Which Branch goes through Maspeth?

As a travelling auditor, I've been visiting a company in Maspeth. I've noticed in the neighborhood: A tired looking trestle going over Grand Avenue at Rust Street, rail sidings to two buildings on the north side of Grand Avenue near 49th Street, and grade crossings over Maspeth Avenue at Rust, with a total of about 6 tracks with a cut of old GTAX hopper cars to the north and a cut of center beam flats being loaded with plywood to the south. Is this part of the Bushwick Branch?

I believe it's part of the Lower Montauk to Long Island City. The Bushwick Branch comes off east of there at Fresh Pound.

railfan365 wrote:As a travelling auditor, I've been visiting a company in Maspeth. I've noticed in the neighborhood: A tired looking trestle going over Grand Avenue at Rust Street, rail sidings to two buildings on the north side of Grand Avenue near 49th Street, and grade crossings over Maspeth Avenue at Rust, with a total of about 6 tracks with a cut of old GTAX hopper cars to the north and a cut of center beam flats being loaded with plywood to the south. Is this part of the Bushwick Branch?

Hello railfan365:
That tired looking trestle is actually fairly new. It was replaced within the last 10 years or so. It's one of the new designs where it's not painted and allowed to rust.
The surface rust provides "protection". At the Maspeth Ave. grade crossing, to the north you are looking at Sky/Superior where they unload aggregate stone. The NY&A receives this stone in GATX hoppers from quarries in Connecticut via the P & W. South: The CB flats are being unloaded there. Several lumberyards receive plywood and other lumber and it is stored in a fenced area just south of the cars for truck pick-up.

Crabman is correct. The trackage in this area is the Lower Montauk. The Bushwick branch runs from Fresh Pond paralleling the Lower Montauk and splits out crossing Flushing Ave at 56 th street and threading its way into Bushwick to the trash transfer station (green container flats)station near the end of the branch.

I used to work in the area. There are a lot of interesting spurs still left and a few have come back. There are more spurs than you mentioned in the general area but you can't see them for some of the buildings. There used to be a lot more industry here. But even now the Maspeth/Bushwick area provides the NY&A with a number of carloads in and out.
Regards.

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http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/licity/licity.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Talk about good responses. Thanks to all who posted replies - and have given me some insight to the rail service there. BTW, does anyone know how often there's motor power over there? And is it any particular time of day that I might look to catch some locomotive action?

To me the branch in Maspeth is the more interesting of all NY&A trackage, sidings that are in buildings, through building, around tight curves, etc. When I was building my NY&A Maspeth layout I included the same trestle that goes over Grand Ave. Unfortunately I had to dismantle the layout but hope to rebuild it some day. (the unpainted trailer office was going to be the scrap yard right on Grand Ave)

rscott417 wrote:To me the branch in Maspeth is the more interesting of all NY&A trackage, sidings that are in buildings, through building, around tight curves, etc. When I was building my NY&A Maspeth layout I included the same trestle that goes over Grand Ave. Unfortunately I had to dismantle the layout but hope to rebuild it some day. (the unpainted trailer office was going to be the scrap yard right on Grand Ave)

Nice set-up. I've already had in mind to go back their on my own time with a camera.

I've seen them switch there during the day (mid afternoon) on weekdays. I suspect there's 2 different runs over there - one that switches the various sidings and one that brings/pulls the rock cars. I've never seen the rock cars being switched, though I've seen the mid day general merch switching many times. I suspect stones cars are moved in separately, perhaps early morning or at night after P&W shows up with cars for them.

There are 6 different customers: the asian food place (boxcars) on grand ave, the transload at grand ave that I'm pretty sure is still boxcars of food stuff. In between there's a siding within a building - I forget the name of that customer offhand but they get box cars as well. Then there's the lumber joint, and another asian food spot all the way back at the other end, across the crossing at the inlet of newtown creek. Then of course there is superior aggregate, the rock car folks.

It's an interesting operation - when they're switching they go across the crossing at rust street many times, pushing and pulling cars from the various sidings. When they're done they used to wait by the crossing for clearance from LIRR, though now that the route is under NY&A control, I'm not sure if they still do that.

Thanks, Bert. Do they ever switch there on Sundays?

DogBert wrote:In between there's a siding within a building - I forget the name of that customer offhand but they get box cars as well.

Dogbert,
I guess you are thinking about Norampac NYC (formerly Star Corrugated Box) located on Grand Ave. Their siding starts at Rust Street and curves around until it enters the building. They receive rolls of kraft paper like Rock-Tenn (former Southern Container) - See FGLK boxcar thread. Norampac can spot 4 boxcars inside their building. More "inside" information of which I could tell stories.

railfan365
The Lower Montauk years ago was pretty much M-F. I don't know (or think) that much has changed. Maybe Sky/Superior would get switched on a Saturday but I haven't seen nor know of much Sunday action. MAybe someone else can answer about the Bushwick branch. NYC makes a lot of trash and it may get served 6 days a week.

If you want to catch any action around Maspeth, it used to be from about 1-4 PM (M-F) depending on how much switching they had to do.
The SW1001s, 101, 105 and 106 were usually found doing the work.

Heres some pics of grand ave, one siding has been removed

Was a lot of fun when I worked over there. Good deal of mid-day switching and then there is the Mt. Olivet Grade, steepest on Long Island. Nice to watch the train work uphill back to Fresh Pond after a day on the Lower Montauk.

Norampack actually has/had a diamond that led to the interior unloading track and former outbound load track.

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Grand Avenue site used to load up the LIRR ore jennys from the water tunnel construction, later the C&D transload. Glad to see the is still some traffic using the area.

Several of those shots are amazing. They definitely add to this site.

That's the place - the diamond crossing is still back there. Never seen a train in maspeth on a sunday, ever.

Bushwick branch is nights, 6 days a week. Usually at least 3-15 trash cars a day + the other customers. There's a few threads on here with the details.

I stopped by there today. I caught a run, not quite sure of the symbol, departing Fresh Pond. I suspect some Geeps were probably leading. Caught 3 SWs bringing 10-15 or so trash cars. I also saw the PW units switching some general merch., although I'm not quite sure why PW does NY&A's work lol. There were also switching GATX cars. CSX left FP with an SD60M leading, SD40-2 8844 trailing I believe with all General Merch. This happened on Monday(today) between 9 and 11:30am during my visit.