Disappearing local freight

Add to my list is A&P warehouse on Buffalo Ave., Paterson , this was a combination regional headquarters; retail store; and the rear portion was able to receive 3 boxcars at a time for unloading (Erie) in the mid 50's I worked unloading same. A&P also had a warehouse for meats etc on the NYSW on Utter Ave in Hawthorne.
Also the cement plant on the Totowa Industrial Spur at Minnisink Rd;Totowa.
Hoffman Koos Furniture received furniture for a period of time before going out of business. (Current store bought the trade name out of bankruptcy only).(Also on the totowa spur at Rt 46).

You can add disproportionately high electricity costs to reasons industries leave NJ. All those solar panels are paid for mostly by electricity users not by the miniscule amount of electricity they generate [relative to their historic cost].

There are some new, large customers--trash trains, toxic waste trains. And some of the former customers, and new customers without sidings, use intermodal.

I prefer the old way...industries with sidings. Lower taxes and electricity rates, at least not top decile rates and taxes!

In the 1960's/70's, there were about 40 active industry sidings on the northern. Now I think there are 4.
There were 3 local freight jobs, each 6 days a week.

On the NJNY there were about 65 active customers. Now also i think there are 4.
There were 2 jobs, 6 days a week, and an extra job called for the lower hack area when the lower hack job couldn;t finish in 16 hours.

Don't have time to list them all individually.

Reasons.....High property taxes, "high" labor costs, CR strong encouragement for anyone left to go intermodal, and active ripping out of all team tracks due to lawyers running the company, High value of property that cud be sold for condo development

Its sad to look back at the rust belt, and see whats left of what used to be thriving industry

The Ocean Spray cranberry facility has left Bordentown this year, supposedly a user
of the CSX line nearby. The Agway grain depot was threatening to shut down its
rail spur, but as far I can see, they still load up grain cars, to use the
CSX/Camden&Amboy line.

there were major players, Coca Cola Bottling, and some huge lumber yard, that
used the C&A in Hightstown, but that went away in the 70s when the Route 130
overpass (over the tracks) was made level, and tracks removed.

EL local freights that used to work in northern NJ
1st northern
2nd northern
3rd northern
Lower hack job (njny)
Upper hack job
Rutherford drill
Garfield drill
Dundee drill
Piermont job
3 tricks at Mahwah ford
Patterson (iron hole) drill, 2 tricks i think
totowa roustabout
Greenwood lake job
Caldwell branch (may have been worked by the greenwood lake job, dunno)
Dover drill
Newark stock train
Silver lake job (orange branch)
The Pusher (CX to HOB), also may have worked the harrison branch)
P&D drill (M&E plus gladstone branch)
Phillipsburg job (not sure)
Im probably missing a few. Today there are 5 jobs left afaik

BTW, the whole topic bummed me out so badly I ended up writing a song about
losing the railroad. (originally posted as 'Rust and Weeds' topic)
I got SOO depressed watching rails lying in decay...

Rust and Weeds c2009 Walt Borys

1 Old man squints at the setting sun
End of the day, his walk is done
two miles down the abandoned track
Rest a while, then two miles back


Often as a young boy, he'd walk the silver rails
hop a boxcar on a local run
sit and watch as the express came steaming through
wonder where'd it end up when it was done

(..he heard someone say that this was the trail to tomorrow..)


2 old man sits on a worn porch chair
looking at the valley in the cool night air
used to be lit by stars at night
now cars and trucks, and highway lights

when he became a young man, he worked the silver rails
kept the right of way safe and true
but as the years passed .., he’d see fewer trains
.. soon there was no work left.. for him to do

(..often he'd walk back to those rails, but all he saw was..)

Rust and Weeds and Weary Wood
reminders of what used to be
The trail to tomorrow got lost in yesterday
and all that's left's the memory

3 Old man wakes at half-past one,
hears the lonesome whistle .. of a late-night run
Faraway chugging of live steam
but then he knows it was just a dream

(..and tomorrow when he walks, he knows that all he'll see is..)


Rust and Weeds and Weary Wood
reminders of what used to be
The trail to tomorrow got lost in yesterday
and all that's left's the memory

ccutler wrote:You can add disproportionately high electricity costs to reasons industries leave NJ. All those solar panels are paid for mostly by electricity users not by the miniscule amount of electricity they generate [relative to their historic cost].

There are some new, large customers--trash trains, toxic waste trains. And some of the former customers, and new customers without sidings, use intermodal.

I prefer the old way...industries with sidings. Lower taxes and electricity rates, at least not top decile rates and taxes!

Your are correct in that the solar in the aggregate in the PSE&G New Jersey area are the most expensive by far of the sources of electricity for PSE&G customers and are essentially subsidized by ratepayers and taxpayers. Wind is the next most costly when all costs are considered. However, they aggregate less than 1 percent of the capacity so don't have a significant impact of cost of power. The 40 MW of pole PSE&G mounted panels (about 200,000 PSE&G poles have a 200 watt panel) aggregate only 0.003 percent of PSEG Power, LLC's overall 11,400 MW generation mix. The cheaper industrial power elsewhere in the US comes substantially from the various federal power projects, i.e., Bonneville Dam, TVA, Salt River Project, etc.

