strong Lumber -DeKay's, as well as various coal pockets along the way in most towns. The New York gents will have to fill in some of the other pieces left out.
Hope your modeling is going well.
Paul

Thanks Paul for the information, it's very useful. Haven't checked this in a while because I thought I had gotten all the responses I was going to get. It's nice to see folks read some of the old postings and respond as they uncover information. I still continue my modeling quest and will take any and all information about on-line customers into consideration and use it towards making my layout more realistic. Thanks again

Stumbled across this site while surfing the net (http://flickr.com/photos/killswitx/sets ... 717964195/). Apparently this person recently managed to get on to the old Limecrest Quarry property with a camera and took some shots of the place from various vantage points. The pics give a fairly good overview of the eclectic collection of builds on the property and may come in handy for those of you looking to model this site. This was one of the few large customers on the LHR, who from what I've been told took in loads of coal for the kilns and shipped lime out by covered hopper and boxcar (bags). If I'm not mistaken they also shipped out crushed limestone for use as ballast.

My father, who owned Barney's Hatchery with his family during this time, asked me to post his recollections. Barney's had about 2 cars per month, which transported poultry feed, hatching eggs, peat moss, and poultry litter. Barney's was a customer of Harris Pine Mill and purchased redwood outdoor furniture from them.