Work on the Lodi branch?

Surprisingly enough, on the way home from work the other night, I saw some equipment parked along the lodi branch near the branch's last remaining customer. There seemed to be some ties and stone. Any ideas on what's going on over there?

I had seen your post on the NJ site, and then recalled that there were RBBB posts... when a circus is around the area, this branch has been used for car storage in previous years. It may be a new customer, it may just be an attempt to bring the track up to useable standards and use the track for temporary storage again.

Yes Rich, I actually was thinking this was a possibility. Rehabbing so they can store cars there. I remember years back even when it was cut short of garibaldi ave, they used to have covered hopper and tank cars left there in storage.

I saw it too and was going to post about it. But what i saw didn't look like track work. Its right near the paint building. They did put alot of new rock, unsure if it was ballast or not and continued up probably 200 feet covering the tracks up. I'll stop down there later on if its still light out and take some pic.s

Rumor has it that the shopped cars that are repaired on a couple tracks in the yard at Passaic Jct will be moved to a new facility (if you can call it that, it will be all outside like the current operation) on the end of the Lodi Industrial. This is being done to allow more room in PC for customer cars.

Sirsonic wrote:Rumor has it that the shopped cars that are repaired on a couple tracks in the yard at Passaic Jct will be moved to a new facility (if you can call it that, it will be all outside like the current operation) on the end of the Lodi Industrial. This is being done to allow more room in PC for customer cars.

Well at least is assures that the line won't be abandonded anytime soon if the rumor is true....

that is good news indeed. Maybe now i'll be able to catch the trains crossing rt.17.

As I posted in the njrail forum, it looks like they are grading to allow another track to be put in past the last customer's turnout. Looks like they are also flattening out the stone that was used to cover the old railbed when the sewer project was done. Hopefully, that rumor comes true about storing cars. It would be great to see some life once again over there

The rest of the branch is in sorry shape, wonder if they will make any upgrades to that...time will tell....

How far south will the new active track go? Past Rte 46? or stopping short near Garibald Ave. ? any turnouts left either where the old Lodi Branch RR ran (in the industrial complex south of Garibaldi) or along Gregg Street?

it can't go past garibaldi. But im sure if they wanted to they could make it go and even past 46. But it looked like they stopped just before garibaldi behind dux paint. and as for the last customer? who is it, the turn outs look like they havent' been used in years.

The last company gets covered hoppers, I believe, of plestic pellets. From what I know they manufacturer plastic bags and such. There are usually two to three cars parked on their siding. The siding is right after the Detroit Diesel entrance where they fix the buses.

Drove down earlier. Rumors are rumors and it looks like its not a rumor of something going in. Track work was beeing done when i went down there. They have from Mccain foods a new set of ties with rail kinda in place. They were working on it while i drove down. I took some pics but on a diff. comp so I can't post now. But the section they were working on looks like a switch to go over garibaldi. The original track is still there this looks like a second set of tracks to go west. There were several truck loads of ballast just east of them and more at the end near dux paint. Not sure if the track work will be going that far or not. But i was wondering why not acquire some of the property where one of the sidings went into? Use this to build somekind of shelter with room for numerous tracks to work on rolling stock.

Dub, now we're getting into speculation, but my guess is all that land has an environmental legacy that no one in their right mind would touch, for fear of inheriting the liability for an unending cleanup.

Rich, very true. Those properties are probably contaminated pretty bad.

But anyway, here's the pics i got uploaded. I only took a few and i went down to edgewater to document that old line.

The second property west of Rt 17 on the north side of Gregg St used to be BASF where they produced ink, I think. The first property is NJDOT. I think BASF used to receive tankers and boxcars. It closed around 1994 and they tore the building down a few years ago.

The property is subject to a 30 yr environmental remediation project to remove toluene from down below. After the plant shutdown, BASF tried to rent the building & property out with the environmental work going on in the background but couldn't find any takers because the Boro of Lodi would only permit a recycling type usage on the grounds (kind of limits your leasing options). Since the building was left unheated, it started falling apart pretty quickly so i guess they decided to tear it down and save on the property taxes.

An old timer once told me that many, many years ago, that there had been a facility on that property (the BASF factory building dated back to the mid 1930's) that serviced steam locomotives. Possibly that was the original Lodi railroad?