Railroad Forums 

  • Star Ledger: Freight Traffic Increase Less Than Feared

  • Discussion about the M&E, RVRR and SIRR lines of New Jersey, and also the Maine Eastern operation in Maine. Official web site can be found here: www.merail.com.
Discussion about the M&E, RVRR and SIRR lines of New Jersey, and also the Maine Eastern operation in Maine. Official web site can be found here: www.merail.com.

Moderators: GOLDEN-ARM, cjl330, mikec

 #161457  by Lackawanna484
 
Al Frank is a good reporter. I think he does a good job in picking up the major issues, or non-issues of the garbage trains. And, separating them from the real issues.

It seems to me that M&E needs to convince the Freeholders that the cargo their Morris lines carry reduce the truck traffic on Morris country streets. I'd suspect that the Toys cargo is largely boxes offloaded in California, for example. If (big IF) Home Depot decides to establish a regional center for lumber, sheetrock, fertilizers, most of that cargo could arrive by rail, eliminating hundreds of trucks daily. As it is, trucks deliver those goods to individual stores via long haul from South Jersey's regional center, I believe.

But, there is no way, ever, that boxes arriving at Port Newark / Elizabeth are gonna go rail to Mount Olive, Parsippany, Montville etc. That's pretty fundamental, and I'm sorry he didn't make that clearer.

 #161468  by Jtgshu
 
That was a very good article, and really IMO just puts out the actual facts and logistics of railroad operations in NJ. I think the example of the flagging across Rt 10 gives an actual example of what the people in Union County are fearing - adn thats its not that big a deal.

I bet an SUV driver trying to make a left turn across the other lane of traffic ties up traffic more than the trains will on the SIRT and RVRR....

But there is one thing that immedately popped into my head, and wasn't touched on in the article, because it happened so long ago, but I wonder if a little over 20 years ago, ANYONE thought that Stack trains would be running across Sparta Mountain on teh NYSW - then low and behold the announcement came out that the RR was giong to be rebuit and these monster trains would be making their way through the middle of Sussex county........There were a lot easier ways to get to the NYC area with stack trains than a long abandoned mountain railroad.......

Never can anyone count anything out, and any type of traffic pattern, on any route, active or long long abandoned.

 #161488  by Lackawanna484
 
JT -

The NYSW revival is an excellent point, and I recall the uproar about monster trains perhaps blocking crossings for 10-15 minutes. People at Smoke Rise concerned that ambulances would be cut off responding to residents in that gated enclave.

Butler PD demanded adance warning so they could have police officers on both sides of town prior to the crossing gates descending, etc. Granted, the early NYSW did have some of these issues, such as a breakdown on the crossing at Park Place, and one near Waterfall Village, but it ceased to be an issue within weeks

I suspect change is troubling, and the potential for huge change is present.

Paul

 #161500  by CJPat
 
Was it just the way I read the article or did the reporter confuse the RVL with the LVRR? Or is the LVRR track also considered part of the RVL?? What do they call that run of track? They mentioned a couple of times how NJT shares the track with NS on the RVL.

 #161502  by CNJFAN
 
I was wondering the same thing, he was either a bit confused which would not be the first time it happened, or he left out some vital information.

 #161803  by kilroy
 
The section of the Lehigh Line between Aldene and Newark is part of the RVL. The misstep in the article was saying that NJT runs on the section of track between Clark/Edison and Bound Brook which NS is double tracking. Obviously, NJT cuts off to the CNJ at Aldene for its run to Bound Brook. The article states the LV section through there was four tracks at one time. I don't believe the LV was ever four tracks through there and he ias confusing it with the CNJ.