Pinelawn Trash Transfer

Home Depot was looking for land for a LI transload. They wanted 15 acres and for it to be up west(Nassau) back "in the good economy." Another issue was the 286k weight limit. It's ashame Allied Building in Bethpage doesn't wish to use the siding right next to them former Ruco switch. They continue to truck in stuff from NJ.

DaveBarraza wrote:How does Coastal push their cars? Do they just tug them around with a front end loader or something?

Yes a very large front end loader.

And Home Depot stores on Long Island receive all thier merchandice from various distribution centers in NJ and PA.

And I also passed the worksite on New Highway today. The entire area that they have been excavating now has a layer of crushed rock spread across it all the way up to the edge of New Highway leg of the wye leading to Coastal.

Here's a link to info on Price Parkway
http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/farmin ... ngdale.htm

Sir Ray wrote:

railfan365 wrote:It seems to me that being a retailer is not the determinative factor in whether merchandise is received b truck or train. These large places receive so much in that they can take it by carload. The question is whether they will choose to do so.

I'd say it is a big determinator. Look in a Home Depot or Lowes retail center - yes, they have racks of 4x8ft plywood and pallets of concrete blocks, but from the ones I've been in, all the material of any given type fully stocked would readily fit in, I guess, 1/2 a shipping container or a 1/3 of a 53ft dry van - to say nothing of a 72ft centerbeam. And unlike real Lumber Yards or Concrete Plants which do sell a lot of bulk to contractors, that stuff usually goes out in drips and drabs, a few sheets here, two dozen blocks there, so restocking of any given item may be done over the course of a week or more (under normal circumstances - if a big hurricane approaches then all bet are off on the 4x8 thin plywood sheets, let alone the D-cell batteries).
Here's something else to consider - here is a Google view of the Home Depot distribution center in Montgomery, NY (a little north of Campbell Hall Junction). It is located next to what Google & Bing both show as an active branch (two customers further up the line have freight cars on their sidings). This center services, maybe a dozen stores (the HD web site says there are 70+ distros for the 2000 retail outlets in North America - exact ratio and density per distro probably varies by region); it CAN make use of the bulk quantities needed to make efficent use of rail service, an active line is 20metres to the East, and by some rejiggering of the trailer storage lot layout a siding or two could readily be installed to hold a number of centerbeams, flats, boxcars, etc without traversing what seems like wetlands, so that forklifts could easily access them to unload bulk quantities and pallets of wood, pipe, beams, concrete blocks, etc.
And yet... (to be fair, apparently Home Depot has (or had) a rail served distribution center on the CNE in Bloomfield, CT - can't seem to find mention of others Stockon CA[?], though)

Sorry in the delay for making another entry. Among my thoughts is that if Western Beef can take deliveries by rail, then other large retailers can have deliveries to a DC by rail, and then just use trucks as necessary to get merchandise out to indivudal cusotmers and stores.

Drove by Coastal Distribution on Monday. They were busy loading up another 12-15 C&D cars. The pile of debris last week extended way past the shed but on Monday had been worked back to underneath the opening.

Towards the old west leg of the wye, a stack of stick rail was seen about 500' away. It may have been delivered by the accompanying red flatbed trailer truck. Some construction equipment was also visible further west. Coupled with the stack of ties near the warehouse, it looks like construction will begin on the new siding(s). Anyone have any ideas on how many tracks? It looks like they will try to squeeze in two and hopefully re-connect the wye.

Passed the Coastal/worksite yesterday. Still just crushed rock (sub roadbed?) spread over the entire area. What looked like a Pettibone crane (similar to this http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=734743) was working at the far west end of the site. The Coastal building was jammed packed. Every railcar on site was loaded which made me wonder if part of that worksite might be being used to hold additional cars for Coastal and either the NY&A or Coastal will utilize the west leg of the wye (since they have excavated and laid down a sub base of rock right up to the New Highway crossing) to push (NY&A) or pull (Coastal) cars into the Coastal site.

Restoring the west leg of the wye to service would make things a lot easier, operationally, I'd think.

The west leg of the wye was always troublesome to use. You'd have to cross New Highway, and the wye track is unprotected. There was a rule in the special instructions that stated the crossing gates had to be activated manually using the knife switch at the crossing when using the west leg, so as not to have cars stop on the main track as you had the wye track blocked. However, when you would do this by the time the gates were down, some car would now have the wye track blocked.

Much easier to just use the east leg...

wonder why they never just moved the gate or even just painted a stop line and put a sign up not to cross that track when lights are activated.

I was in the area this morning and everything is as tj48 stated - the west wye leg sub-roadbed ROW is definitely neatly excavated nearly to New Highway. There was also a yellow crane, not sure if it's really a Pettibone or not.

Question is, who's paying for this?
Costal? Poscillico or whatever construction firm that supposed to get a new siding?
NY State Grant? LIRR as a part of the double-track project?
Also, did anyone ever learn how they settled the whole Coastal/Town of Babylon lawsuit - I posted a few pages back that in 2011 the town had won, and Coastal was non-conforming to the area - but now Coastal seems busier than ever.
BTW, I think we discussed this - but in general are the freight cars at Coastal mostly former coal-service gondolas which have had their sides extended higher, and maybe some other structural work done?

Sir Ray wrote:BTW, I think we discussed this - but in general are the freight cars at Coastal mostly former coal-service gondolas which have had their sides extended higher, and maybe some other structural work done?

I've seen these C&D cars there http://www.freightcar.com/capital_equip ... ndolas.php

http://freightcars.blogspot.com/2008/05 ... -dump.html

http://freightcars.blogspot.com/search?q=fwtx

Also see these C&D cars
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=2681131

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=2910678

My travels take me by the Coastal site apx 2 times a week....

>wonder why they never just moved the gate or even just painted a stop line and put a sign up not to cross that track when lights are activated.

There would be too much of a risk for cars being "trapped" in between the gates when they come down. Too wide of a space. Also, for the amount of time that track is used, it's not worth the expense. Signs would never work - enough of a problem sometimes getting all motorists to obey the gates and flashing lights.

C&d gons are not former coal cars. C&d weighs about 500# cuyd if you pull out the wood. These cars have flat bottoms. C&d is scooped out with a grapple . You need the car to provide about 240 Cu yds with no cross-members. Over time, the cars develop a 'belly' which arises from 'pushing' the top of the load. Also the unloading generally leaves about 2 tons in the bottom of the car that rides around forever. The unloading is time-consuming and contributes to the miserable cycle times of the usual c&d move. However, railroads have adjusted pricing to slightly compensate. I suspect Coastal is using the tipping floor as a holding area to compensate for the several variables. Ken Patrick.