Morrisville Freight Question

Yesterday, I took a quick round trip from New Brunswick to Eddington, PA. On the way back, I noticed a freight train west of Trenton Station and East of Morrisville yard (it was right on the outskirts of it). It had 5286 in Conrail colors, about 10 or so cars and a caboose- a blue Conrail caboose which was pretty graffittied up. Just curious as to what train this is and where it comes from and where it goes. Also, I went on rrpicturearchives.net and saw that 5286 was recently working on SA31.

And also, when crossing the NEC Morrisville viaduct, I noticed a freight track on the Pennsylvania side of the river that seemed to follow it. Is this still used?

The line that runs along the river is the lead for AE Staley Corp. AE Staley is switched by LTS NW3 ( ex Great Northern ). also on the property is LTS 45 ton GE centercab. The H12-44 that i purchased from LTS last year used to operate inside Staley as well. The line indeed sees service. Unit trains of tank cars.

nick11a wrote:Yesterday, I took a quick round trip from New Brunswick to Eddington, PA. On the way back, I noticed a freight train west of Trenton Station and East of Morrisville yard (it was right on the outskirts of it). It had 5286 in Conrail colors, about 10 or so cars and a caboose- a blue Conrail caboose which was pretty graffittied up. Just curious as to what train this is and where it comes from and where it goes. Also, I went on rrpicturearchives.net and saw that 5286 was recently working on SA31.

It was probably the same train I saw there a couple of times (a month or two ago, now), except that it had CSX1537 for power and was a bit longer than ten cars (it had a mix of all sorts of cars).
Was this the same caboose you saw on it?

I have no idea what train it is ... I've been curious about it too, though.

pgengler wrote:

nick11a wrote:Yesterday, I took a quick round trip from New Brunswick to Eddington, PA. On the way back, I noticed a freight train west of Trenton Station and East of Morrisville yard (it was right on the outskirts of it). It had 5286 in Conrail colors, about 10 or so cars and a caboose- a blue Conrail caboose which was pretty graffittied up. Just curious as to what train this is and where it comes from and where it goes. Also, I went on rrpicturearchives.net and saw that 5286 was recently working on SA31.

It was probably the same train I saw there a couple of times (a month or two ago, now), except that it had CSX1537 for power and was a bit longer than ten cars (it had a mix of all sorts of cars).
Was this the same caboose you saw on it?

I have no idea what train it is ... I've been curious about it too, though.

Yeah, that's the caboose. The train was being held by a signal and was facing west.

nick11a wrote:Yeah, that's the caboose. The train was being held by a signal and was facing west.

Each time I caught it, it was facing east ... the first time it went over the Morrisville viaduct, and the other, I think it was stopped, but I was passing by and couldn't really tell.

The train you saw was the WPBS-02, a drill job that swtiches the Rohm and Haas plant in Croydon as well as four other consinees around Croydon yard. The caboose is used for the shove from Morris interlocking up to Morriville Yard as well as the return from Morrisville back to the main.
The tracks along the river in Morrisville is the "old line", officially named as the Delmor Industrial. The track begins at the newly reborn MY interlocking at the eastern edge of the new NJT yard, serves a lumber yard next to Rt 1, runs through town along the river and does indeed serve Staley's and farther down, Rhodia Chemical.
Both jobs are a little like going back in time when small customers got semi daily service, right away when needed. Sometimes to the point that the crews that work these jobs began their career with the PRR an have worked these spots for most of their 38+ years on the railroad, although now they are rapidly dissapearing into retirement.

Notch 8 wrote:The train you saw was the WPBS-02, a drill job that swtiches the Rohm and Haas plant in Croydon as well as four other consinees around Croydon yard. The caboose is used for the shove from Morris interlocking up to Morriville Yard as well as the return from Morrisville back to the main.
The tracks along the river in Morrisville is the "old line", officially named as the Delmor Industrial. The track begins at the newly reborn MY interlocking at the eastern edge of the new NJT yard, serves a lumber yard next to Rt 1, runs through town along the river and does indeed serve Staley's and farther down, Rhodia Chemical.
Both jobs are a little like going back in time when small customers got semi daily service, right away when needed. Sometimes to the point that the crews that work these jobs began their career with the PRR an have worked these spots for most of their 38+ years on the railroad, although now they are rapidly dissapearing into retirement.

Thanks Notch. I'll have to keep an eye out for it in the future.

I rode that Croydon job once back in the early 90's. The train would back up onto Amtrak and head west towards Croydon. Ran with a caboose back then too. Interesting job.

Also my friend Don Miller was an engineer out of Morrisville back in the early 90's and i recall their stopping a train on the Old Line to grab an ice cream cone from the dairy maid next to the right of way. Ah the memories.

railroadcarmover wrote:... i recall their stopping a train on the Old Line to grab an ice cream cone from the dairy maid next to the right of way. Ah the memories.

Sometimes DQ, sometimes 7 eleven, sometimes to fish in the river, but never in a hurry to get back to the yard.

I hear that notch 8. Hahaha. I remember a time a job coming out of Fairless Works had an empty ore train and the crew stopped off at Tyburn RR to pick tomatos from the garden. I thought that was pretty funny.