Long Frieght On The BCL...

Wow, havn't seen one of these in a while...

Just got stopped at rutherford Crossing for about 5 minutes to watch 4 locomotives (unheard of and unseen in years on the BCL for me) and 75 misc frieght cars headed east towards Croxton.

Thought I would never see one of those again after the merger. Wow, with all that cargo behind the locos, that must have emptied out Hillburn pretty good. Unless NS is starting to use the Southern Teir again for a regular Frieght route...

Interesting. I wonder why that occured and if it will happen again.

So this would qualify as "BIG FREIGHT" ?

Sullivan,

Someone mentioned on the NS yahoo lists that they saw this same train go through Ridgewood. Is it possible that this was just the power from the 33K bringing cars back from Suffern to Croxton? If not, then it could have been a detour although I didn't hear anything about a detour on the Tier.......


Steve

Due to the ongoing problems at HX, there had been a ban on freight movements over the bridge since last weekend. It sounds like they fixed the bridge enough to allow the freight moves, so all of the cars that had been "stranded" west of there (Suffern & Campbell Hall) could finally get down to Croxton.

During the week several NS locals came out of Croxton onto the BC at HX Int, used a few hundred feet for headroom, then reversed for Laurel, the reversed and went west on the Main Line to reach consignees with "hot" cars. I don't recall which day it was, but I heard H55 and H82 both making this move, I think it was Thursday.

Where (and when) does the H82 normally work?

BlockLine_4111 wrote:So this would qualify as "BIG FREIGHT" ?

Well on the BCL, yeah its pretty big.

I guess the bridge does make a lot of scense to why the train was so long. Intresting Lashup it had... A NS Dash-9 (not sure of the exact model number) and a 3 of Ex-Conrail GP38's.

So this would qualify as "BIG FREIGHT" ?

Not by Colorado standards, right Block? When I was out there last year, I lost count on a coal train after 174.

Just talked to a friend of mine that works for NS out of Croxton. He told me there is a big bottleneck of cars at Campbell Hall (did I spell that right?) because of the HX bridge being out. So there is a good chance that we'll see some good size trains going through Rutherford.

xXwelderXx wrote:i work at a body shop right along the track in ridgewood and i tell you this, i get to see the local frieght every morning. But that 75+ car frieght was awesome to see last week.

Brings back some good memories...

I still remember all those stack trains the Conrail used to bring through. at least 3 a week. And long ones too. Like 5 maybe 6 units and 100+ cars trains.

About the backup of cars in Campbell Hall for Coxton, what I don't understand is why they just didn't bring them down the
NJT main line (ex DLW route). That goes over a different bridge over the Hackensack
River. Are there some clearance problems maybe? Can't go through the new Secaucus transfer station for some reason?
Thanks, JS

I guess NJT would'nt allow them.

pumpers wrote:About the backup of cars in Campbell Hall for Coxton, what I don't understand is why they just didn't bring them down the
NJT main line (ex DLW route). That goes over a different bridge over the Hackensack
River. Are there some clearance problems maybe? Can't go through the new Secaucus transfer station for some reason?
Thanks, JS

Because first off, Freight is not allowed in that part of the NJT system. Plus, the entire train would have to pull into ST, and either reverse and uncouple, run around then recouple. NJT would not like or allow such a move. It would tie up 4 lines and nobody would be happy.

Second, The Main Line after ST has no connection with any freight system. The only croxton connection remaining after the rerouting of the Bergen Line is just east of HX.

And even if NJT did allow freight to come over Upper Hack, the train would still roll onto HX because the croxton switch is only a few yards from the bridge.

If it was a real emergancy to get those cars out of Campbell Hall, the only solution I can think of to get those cars out would be to ship them over the NYS&W either right from NY, or bring them down the BCL to Saddle River and continue onto croxton that way.

I should have mentioned that I headr Croxton has a back up of cars too.

MikeW wrote:Just talked to a friend of mine that works for NS out of Croxton. He told me there is a big bottleneck of cars at Campbell Hall (did I spell that right?) because of the HX bridge being out. So there is a good chance that we'll see some good size trains going through Rutherford.

I saw one last Friday night... don't know how long it was, but at least 30 cars I'd say.