US Navy Earle Railroad

The railroad has been busy at Earle the past week or two, first one of the homeported Ammunition and supply ships departed on a deployment, and then this week a couple Amphibious assault ships have visited. I couldn't tell if they were loading or off loading, but they had a long line of those white box cars next to the ship on the pier.

There were several sighting this week of the train moving back and forth, I saw it coming home from class on Thursday evening.

I saw it wensday two SW1200's 7 and 4.

The EARLE railroad seems to be boom or bust. Whenever ships come in, trains are running. Some light movements occur during the slow periods however. My house backs up to the line from Colts Neck to the pier. (How lucky am I to have a railroad in my backyard!)The train comes twice a day, loads going to the pier in the morning and empties coming back in the afternoon. In the morning the train is so heavy it shakes the houses as it grinds up the hill towards the bridge over Newman Springs Road. Sometimes when they put only one engine on the point, the train stalls on the hill. It will sit there for about 10 minutes until it gets permission from the navy to make a reverse move down the hill. It will reverse all the way back to the grade crossing at Swimming River Road and make a faster run for the grade. One time it stalled with 2 engines on the point and the 3rd switcher had to come from the yard in Colts Neck and push the train up the hill. Most of the trains have a police escort from the pier to the yard.

Have you ever seen tank cars on the train?

I was out on the pier when there was an Attack Sub in port( rare and obviously before 9/11) and there were quite a few tank cars out on the pier, along with those white boxcars.

Thanks.

NJTArrow2 wrote:Have you ever seen tank cars on the train?

Yes. Whenever tank cars are being moved, they are usually moved in solid consists of tank cars. Usually 2 or 3 at a time but its not that often. I dont know why they do that. I havent been able to see much of the action on the line since September now that im not in high school anymore, but over winter break they ran quite often. =]

Thanks.

Really no boxcar or something in between the tanks and the engine? Only times I have seen the trains moving it was boxcars, so I don't know, like I said I only saw the tanks on the pier.

I also thought they would put an idler car inbetween the engine and tank and then after the last tank. I've seen the move about 3 or 4 times but everytime the tanks have been going to the yard in CNeck from the pier so maybe they are empty coming from the pier?

When I was on an amphibious assault ship we pulled into Earle several times (post 9/11) to onload and offload weapons...everything from bombs and missiles for the Harriers to the RAM and Sea Sparrow missiles for the ship's anti-missile defense, and small arms ammo. Usually after a cruise the ships go into the shipyards for overhaul and you don't want any ordnance/munitions onboard when doing hot work. So after cruise offload, and before workups onload.

The tank cars were used to receive the sewage from the ships CHT tanks. In the old days they pumped it over the side but not anymore.

Most cruisers and destroyers out of Norfolk go to Yorktown Naval Weapons Station to get ordnance.

I have heard more trains running this week as well - glad to hear it.

I didn't see it, but I heard the EMDs out on the pier and they were making a lot of racket - so im guessing they had loads in one form or another.

There are some really steep grades on the RR, with the one mentioned above by Newman Springs Road one of the biggest i believe- and there is also a pretty good one getting up and over Route 35.

When I was on an amphibious assault ship we pulled into Earle several times (post 9/11) to onload and offload weapons...everything from bombs and missiles for the Harriers to the RAM and Sea Sparrow missiles for the ship's anti-missile defense, and small arms ammo. Usually after a cruise the ships go into the shipyards for overhaul and you don't want any ordnance/munitions onboard when doing hot work. So after cruise offload, and before workups onload.

The tank cars were used to receive the sewage from the ships CHT tanks. In the old days they pumped it over the side but not anymore.

Most cruisers and destroyers out of Norfolk go to Yorktown Naval Weapons Station to get ordnance.

I found this article about Charleston Naval weapons station:

Irby acted as tour guide for the Richmond LOA members. “We have 80-95 ship visits a year,” Irby told the group. “We service all ships other than carriers and large amphibians. Carriers are supplied at sea, and larger ships are done at Naval Weapons Station Earle, Colt’s Neck, N.J.”

http://www.willdaniel.com/clips/092806_loa_yorktown.htm

There are three East coast Naval Weapons stations:

Earle NJ (Amphibious assault groups)
Charleston SC (?...)
Yorktown VA (Destroyers, Cruisers)

There's also Sunny Point Military Ocean Terminal North Carolina that stores ammunition for the Army, it also has piers and a railroad.

I think we are going to see Earle become very busy over the next year or two as combat operations in Iraq are drawn down and all that equipment down range starts coming back to the States, the military population of Earle has actually shrunk quite a bit in the last 5-10 years as most of the homeported ships have been transfered from the Navy to the Civilian Military sea lift command. Which is why Earle is looking to sell off part of their housing to civilians, they don't have the thousands of sailors from the ships based there anymore. Most of Earle's missions is to supply ships on their way to or coming back from deployment who only stop for a couple days at the most.

There are discussions about adding Earle as a storage location for the Army/National Guard and connecting the weapons depot with Lakehurst/Fort Dix via a new rail head at Lakehurst, Earle would make a great point of departure for the 10th Mountain division and their equipment from Fort Drum. Fort Drum used to use the former Military Ocean terminal in Bayonne but now I believe they use Howland Hook on Staten Island, they should use Earle as they can pull their equipment trains all the way out to the ships on the pier.

Charleston also services cruisers and destroyers I believe. It's probably used more for the ships homeported in Mayport since Yorktown is much further north. The run up into Yorktown is about a 4 hour sea detail from the Atlantic. In fact Norfolk ships would have to go to sea and cross over the south tunnel of the CB Bridge Tunnel and come back in over the north tunnel so it's through a different channel.

Earle was pretty cool but getting off the ship for liberty took a while and the bus trips off the pier had to be scheduled around the trains. A few years ago several sailors were killed when a van went off the pier into the water. We used to go to Red Bank and there were a few bars there that appreciated sailors.

Earle should be safe unless the Navy decides to replenish the Amphibs at sea like they do the carriers, but that is a lengthy and dangerous evolution, and we don't have as many ammo ships anymore and most are deployed.