NYS&W Pompton Industrial Spur

Good afternoon I would like to know how many customers are left on The Pompton Industrial? Also what days and times does a NYS&W local drill up in that area? Thanks.


Blocksignal.

3 Active customers. Tilcon, Berr (or Burr) Plastics and a customer that receives box cars of bricks at the old transload yard. Service can be any weekday almost exclusively late at night.

Thanks - I know where BER Plastics is located and where Tilcon is located but where is that transload customer located on the line? By the way I read that Morris Pipe (Morris Industries) used to get served by NYS&W so when did service stop for that customer? Lastly there is a farm towards the south end of the usable part of the line ending at Woodlawn Avenue - did they get service as well back when? - Thanks.

Blocksignal.

I believe that transload customer is just down the tracks from BER Plastics in that fenced in area with the old freight house.

blocksignal wrote:By the way I read that Morris Pipe (Morris Industries) used to get served by NYS&W so when did service stop for that customer?

Bumping this thread because I recently stumbled across a STB filing (Oct 2013) by NYS&W asking to abandon the Pompton Industrial branch from MP 26.3 south. According to the super-accurate map attachment to that filing (looks like a page from a really old Hagstrom atlas - I287 is still listed as proposed - with some marker scribbling on it) that's basically all the branch south of Rte 23.
In the filing it's stated that there has been no service south of MP 25.96 for 20 years (judging from the fact that the branch in that location often seems to be lacking track, I can believe it), and no service between MP 26.3 and MP25.96 for 2 years - so I guess that covers the Morris Pipe site.
Looking at the Google Satellite view for the area of Morris Pipe, I don't see any obvious sidings, so I guess they just unloaded Morris Pipe on the main? Any reason why they stopped using rail shipments?

When Morris Pipe first received shipments again they re-used the old spur into their site. The engine would lead southbound and then spot the cars and head back north. However after a few derailments and the engine getting stuck on the south end of the de-railed cars, they changed to pushing the cars south from Riverdale and unloading on the main.

Morris Pipe would receive loads of steel well casing by rail. As with anything in the building industry the need for the product fluctuates. My guess the need for such product has been fairly non-existent since the real estate bubble burst in 2008. In any case if Morris Pipe did need a load of pipe I am sure NYS&W could accomodate it at a transload facility some place else on line

If my memory serves me well (this is going on a decade ago now), Morris Pipe is now supplied via flatbed trucks loaded at or near a port facility near New Haven, CT. If this pattern of inbound material remains true, a rail move from New Haven to Pompton Plains would never be price nor time competitive with trucking.

I was always hoping the spur would see an operation like the Milford and Bennington up in Vermont with hopper cars, loaded with some nice 2b stone at the Tilcon Quarry, shuttled down to the Tilcon asphalt plant in Totowa. Shame to see another line disappear.

Semper,

That asphalt plant in Totowa is now gone too. It is a shame to see it go.

Chris

cjvrr wrote:Semper,
That asphalt plant in Totowa is now gone too. It is a shame to see it go.
Chris

Chris is not kidding - they consolidated 3 facilities at Mt Hope, NJ
Tilcon Combines 3 Plants into One
According to Google Maps, that facility was not rail-served (at least not in the recent past). Were any of the others rail served?

Sir Ray wrote:

cjvrr wrote:Semper,
Were any of the others rail served?

I am fairly sure the Mt. Hope location was back in the day.

Sad to see this line go, I grew up near the old Mack Wayne Plastics building and still remember the E-L crews switching them and Union Carbide.

Correction on the Totowa Plant, it was located on the Totowa Industial Spur which is Norfolk Southern not NYS&W RR!

Mount Hope Quarry was served by the CNJ through its Mount Hope Mineral Railroad subsidiary. IIRC- Service lasted at least until the 1970s, with a federally funded rebuilding occurring sometime either in the late 70s or early 80s. The rebuild apparently didn't cause the rail service to last very long as the rails have been gone from the quarry as long as I can remember (mid 80s being the first time I recall visiting the quarry). Tilcon did a study with the M&E that I found a copy of when my concrete company was considering a move into the Mount Hope Quarry, but it obviously amounted to nothing.

It is a shame to see this branch go. In addition to the stone shuttle idea, I always thought NJ Transit would do well to extend service to Pompton Junction by way of Mountain View. I suppose a walking trail is much better than seeing the ROW cut up into a thousand pieces.

A little off topic, but I wonder how many more customers NYS&W can afford lose before it becomes economically unsustainable. The railroad has excellent customer service and always follows up when I query them for a rate or even just an opinion on a rail related matter, but north Jersey is hardly a place with heavy industrial growth. I wish them well but I wonder how long a relatively superfluous piece of railroad, no matter how well run, can survive.

Agreed. Blue collar northern NJ is fading away as factories became rarities instead of common sites across the landscape. I don't understand how NYSW is profitable. Are NS and CSX obligated to support the NYSW as part of the agreement for splitting up Conrail?

NYSW has a huge trash and toxic waste hauling business now, with most of that stuff loaded around Little Ferry in special transload facilities. These days the freight gets driven to the train, not the train being driven to the customer