Delaware and Raritan River Railroad-General Discussion

"Various transportation modes can be used. Truck, rail, ship, and air transport are all viable options for delivery of weapons, and the weapons container designer must be aware of all anticipated modes to design the container properly. The most common form of ground transportation for weapons is by truck. Commercial rail transport usually is cost effective only for high-volume movement. Rail transport on the premises of Naval Weapons Stations typically is required for moving ordnance from magazines to loading piers and is a very controlled environment compared to commercial rail. Ordnance rail car loads must be documented with drawings of the required blocking, bracing and tie-down of the loads for safe rail transport. Per DOT 49 Code of Federal Regulation (CFR) requirements for public safety, commercial rail car loads must be able to survive an 11.8 feet per second impact without failure of the blocking and bracing or ordnance container." https://www.dau.edu/library/defense-atl ... portation-

I don't see why they would need any more security than they get on the truck shipments. I don't know what that entails. Have not seen any escorted trucks in this area other than oversize loads.
I have been given to understand the rail shipments to the pier are escorted along Normandy rd, someone else may wish to comment on that.
During movements / training exercises by military personnel trucks carrying anything more than standard firearms ammo often have warning-explosive signs on them.
Been a long time (more than 50 years) since I had any involvement in transport of ordnance.

Does Earle receive enough munitions to justify getting it by rail? And if so, why did they stop getting it by rail 30-40+ years ago?

Thanks for that, Kenw2kb, that helps. 11.8 ft/sec is 7 - 8 mph.
I imagine rail shipments ended shortly after the end of VietNam. I remember lengthy trains trundling thru Farmingdale in the 70s.

Interesting. The other thing to consider, would NJT allow munitions to be shipped on their tracks? Trains going to Browns Yard are only on NJT tracks for a couple of miles, if that, but I could see NJT being unhappy with that...

Earle was getting shipments by rail into the mid 90's. Conrail PD would follow the train from Browns until delivery was made.

JohnFromJersey wrote: ↑Sun Nov 06, 2022 5:26 pm Interesting. The other thing to consider, would NJT allow munitions to be shipped on their tracks? Trains going to Browns Yard are only on NJT tracks for a couple of miles, if that, but I could see NJT being unhappy with that...

The CNJ and PRR both shipped weapons and ammo to Earle before NJT. PRR had trackage rights on CNJ from Farmingdale.

Not sure if they still do, but CRST (Cedar Rapids Steel Transport is the parent company) used to bring in ordnance to Earle. They would often pick up a backhaul of paper products from Lily-Tulip in Holmdel. My Dad worked at Lily and would often talk to the drivers and found out details.

It depends on what is being hauled whether you need an escort or not. I once hauled one-each nuclear missile (without the warhead) from Picatinny Arsenal to Seneca NY. I had an MP escort to the rear, and front and rear state police escorts through each state (NJ, PA, and NY). No lights or sirens, just drove along with me.

Would be cool to see Earle get rail deliveries again. All this talk of Earle's rail deliveries in the past still has not answered my question as to why Earle stopped getting them in the 90's - going to assume it was either the end of the Cold War meaning the Navy wasn't getting as much bulk munitions as much, and/or NJT put restrictions on it - after all, C&D is here to complete a project that NJT has been pushing to get freight off of the Coastline.

Maybe even Fort Dix could get shipments as well. I remember there being a study that said Fort Dix would desire a rail connection again at some point, but also said it's not exactly a priority for them

JB-1 has been sitting on the runaround track at Builders General with 1888 on the head end facing towards Prestone since Saturday, and was still there as of 3PM this afternoon. Unsure why.

Earle and many other bases stopped getting large shipments because the style of warfare has changed. I remember Vietnam when there was indiscriminate shelling and aerial fire. This called for large amounts of ordnance. Now that the world has changed we now do surgical strikes with drones or precision guided weapons to avoid the collateral damage that occurred in Vietnam. Earle is now a layover point for ordnance that is at the end of its service life. From there it goes to foreign military sale or decommissioning. Fort Dix doesn't use enough or large enough ordnance to warrant getting train cars. The ordnance is manufactured in factories that do not use train service. You most likely will not see this stuff moved in large quantities by train anymore. Logisticly, nowadays it's easier to drive a trailer full of materials onto a cargo plane and fly it to wherever going.

trainfann101 wrote:JB-1 has been sitting on the runaround track at Builders General with 1888 on the head end facing towards Prestone since Saturday, and was still there as of 3PM this afternoon. Unsure why.

Very unusual. Hopefully they didn’t break down.

FrontFrank wrote: ↑Mon Nov 07, 2022 5:15 pm Earle and many other bases stopped getting large shipments because the style of warfare has changed. I remember Vietnam when there was indiscriminate shelling and aerial fire. This called for large amounts of ordnance. Now that the world has changed we now do surgical strikes with drones or precision guided weapons to avoid the collateral damage that occurred in Vietnam. Earle is now a layover point for ordnance that is at the end of its service life. From there it goes to foreign military sale or decommissioning. Fort Dix doesn't use enough or large enough ordnance to warrant getting train cars. The ordnance is manufactured in factories that do not use train service. You most likely will not see this stuff moved in large quantities by train anymore. Logisticly, nowadays it's easier to drive a trailer full of materials onto a cargo plane and fly it to wherever going.

Wouldn't that mean that, eventually, the Earle railroad, and even Earle as a whole, will probably become obsolete?

trainfann101 wrote:JB-1 has been sitting on the runaround track at Builders General with 1888 on the head end facing towards Prestone since Saturday, and was still there as of 3PM this afternoon. Unsure why.

Could it be they are having issues with all three locomotives? Around the time of the forsgate drive run through I saw a white service truck parked next to it at the Jamesburg wye for two days and a mechanic walking along the cabinet doors on the right side. This would be about two weeks ago .

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JohnFromJersey wrote: ↑Mon Nov 07, 2022 7:08 pm
Wouldn't that mean that, eventually, the Earle railroad, and even Earle as a whole, will probably become obsolete?

I hope not but the single tracking (at least via severing one track at several grade crossings - wouldn't be too hard to restore at this point) seems ominous. I just remember my time as a grad student at William & Mary where I cycled along the Colonial Parkway out to Yorktown and saw remnants of the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station Railroad which is entirely abandoned/mostly dismantled.