RVL Whitehouse Passing Siding Progress

transit383 wrote:Will the increased service to High Bridge include weekend service as well?

From what I'm hearing there will be weekend service up the mountain. I believe only a few of the trains that terminate in Newark will go to High Bridge.

Ken W2KB wrote:

nick11a wrote:

TGIV wrote:You guessed it about 300 ft west of the curve.

OK, I would have thought a good place for it would be right at the west end of the station similar to the Far Hills set up of a passing track. But, that isn't too bad at least.

It was probably located to (1) avoid grade crossings, and (2) the place where the times would best fit the required meets.

With signals, grade crossings may not be an issue if the passing siding is clear of the crossing like at Far Hills. At Far Hills, the westbound train usually comes in first, it clears up the crossing and waits for the eastbound. If the eastbound is already there waiting, the gates don't go down for it until the dispatcher lines the tracks for it which can take a little time. The advatage of this is the train is alrady at stopped or at a slow speed for the station and so you kill two birds with one stone by having a station stop and a meet. Passing sidings mainly intefere with traffic flow when there is a crossing through it between signals- like at Stirling or Bernardsville. At Murray Hill and Far Hills, the signals can prevent the gates from going down if they have a stop signal.

Will Whitehouse Siding be a "rolling siding" where it essentially functions as a second main with very well coordinated scheduling or a traditional siding where one train stops on the siding for the other to pass on the main?

At least let the trains may enter at a higher speed than that used on the Gladstone Branch so the main can be cleared more quickly, as it seems a lot longer than a regular trainlength, thus allowing time and space to stop by the far end. Though that is hard to tell for sure from a side window. It doesn't seem long enough to permit a rolling meet, though, unless the train crawled.

I did note yesterday that the switch at the west end appeared to have been installed.

4206 and 4213 were working ballast duty today, caught them at Raritan. Both units were on the west end of the train, pushing east with thirteen cars.

4206 was on the far west end, with 4213 facing east

4213 was on the NJCL late last week on the Bay Head Shuttle with a solid three car C2/C4 set with 5024 as the cab.

[quote="transit383"]4206 and 4213 were working ballast duty today, caught them at Raritan. Both units were on the west end of the train, pushing east with thirteen cars.

It was only supposed to be 15 cars, when the crew arrived in the scene, we found we had 17. We dropped the stone and shoved east to Stavola. After they were re-loaded, they came back to the yard.

Funny, I didn't remember seeing anyone taking pics of us.

2 timer wrote:Funny, I didn't remember seeing anyone taking pics of us.

Oh, we're good- very good.

The other day I observed that the east end switch was installed. So what is left now appears to be final tamping of the ballast and signal/control installation.

Does anyone know what kind of work they're doing up in High Bridge? There was some MOW equipment parked up on the siding there this morning and there are some panels of track with concrete ties sitting up there as well.

There are also panels of track with concrete ties sitting near Bridgewater.

transit383 wrote:There are also panels of track with concrete ties sitting near Bridgewater.

IIRC those have been sitting there for a while now, don't exactly know what they're there for.

transit383 wrote:Does anyone know what kind of work they're doing up in High Bridge? There was some MOW equipment parked up on the siding there this morning and there are some panels of track with concrete ties sitting up there as well.

There are also panels of track with concrete ties sitting near Bridgewater.

I suspect that the concrete track panel will be installed where the paved pedestrian crossing is. Then when the new platform under construction is paved, the paving company can pave over the crossing since the paving crew, roller, etc. is already there. Concrete ties will last a lot longer than wooden ties under the pavement.

It looks as if the existing platform will be extended, but will there be another platform constructed for the siding as well?

There are no painted markouts for the siding so highly unlikely it would get a platform. No reason for it in any event.

All they need to do now is expand the CNJ mainline west and get service back to Phillipsburg.

I spoke to a MOW guy there the other day: yes, they are replacing the track under the paved crossing with the panel track. He said that bit has some bad ties under it and a wide gauge, and or course it's a pain to maintain it under the blacktop. After the panel track is installed it will be paved over again.
And yes, the platform is being extended, similar to what they did in Lebanon recently.
Last time I drove through it looked like they had actually started work, as the crane had been moved and there was some other equipment there. Will check again later today and let you know. Maybe I can get a pic or two...