Woodbury

Shared assets tends to store cars at Woodbury for the SRNJ, as the Swedesboro interchange holds about 18 cars on average. The little yard there may become the SRNJ interchange if they ever take over the remainder of the line. With the closing of DelMonte foods, there isn't much other than SRNJ's traffic over the line.

OCtrainguy wrote:After a southern New Jersey rail adventure on Monday, I have some questions about Woodbury.

I drove through Woodbury, and saw what looks like an old yard at the end of Railroad Avenue, that looks the same as it did the last time I was there, which was in the fall of 2002. I browsed through my PRSL Lines in Color book, but only found a brief mention of Woodbury in the book.

Was there any type of yard there in the PRSL or Conrail years? I saw a work gondola there, but that was it. Plenty of CSX "No trespassing" signs.

What you saw there is called Salem Yard. That is an active railroad yard, though it may not look like it...in addition to 5 yard tracks (called "lower yard track 1 through lower yard track 5), the yard also includes a wye between the Penns Grove Secondary and Salem Running Track. A single track in the yard, the southern-most track in the yard, is a team track, where refrigerator reefers are often spotted by PA-40 around 6:00PM Monday - Friday (not spotted every day, about once a week).

I did see some cars behind along North Glassboro Road (road name via Mapquest), but no engines. Is this an interchange area at all?

What you saw here is nicknamed by many of our local railfans as well as some employees of Conrail as "Barber Avenue Yard". Actually, it's a pair of storage tracks, utilized for interchange of cars between Conrail locals MI-61 and PA-40. MI-61 drops loads on it's southbound run to Millville at the south end of that yard around 9AM (you saw these by Glassboro Road in Woodbury Heights) for PA-40 to work with later on that night. PA-40 takes these cars to Swedesboro for interchange with SRNJ on the Salem Runner. PA-40 then picks up the cars from SRNJ and returns to Woodbury, and drops those cars on the north end of one of those storage tracks for MI-61 to pick up on it's northbound trip early in the morning around 3AM. At one time, the storage track closest to the Vineland Secondary main (#1 storage) was part of Main Track 2, back when this line was double tracked...

Just hoping to get some additional information about the area, and I was hoping to see it in the PRSL book. The old station in Woodbury makes a great photo prop, when a train rolls through. Any information would be appreciated.

A good idea is to shoot that station with MI-61 in the morning, around 9AM when it rolls through southbound on it's way to Millville. Actually, an afternoon southbound would be better, but these are pretty rare these days...your best bet would be an afternoon NS 506 coal train around 3:00PM, these are rare due to the crew call time at Abrams for these movements now, you might have a better chance with a CSX V880 coal...anything northbound any time before about an hour before the sun goes down will be terrible for you in terms of sun angle...

Take care.

Mike DiMunno