Blissville Yard

I should clarify, it's just the one track currently being used for storage - the rails are still in place on the second track. With the customers moved from arch street there's no regular moves on that segment now.

And so it truly begins... spotted a few tank cars destined for wheelspur/LIC terminal being held at blissville over the weekend. First actual loads held there in decades I'd imagine.

There is a red rail car mover now parked on the WM siding - very similar to the one WM uses in Bushwick to pull cars in and out of their siding. Wasn't there a week or two ago.

I'm pretty sure they're putting up a newer, bigger trash transfer building too. I'll have to double check my old photos...

So with WM online, Blissville is much more active with trash cars. The string of stored bad order CDEX cars is still there too, behind this line on the incline to yard a/arch street.

Didn't want to start a "wheelspur" thread, so posted these photos here from today's bike ride. I also rode past Blissville Yard, which was now full of trash cars with green containers, I am estimating 16 trash cars. There was also a boxcar and half dozen scrap metal cars in the yard, not counting the "bad order" cars parked up on the ramp. The WM facility only has five railcar spots so they must be shuttling cars back and forth from WM to Blissville when loading.

160 is in dire need a trip to the paint shop,stripped of all paint and done from bare metal.
Is 160 leased from LIRR,or an unpatched NY&A unit?

The 160 is most likely the drill engine for the LIC passenger yard. Looks to be laid up near former Case Paper a bit east of actual yard.

That's definitely the LIC yard drill. Been parking there for decades (though used to be only on weekdays).

Blissville was filled to the brim with trash cars this weekend, which I imagine will be the norm going forward. There's also two cuts of bad ordered cars - nearly all old CDEX cars, plus a single boxcar.

I was a little surprised to see they're using the two old approach tracks towards arch street for storage. It's a steep grade those cars are parked on. They were parked up right up to maybe 2-3 car lengths from the drawbridge.

There's also some mounds of dirt and loaders down there towards the east switches. Not sure what that's about.

I think after the FRA's "mini deep dive" safety audit they bad ordered around 90 cars in the Fresh Pond vicinity. Does that trackmobile operate beyond the limits of the NYAR secondary, I wonder how they're able to do that to retrieve the cars from Blissville yard towards LIRR "C" secondary...

freightguy wrote:...Does that trackmobile operate beyond the limits of the NYAR secondary, I wonder how they're able to do that to retrieve the cars from Blissville yard towards LIRR "C" secondary...

I wondered the same as you freightguy...
It does operate through Bliss. In another thread I linked to pix and a video of the Trackmobile operating across the crossings there, approaching the boundary between "C" Sec and "NYAR" Sec.

Where exactly does C end and Montauk begin? At that sign behind (the former) allied extruders?

Perhaps the limits of C were moved and the two tracks cutoff tracks that led to arch st. are now considered yard tracks? They did receive some work when the new switches were added on the east end. All I can tell you is the WM crew moves their cars from the siding east of greenpoint ave over to blissville.

A bunch of those CDEX cars have been at Bliss awhile.

Believe LIRR has taken the Montauk Cutoff trackage out of service at the Drawbridge,allowing the CDEX cars
to rot on what was the cutoff tracks at Bliss.

Don't take this to the bank, but I heard NYA has control of the territory from around 100' east of Borden Ave. I like the pictures you guys put up. I've yet to check out the new area down there yet.

It's ashame Allied Extruders is gone. That was an LIRR top ten. Same was probably true during the NYAR tenure. It will be interesting to see what else may potentially come online down that way. If Fresh Direct ever moves to the Bronx that building would probably good for another rail served food distributor.

That's what I'm thinking (for the fresh direct spot). Maybe one of the Asian food distros or someone else will want to expand, though one did buy the dickard building next to Maspeth not long ago.

Not sure what will happen to allied - no obvious manufacturing reuses though it's likely well-wired for refrigeration too. Hopefully silvercup or haddad doesn't swallow it up (haddad seems to own or be renting the former getty terminal south of bliss - it's full of movie production truck parking and a few prop cars). The other thriving business around LIC is... self storage... lots of non-rail business around and forever expanding.

Also of note, I took a walk down to the DB cabin drawbridge, and the control panels have been looted of copper. They couldn't open that bridge if they wanted to now (which I'm sure they don't).

Looks like the LIRR intends to file for abandonment on the Montauk Cutoff between (MP 0.00 to MP 0.69) at the end of the month (STB link). The bridge is going to be welded in the upright position. It doesn't intend to lift any of the rails or other infrastructure, otherwise, though. While not relevant to Blissville, the viaduct is going to get removed for expanded facilities for ESA.