RCRY Intermodal Service ?

E-44,
Railroadcarmover on the first page didn't seem so optimistic about
re-establishing the Perth Amboy/Raritan center connection, but
what you report sounds pretty exciting! They are 2/3 of the way there already, or so. I live only 30 minutes away but have never been there in person -- just look at maps and arial photos on the WWW a lot --
might have to come up and take a look in person!

JS

Well, he knows a lot more about what's really going on than I do I can only report what I see.

It seems that new track, or at least some trackwork has been laid/done from the new bridge over State St (or maybe New Brunswick Ave, I don't know the street name) in Perth Amboy to just east of the Rt 35 overhead bridge. This is also, coincidentally, behind where the new courthouse, municipal building, or whatever it is, is being built. It seems as though the track was perhaps moved or shifted further to the south to allow more room for the new building.

Tying some of this together: http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18202

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6827

Tying some of this together:
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18202
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6827

Well, since E44 tied this together, I will begin adding to it - in the second link given above, I was whining about the crappy crossings on Crows Mill Road - well, I can't whine anymore, as they are now in excellent condition, having been replaced due to the repaving of Crows Mill south of Smith Street, with new precast crossings. We are now 4 metres closer to the goal of rebuilding the Keasby Connection from Industrial Ave to Rte 440 in Perth Amboy !
Amusingly, ONLY the grade crossings have been replaced, and indeed there is a 4 inch (~10cm) elevation difference between the new crossing rail and the existing rail, at least on the west side of the Northern crossing (which would form the through route from Raritan to Perth Amboy - the Southern crossing leads into the recycling/salvage yard which is currently covered with many huge mounds of dirt. The repaving of Crows Mill Rd (with rather odd precast curbing) continues about 3/4 of the length South, and then abruptly ends - however several new drains and construction barrels indicate they will eventually go further.
I rather hope this isn't a tease (well, a contractual obligation by the authority repaving the street) like Conrail in Port Newark, where they replaced several crossings with new precasts ones, on spurs which just dead-end (at fences or jersey barriers) on the other side of the road
Also it's definitely official that the new Distribution Center on Industrial Ave. has no rail service (although I think this was mentioned in one of the other threads) - that building is fairly huge even by Raritan Center/Heller Industrial Park standards. Also I wonder if the Raritan Central is missing opportunities in it's own backyard, as there are two more warehouses/distribution centers (I think) going up in Raritan Center along FieldCrest (well 1 new one and Vesuvis[?] Foods is expanding - I know the Hagstrom indicates there was a spur there (as does the Raritan Central's own map), and I think I did see indications of one (couldn't check further without trespassing, which I didn't), but don't know the condition or if it even exists anymore... Hmmm, speaking of spurs which don't exists - check back on the RC Rail map: http://www.raritancentralrr.com/Rail_Maps.htm
OK, there's several spurds on that map which don't exist, but along the North side of the Conrail Line which leads to the Upper Yard, right north of FieldCrest, the spur which branches off and serves the building to the right (north) of that Conrail Line - this spur was removed (foolishly) several years ago, when that building was taken over by I think an autoparts firm - well, that firm is gone, and the building is back on the market - maybe we can get that spur back in (yes, I take my carload railroading way too seriously...)

I'm a little late with this info. but I'm new to this so I apologize.
Took a trip to Raritan Center Sunday Morning and caught RCRR number 3110 working the lower yard around 11:00am. I followed the B23-7 from the yard, across the Raritan Center Pkwy and to the William Grant and Sons Inc. siding where it picked up some empty hopper cars to bring back to the yard. While I was watching 3110 spotting the mts back at the yard, I ran into an employee of the RR. I asked about the rumored intermodal service and he told me that the RCRR expects its capacity to double in the next 3 yrs.. He also said that there will be some kind of intermodal operations and a new pier is going to be built on the Raritan river to bring shipping in. I also asked about the Metuchen yard next to the old Ford plant on Rt.1 and he said that it won't be going anywhere. So I assume the yard will fit into their expansion plans somehow. As 3110 was heading back out with a cut of loaded hoppers,I had said to the employee that I was surprised to see any movement today and he said this was unusual for them but they were trying to stay ahead of the bad weather that was coming on Monday. I also found RCRR number 3101 on a siding behind Zheng Zhang USA Inc. at 176 Northfield Ave.. Interestingly the road numbers on both sides of the cab were painted by hand with a paint brush. I took pictures of the excursion and i'm trying to get them on a website so they can be viewed.

myfaviscr wrote:I'm a little late with this info. but I'm new to this so I apologize.
Took a trip to Raritan Center Sunday Morning and caught RCRR number 3110 working the lower yard around 11:00am. I followed the B23-7 from the yard, across the Raritan Center Pkwy and to the William Grant and Sons Inc. siding where it picked up some empty hopper cars to bring back to the yard. While I was watching 3110 spotting the mts back at the yard, I ran into an employee of the RR. I asked about the rumored intermodal service and he told me that the RCRR expects its capacity to double in the next 3 yrs.. He also said that there will be some kind of intermodal operations and a new pier is going to be built on the Raritan river to bring shipping in. I also asked about the Metuchen yard next to the old Ford plant on Rt.1 and he said that it won't be going anywhere. So I assume the yard will fit into their expansion plans somehow. As 3110 was heading back out with a cut of loaded hoppers,I had said to the employee that I was surprised to see any movement today and he said this was unusual for them but they were trying to stay ahead of the bad weather that was coming on Monday. I also found RCRR number 3101 on a siding behind Zheng Zhang USA Inc. at 176 Northfield Ave.. Interestingly the road numbers on both sides of the cab were painted by hand with a paint brush. I took pictures of the excursion and i'm trying to get them on a website so they can be viewed.

I was also out photographing the Raritan Central on sunday morning. One of the employees tipped me off as to where the crew was going to be working. It has been a while since I have actually explored the Raritan Central and there is a lot of business there. It was good to see the B23-7's still soldiering on. I caught the 3110 drilling CSX box cars behind a warehouse, then they went to yard, and left for a track by Westfield Ave that had several cover hoppers, which they pulled into the yard. From there they coupled to another track and shoved those hoppers to the same track by Westfield Ave. The 3101 was tied down by a warehouse off of Westfield and the 7563 was across from the office.

A few years back when i did some part time work on RCRY we ran with 2 crews at the same time. One crew would come off the Northfield branch with its outbounds and would set them over for the crew working in lower yard to double to their outbounds so they could be grouped together. The Northfield branch crew would then pick up its loads from the yard and head back up the Northfield branch.