Delaware and Raritan River Railroad-General Discussion

pdtrains wrote: ↑Sat Feb 04, 2023 5:32 pm I have no idea if Stavola sells 1 1/2 " rock or not, but if so and they are the contractor, for a million bucks, they could put in a short siding, and load a couple of hopper cars with a wheel loader, and shuttle them back and forth.

Stavola has plenty up at the Bound Brook mine. They have rail to the mine as well. Don't know if it's active or practical, https://stavola.com/ProductInfo

That’s off the Middlebrook Industrial track served by NS. Hasn’t been a train on that line in years. Kinda sucks that there’s been practically no trains on that ever since they spent millions fixing it up.

They could have railcars of ballast come out of there no problem. Just unsure about practicality.

Wherever it comes from, cheapest transport is by rail. I suppose they could build a trestle somewhere and dump it from hoppers into trucks. BTW did they not just replace the crossing into the Bound Brook quarry as part of the 287 work? I don't know in the great scheme of things how big a deal 27000 tons is for a quarry to supply. But it's about 900 LARGE truckloads or 250+ railcars. Would make sense to get it as close to the site by rail as possible.

Not just that, they actually extended the track to go way into the quarry itself I believe, but still no trains.

Don’t need a trestle. All you need is a transload conveyor. It sits underneath hopper cars and dumps the product into a truck. Also works the other way around. I believe you can rent these devices.


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How is NJT getting ballast these days?

Last I heard, they were getting off someone who deals with NYSW. So it probably comes out of their network and gets dropped somewhere NJT can pick it up I would imagine.

They had a train three years ago into the mine over the new rt 22 overpass, Funny that a WaWa parking lot has both crossing lights AND gates. Who pays for that? https://youtu.be/5yZo2i0QxfE
What would be the shortest and most practical route by rail to Freehold?

MA-20 comes out of manville so any loaded cars would go there first. Shorter to go down the Port Reading Secondary. but because Stavola is an NS customer the cars would most likely go on 18G to Oak Island, then get transferred to Browns on OI-16, then to Jamesburg on SA31, then finally to Freehold on JB-1.

Most likely that’s the route they’d take. Again though, I’m not sure if they plan on getting ballast by rail.

Or from Stavola.

I mean, doesn’t Stavola in Howell supply ballast?

I don't know. But it's not mined there. They would have to get it from somewhere. They wouldn't just happen to have that much on hand. Maybe tops a hundred tons or so - -

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 04, 2023 7:02 pm Not just that, they actually extended the track to go way into the quarry itself I believe, but still no trains.

Don’t need a trestle. All you need is a transload conveyor. It sits underneath hopper cars and dumps the product into a truck. Also works the other way around. I believe you can rent these devices.

Here in that example on the Cincinnati East Terminal Railroad (from youtube Jaw Tooth's channel) they dump it right out the bottom of the hopper through the track bed and onto a conveyor. A simple setup. The less handling the cheaper. Stavola wouldn't truck it to their Howell facility and dump it on a stockpile only to pick it again. https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1465106 ... !1e3?hl=en

Not that I want to go on and on about ballast.... I guestt the real issue, is that we would sure like to see some ballast and rail trains...just for variety, and it would be nice to see a long train, after years of a 15 car mixed freight being a "big " train around these parts.

Rail should come by rail...Its just too heavy to truck in. Truck will gross out without a whole lot of rail on the trailer.
And if they are using ribbon rail...well obviously it has to come in by train. Does anyone use stick rail when building 5 miles of "main track" anymore?
Ballast...27,000 tons of ballast is a LOT of ballast. Its about10 18 ton truckloads a day,. 5 days a week, for 6 months.
Now, if you are gonna spend a year doing the rebuild, u can stretch it out to 5 truckloads a day.

I would love to see some ballast trains...but i have my doubts. I think the sub bed will be dumped directly by truck..
No transloading needed,.

Once the ties and rail are in....receiving ballast in hopper cars and dumping directly on the track makes the most sense too. But well see.

FWIW..i have seen miles of new track ballasted by having trucks pile up huge piles of ballast at every grade crossing, and then have it distributed on the track by loading 2 hopper cars from the closest ballast pile with a front end loader, and then having the 2 hopper cars shuttled down the line with a trackmobile.
Honestly, I wont be surprised if this is the way they do it.

They have already started pulling the rail off the roadbed and into the ditch. Don't know if they will pick up that rail first, but I bet they start scraping the bed (to remove roots, etc) some time this coming week. Would not be surprised to see rock within a very short time.

Push a couple cars past prestone, transload to truck, rinse, repeat? Or from the other end, since it, too will shortly be cleared.

Speculation's great, but the next couple weeks should be very interesting.

From what I've seen , it looks like they are reusing the rail or they wouldn't have pulled it off to the side with the joint bars connected. It's in good shape and 130lb .The ballast for the sub road bed will most definitely have to be trucked in. After that is done and all the crossings , ties and rail reinstalled, then maybe they'll bring in a ballast train
Jim H