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Discussion relating to the D&H. For more information, please visit the Bridge Line Historical Society.

Moderator: MEC407

 #189355  by EMT49
 
Hi my name is chuck a friend and i are planning an HO scale layout of
some of the D&H in the mid 70's. what i am looking for is some info on

1. The layout of the Bevier st yard? How it was used and what year
did they stop useing it ? Any maps that could help with the yard
layout?

2. What year did the east binghamton yard come into use and did they
use the main yard in binghamton for anything other than car setout to
another rail road .

3. i am also intrested in how that handeld jeff juc. and nineveh juc.



The plan for this layout is from binghamton to about Bainbridge but
mostly just the parts of intrest like the tunnel,nineveh bridge,
strucca maybe the two bridges and depot in Sanitaria Springs.

and the industreys in afton and bainbridge. this layout is in the
planning and resurch stages.

sorry for being so long winded and thankes in advance for any help

 #189392  by ANDY117
 
Bevier street is still used, and has 3 industries in it. Binghamton Cold Storage and Stanford Seed on the east side, served by CP, and an Agway grain elevator on the other side, served by NS. It only has about 4 stroage tracks now, but originally had about 10-15. The Roundhouse burned down in '78 i believe. The pit is filled, but you can see where it was, as the concrete is settling. You will have a wye, with 3 tracks, 2 leading to the NYSW yard, and the Buffalo runner track. on the other side, there is the Binghamton Runner. This crosses 3 tracks, and connects to 2 runner to Conklin Yard. Conklin has been in use since the DL&W days, and a few structures remain. I was just in the roundhouse a few weeks ago, and it is too far gone to save. The turntable bridge is still there. There is also a power plant up on a hill, which used to power the buildings. The old DL&W tower was torn down last winter. The main yard was an interchange between the EL and D&H. Also the LV set out cars here as well. Now back to Bevier. The NYSW runs up the west side, and up to Chenango Bridge. On the other side, there is End Of Main Track, where there are a pair of 2 headed signals for CPF-611 up near Phelps street. I'm not too familiar with Afton and Bainbridge, but i'm sure you can easily find info from other people on here. hAve fun with the Tunnel. I was up there a month ago chasing a CP Rail work train.

Happy modeling!

 #190465  by NYSW3614
 
The Bevier St roundhouse burned before 76 as EL engines were inside at the time. I know of some photos of the burned engines, I will look for them later. Roundhouse floor quite visible now, half of it fenced off for some strange reason. The table was scrapped in the 90s.

The DL&W tower was torn down summer 2004. I was in the yard days before thinking to myself, oh I should get a photo some day. Some day will never come.

I'd love to see current photos of the DL&W roundhouse, never say never but considering where it is I doubt there is any hope for it.

And my understanding was that Conrail removed all tracks from the Conklin yard before the D&H takeover, and D&H/GR reinstalled it. I will have to check a couple photos.

J
 #191143  by ChiefTroll
 
Before the D&H/EL coordination that began in 1968, the two D&H yards in Binghamton were Bevier Street (north of the roundhouse) and Liberty Street (near the D&H - Erie - DL&W junction). Liberty St. was used mostly for local traffic and interchange to the Erie and DL&W. The main function of Bevier St was classification of inbound interchange traffic and building northbound trains.

Until the middle 1960's, the D&H depended on Oneonta for classification of most of its overhead traffic. Binghamton would take whatever tonnage arrived from Erie, DL&W and LV, build a train based on tonnage limits, and send it "dirty" to Oneonta. Oneonta would classify blocks for Kenwood, Mohawk, Mechanicville B&M, Whitehall, Rouses Point CN, Rouses Pont NJ, etc.

When Ken Miller became General Superintendent, he changed the strategy so that most interchange traffic was classified where it entered the D&H. That added to the work at Bevier St, for instance, where trains would be blocked for all those same destinations I listed above plus more.

When the N&W (Dereco) acquired the D&H and EL in 1968, the EL attempted to do some eastward blocking for the D&H at Hornell and Meadville. The EL also leased Liberty St Yard from the D&H and moved all EL operations from East Binghamton Yard (Conklin) to Liberty Street. During my time around there (1966-1972) the LV daylight turn from Sayre
was running into Bevier Street, and the D&H "Sayre Job" was running at night from Bevier St to Sayre and back.

Belden Tunnel was still a restrictive clearance, and dimension cars to and from EL were set out and picked up at Jefferson Jct on the Nineveh Branch. All operations on the connection between D&H at Jeff Jct and the EL at Lanesboro and Susquehanna were run by EL.

All D&H trains for Pennsylvania went down the Nineveh Branch and the Jefferson Branch to Carbondale, Wilkes-Barre and Buttonwood. The local freight, SU-2, worked from Oneonta to Windsor and return. The only local service between Nineveh and Binghamton was an occasional car placed or picked up by a through train.

The D&H took over East Binghamton Yard from Conrail after acquiring the former DL&W to Scranton and beyond (ca. 1978?). The yard tracks had been out of service for several years, but neither EL nor Conrail ever removed all the yard tracks. The D&H had to rehab them, but they were still there when the yard was re-activated.

 #191355  by EMT49
 
Hey guys thanks for the help this info should help come up with a eara for the layout :-D
 #1491146  by greg10562
 
What was the Agway elevator at the Bevier St. yard used for, did it ship loaded cars or receive loaded cars? Was it grain or feed or maybe fertilizer?
 #1491275  by ricebrianrice
 
Agway, now 13 years later, Perdue, is a Blending Facility. We bring in multiple different products, blend them, and ship them to other feed mills.
We do not currently receive anything by Rail, all Trucks.
We did receive Blood meal by Rail, it was trans loaded in Iowa, but the Blood Co. lost it rail lease about 3 years ago.

The facility has never been a "grain elevator", that means we would buy grain products, and store them for resale.

Brian
 #1491277  by JoeCollege
 
Bevier St now is site of a frac sand transload facility. The recent re-construction of the Kamikaze curve may have resulted in some tracks being removed, but I really don't know. NYSW transloads some dirty dirt near the old Agway site, and possibly some lumber.
 #1491348  by greg10562
 
Thanks for the info. The building was always a landmark while driving on Rt. 81. I built a mock-up for my model railroad and didn't know how it was served by rail. I am not modeling Binghamton though, just always liked the way the building looked with the red and black logo.
 #1491352  by ricebrianrice
 
Post a pic of your mock up, would love to see it. We finally got the Perdue Logo up on the mill, they have only owned it for 10 years.

NYSW's Dirty Dirt trans load has ended, there have not been any of those cars in the yard since early fall.

Still lots of hoppers of plastic pellets for National Pipe in Endicott
 #1535083  by ricebrianrice
 
Nice Model. The paint job is better than the building has ever seen.
I am a little creeped out, that you have a model of the place I work in your basement.

Do you know why the corners of the building are round?

Thanks for the picture.
Brian
 #1536266  by Engineer Spike
 
The Agway plant was not D&H’s customer. It was part of the Lackawanna line to Utica and Syracuse. The bridges over Bevier St. were redone. The D&H was at a higher elevation, but the Lackawanna was much lower, and was eliminated. In its place, a connection and ramp was put in place. This connected the Lackawanna lines into the D&H north of the new bridges.
 #1627404  by toddsyr
 
The original poster inquired about maps.
If they're still paying attention to this, here ya go:

https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3804bm.g3 ... st=gallery

Todd K Stearns