New guy living on the NYS&W line

Hi - I am new to the site, and I recently bought a house along the NYS&W line in Wyckoff, NJ not far from the old Wortendyke station. I have noticed that the line seems surprisingly quiet - good for me as a homeowner, I suppose, but bad for me as someone who loves trains.

I was wondering if anyone would be willing to share with me what they know about this line, when trains run, where they come from/go to, history, etc. Trains sometimes seem to go by 2 or three a day, but I feel like I haven't seen one in a month. I'd like to get a better understanding of what this line is used for.

Thanks very much.

Road Freights:
SU99 (WB) Runs from Ridgefield Park, NJ to Binghamton, NY. Usually leaves Ridgefield Park in the early evening and arrives in the early morning. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
SU100 (EB) Runs from Binghamton, NY to Ridgefield Park, NJ Usually leaves Binghamton in the evening and arrives in the morning hours. Sunday, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Local:
WS-5/6 (Symbol depends on the mood of the railroad) runs nightly from RP to Sparta for local switching. On SU99 nights leaves after the SU99.
WS-4 and WS-5 tend to go as far west as butler if they run out that far west and are also evening departures.

Witnessed my first train (and I use that term loosely) in a month or so this evening, about 20 minutes ago. Norfolk Southern 5294 pulling ONE Corn Products tank car. That was it.

The westbound SU99 should roll past your house Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons between 4:30 and 6pm. Subject to change but that's when they've been going by as of late. Usually at least (2) SD60's and a decent sized train.

Topic reopened and "cleaned". Apologies for the jackwagon.

Did I set a record? Just 3 posts and already a troll war and site banishment?? :D

Rob M. takes alot of pictures in the Wyckoff/ Oakland area

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3407028

Snowmojoe wrote:Did I set a record? Just 3 posts and already a troll war and site banishment?? :D

Nah........this guy has had it coming. He won't be posting in this forum any longer, though.

Enough on this, however........let's get "back to normal." Have you seen any more movements since you have
moved in?

Charlie

The very next night after this little scrum began, I saw another WS-something; 11 tank cars and covered gondolas being pulled by an actual honest-to-goodness Yellowjacket. Because I am a bad person I wanted to put up a post about how "entertaining" that one was...

I didn't get the road number off the diesel, though; I was too far away. I got one blurry photo of it because I still had my camera set for some long-exposure indoor stuff I was doing previously, and I didn't remember to check the settings until it was too late.

I don't see a lot of Yellowjackets passing my house; it's mostly leased units and Norfolk Southern. That was a rarity. I have not seen anything go by since then.

I was finally here at my house to see the SU99 go by. It just passed about 10 minutes ago. I'd say about 30-35 cars (?) of which there were cut lumber cars (empty and loaded), some FURX gondolas with gray covers that looked like steel coil cars, and then a bunch of open gons and hoppers (FURX and FMTX I think) with what looked like scrap loads in them - some looked like metal scrap and others appeared to be brick or construction debris.

Now, I was on the phone unfortunately when this went by, but I am fairly certain that the two locomotives at the head of this thing were SD60s 3804 and 3806. The only reason I know they are SD60s is from a quick web search - I do not have the knowledge it takes to ID locos by sight alone. My only question about this is, I do not see any locomotive with the road number 3804 or 3806 on the Susquehanna roster, nor do I see any mention of *any* SD60s... So, did I pick the wrong week to quit sniffing glue here, or is there something missing from the NYS&W roster page?

the black gons with grey covers are full of contaminated soil that goes i think to ohio. If the open ones you saw were the same size as the ones with covers, they are filled with the same thing except covered by a large tarp cover. If they were a light grey colored gon, then those were construction & debri cars. And yes those 2 engines you saw were those exact engines and road numbers

Yes, the open gondolas were the exact same gondolas, black FURX, just no covers. And whatever was in them was loaded with something covered with black tarps, so it sounds like you are right about it being more contaminated soil.

Are the SD-60s leased or something? Seems like a long shot since they are painted in the Susquehanna paint scheme.

The SD60's I believe are leased for 10 years or so

Caught the 99 again just now (I swear I am not going to post this all the time I promise) but this one was notable because it was going SO slow. 3800, 3804, 3806 and 3808 pulling 83 cars and *really* laboring past Wortendyke station. I have never seen it pass by so slowly. It seemed like it was going at little more than a man's walking pace. It wasn't until a good 30-40 cars passed by that it really seemed to be notably picking up speed.

You mention history -- if you go to the thread entitled 1920s to 1950s NYS&W ETT, the schedule shown indicates that Wortendyke was a daylight-trick train order office (I don't know whether the station building is still standing, but it had a classic mechanical train order board with an arm for each direction on the same mast, operated from within the agent's office) -- the railroad was manual block west of North Hawthorne. The schedule shown dates from sometime before Susquehanna Transfer was established, with ACF Autorailers (?) between there and Paterson City, therefore probably when still under Erie control. Trains 907 and 915 were the same equipment, returning from Butler in midmorning and again in late afternoon. The normal consist for years, at least into the 1950s, was a Stillwell coach in NYS&W maroon on the west end, a Stillwell combine (coach, baggage, and working RPO -- number 639, still lettered Erie, I never saw or heard of another Stillwell like it), in the middle, and a wood-body (working) baggage car on the east end. High-school students used to get on No. 907 at Wortendyke, and presumably other area stations, every morning to go to Pompton Lakes for high school, returning on the late-afternoon eastbound. (The schedule shown is evidently for the summer season, since the times correspond to Daylight-Saving-Time operations expressed in Standard Time, as was usual in that era.) Until dieselization in the late 1940s the usual power was an ex-Erie G15a 10-wheeler. What a way to go to school -- and to think probably none of them appreciated it.