NJT yard in Morristown

Anyone know what the small mu yard just west of the Morristown station was for? Looking at the arial photos it looks like it hasn't been used since the mid-1960s. Is it still connected to the main NJT line and is the overhead catenary still live?

As you noted, it is the former coach/MU yard for Morristown: a relic of a time when the railroad was run much differently, more flexibly, and probably much better than it is now.

I would imagine the wires are still up and energized so it can be used to set aside failed equipment and perhaps work train equipment if any of that requires live catenary. Post Sandy, I would imagine it is in place still so a few extra trainsets can be moved (if that fake Civil Servant cited in the crooked [tentatively titled "Woe Is Us How Did We Let Hundreds of Millions of Dollars of Equipment Get Destroyed by Flooding When We Had So Much Damned Warning? Let's Blame a Made Up Person and Never Be Held to Account for It!"] post-Sandy report does his/her made up job this time) from the flood prone areas of the system.

IIRC, in the EL days (the old green cars), locals originated or turned back at Morristown, and expresses went to dover. I think that all changed with the 1980's rebuild of the line to AC voltage, new cars etc. Some trains woud split at Summit, with last 2 or 4 cars of the train going to gladstone. splitting the train (or putting the train together going east) wud take about a minute, and was done w passengers on board. Today, it would take an hour and an act of congress

carajul wrote:Anyone know what the small mu yard just west of the Morristown station was for? Looking at the arial photos it looks like it hasn't been used since the mid-1960s. Is it still connected to the main NJT line and is the overhead catenary still live?

As far as I know, its still connected to NJT.

Let's also not forget that before late 2007, a good portion of the URHS collection that now resides in Boonton, lived in that MU yard for several years, where it was vandalized, set on fire, and lived in by a large segment of Morristown's homeless population. Believe me, I know. I helped get that stuff out of there and cleaned the place up after everything was moved to Boonton. I have pictures and video of the hospital move NJT made to get the URHS equipment out. Happened at about 2am the night they did it.

pdtrains wrote:IIRC, in the EL days (the old green cars), locals originated or turned back at Morristown, and expresses went to dover. I think that all changed with the 1980's rebuild of the line to AC voltage, new cars etc. Some trains woud split at Summit, with last 2 or 4 cars of the train going to gladstone. splitting the train (or putting the train together going east) wud take about a minute, and was done w passengers on board. Today, it would take an hour and an act of congress

So true. I have no idea why it takes so much time to do simple things like adding or dropping an MU set these days. The damned things were designed with quick coupling and uncoupling in mind.

Ah, but not with the FRA in mind. I remember when coupling and uncoupling at Summit took no time at all, but all the steps they have to go through today make that impossible.

Yeah, I remember riding more than one of those to the Hoboken Festival back in the mid 80s. No hassle, just a quick stop and off we go down our branch.

What steps do they have to take now that they didn't back when? I am rather unfamiliar with railroad operating rules.

That yard was also very isolated and several conductors had been robbed over the years.

carajul wrote:Anyone know what the small mu yard just west of the Morristown station was for? Looking at the arial photos it looks like it hasn't been used since the mid-1960s. Is it still connected to the main NJT line and is the overhead catenary still live?

If you look at Google street view of the Martin Luther King Avenue overpass, there are insulators in the catenary for the yard lead track and it appears to be tied off at the next catenary tower.. The lead itself does still appear to be attached to the main.