Back to the topic, coal used to be transported by rail to the two large remaining coal capable PSEG Fossil, LLC generating stations (Hudson and Mercer), but over 20 years ago rail was replaced by ocean going barges. That was a lot of traffic lost. Liquefied Petroleum Gas used to be brought to the PSE&G Harrison Gas Plant for peaking use, but in recent years the tanks have been refilled by truck. LPG was not a lot of carloads, but did require maintaining the access trackage.

cjvrr wrote:ladder2,

I don't think Passaic Valley has received a tank car of chlorine in about 25 years.

All,

You must remember that the businesses are leaving NJ as it is just to dang expensive to operate profitably here. Between taxes and the higher wages necessary for their workers to maintain a residence here businesses have and continue to move out of NJ.

How true. Look at what has happened to the Black River/Belvidere Delaware. They have lost several major customers in the past 10-12 years.Then look at the D-L and R&N. They have seen business increase in the same time frame.

wborys wrote:The Ocean Spray cranberry facility has left Bordentown this year, supposedly a user
of the CSX line nearby. The Agway grain depot was threatening to shut down its
rail spur, but as far I can see, they still load up grain cars, to use the
CSX/Camden&Amboy line.

there were major players, Coca Cola Bottling, and some huge lumber yard, that
used the C&A in Hightstown, but that went away in the 70s when the Route 130
overpass (over the tracks) was made level, and tracks removed.

The Ocean Spray facility you mention is one of those re-located to Breinigsville, PA,and served by trucks.

If we are covering a 20 year timeframe, in addition to the Ford plant in Edison and the GM plant in Linden, I wish to nominate the large former Ford parts warehouse in Teterboro. According to this 2013 article, the building is currently occupied by Mohawk Industries, but I don't know if they are rail freight users or not. I do know you could always find lots of big 60ft and 86ft auto-parts boxcars there back when it was a going Ford concern.
Heh, from that article:

The industrial market has been one of the few bright spots in the commercial real estate market in North Jersey. Bergen and Passaic counties are attractive for industrial sites, both warehouse and distribution centers, because of their central location in the densely populated tri-state area

Hermann Warehouse and cement factory on Millstone Branch
M&E Mainline - lumberyard and recycle factory (got 10 boxcars in and 10 out per day).

Ever wonder why NS and CSX do not try to get local biz back? Don't they have salesmen that actively try to get customers? Its like customers call and stop rail service and NS just says "oh, ok" and does nothing to get the biz back.

I want to know what NS/CSX are doing to promote local freight business. Or are they letting local freight service die a slow death. And I'm referring to switching cars onto actual customer's siding, not transload. Let me give you an example... On the CSX Northern branch, there are still several old sidings still intact with switches and all. Has CSX made any attempt to talk to those businesses and encourage them to "reactivate" their sidings and get rail service, or do they not care? As a further example, take the old Whyerhauser siding in Closter, NJ. It's a very interesting siding. I remember when they got service. And they got 6-8 boxcars at a time on a regular basis, a really good customer. If you look down the siding what is interesting, is that at the end of the building is a gate and the siding goes further back to what appears to be an old concrete loading dock. Right by the gate however, their are two pipes sticking out of the ground.

If those pipes were gone or moved, the entire length of that siding could easily hold 12+ cars or more. Csx could have a really nice customer there if they reached out to the current tenant. Whoever they are they, I've seen tractor trailers there so they obviously ship or recieve.

That having been said, costs being what they are, and RR shipping/recieveing is expensive $$, what are the big class 1's doing to change this and make getting railcars better than trucks, or again do they just not care? Or are they trying to get rid of individual railroad car deliveries?

Its not that the Sales people are not trying to regain lost freight, its the sad fact that 85% of manufacturing has been resourced to:Mexico; China, Korea or Japan. North Jersey does not have the people that are capable of producing mechanical goods that were once made here. Children today are educated in Computers, TV games, and other college educated fields. You can't even find good carpenters, electricians, plumbers etc. Parents want all the kids to go to college and forget about manual labor. SO forget about reopening that siding. Its not going to happen.

cjvrr wrote:It should also be noted on that branch there were several other industrial business that had rail access.

A couple miles west of the Passaic Valley plant there is a company off of West End Road that receives covered hoppers Tuesday or Thursday each week. I usually hear/see the train passing by the loading docks of the company I work at down the end of Taft Road mid to late morning.

I can only imagine as an industry outsider that the new PTC regulations only increase the costs to Class 1's of installing new sidings on mainline tracks. I would expect that installing sidings 'out on the road' somewhere is becoming a bigger cost item and that railroads will further encourage transloads and sightings of new industries near major terminals.

But I am hoping to solicit comments from more knowledgeable folks...

On the old CNJ west of Raritan, only the old Fisher Scientific still receives freight service. I remember 15-car mostly-lumber trains going west of raritan in the 90s. In Finderne, there was a large Weyerhauser lumber distribution facility that received quite a few box cars [and probably put the west-of-raritan yards out of business for rail]...but that shut down during the Great Recession.

On a positive note, GAF opened a rail siding in Finderne and receives box cars there. I was told it was GAF by someone else on this site--they receive roofing materials.