NS taking over part of D&H, fate of Bangor & Slateford??

As of March 2017. NS is interchanging 50-100 cars , 3 days a week with DL at slateford Jct. Rumors of the demise of The B&P seems to be somewhat exaggerated.

Rumors are just that.......RUMORS. I put about as much faith in what is on half these threads as I do the rest of the internet "facts".Thing that cracks me up is the people who start this stuff with no REAL credible facts ,just speculation ( and perhaps wishful thinking). Then when pressed by a question there are nothing but cricket sounds.

Haven't been out in a month or so but know that NS has been bringing massive trains up to D-L. Seems that all the fear-mongerers on here were WRONG. The former DL&W main is alive and well because NS is now bringing the grain trains in to Portland / Slateford and handing them off to D-L ,along with the lumber and fracking sand they were already delivering. Latest rumor has NS dropping off at Martins Creek and D-L picking up there. Won't be able to find out if that is true until next week.

CNJ Fan 4evr wrote:Haven't been out in a month or so but know that NS has been bringing massive trains up to D-L. Seems that all the fear-mongerers on here were WRONG. The former DL&W main is alive and well because NS is now bringing the grain trains in to Portland / Slateford and handing them off to D-L ,along with the lumber and fracking sand they were already delivering. Latest rumor has NS dropping off at Martins Creek and D-L picking up there. Won't be able to find out if that is true until next week.

Yeah, heard about that as well... Also heard that DL will have trackage rights to Hudson yard in P'burg, but that may be a little far fetched as of now. It would be nice seeing Alcos in Union square though.

Well, Apart from the flour mill complex just south of Martin's creek, I don't think there is much business from Hudson Yard all the way to the Slateford yard interchange. (That power plant in Portland is winding down, or at least shutting down its coal units if it hasn't done so already.
So I can see NS turning the whole ball of wax over to DL, except for the flour mill traffic.

The rumored plan for the new operator (still formally to be announced) of the NS lines in north Jersey (Morristown line, Boonton Line, Totowa secondary, ..., is to drop off and pick up at Hudson yard.
JS

When the NS takeover happened, we expected a disaster for DL. So at least the shift of interchange from Taylor to Slateford provides one token beneficial outcome from NS' complete lack of interest in NY, NJ, or anything north of PRR/RDG territory.

As far as the B&P rumors though, they've been circulating for 2 years now and nothing has changed yet, so I'll believe it when I see it. As much as NS wants out of things, the one thing they seem to want even more is to not give anyone else a chance to play on their "turf"....

oibu wrote:When the NS takeover happened, we expected a disaster for DL. So at least the shift of interchange from Taylor to Slateford provides one token beneficial outcome from NS' complete lack of interest in NY, NJ, or anything north of PRR/RDG territory.

I thought the DL/NS interchange was always at Slateford in the first place. Was it at Taylor in the Conrail days?

Related, what ever happened to the NS run-throughs from Allentown to Dupont PA over the Reading and Northern, through the Lehigh River gorge? Most of us thought those would end when NS bought the line from Sunbury to Scranton and beyond from D&H (ex PRR, D&H, CNJ..) since NS then had its own line from Harrisburg to Scranton, but for a while at least I heard NS was still running a daily train each way on the Reading and Northern.

I was just referring to the fears everyone had that once everything became NS, all interchange with DL would shift to Taylor and the "Pocono main" would revert to a quiet branch with no more "through" traffic. That's what most of us expected I think, because why go to Portland when you can just use your "mainline" connection?

But since most everything north and east of Harrisburg is treated like its b*st*rd stepchildren, NS seems to be happier running more traffic on an obscure branch local out of Allentown, than moving it over a "main" route that it doesn't seem to what to utilize for any traffic that can conceivably be moved via another means or avoided altogether.

So, I can't remember. Where was the DL interchange back in the Conrail days? Taylor or Slateford? Did Slateford only start only when NS took over 1/2 of Conrail?

Slateford interchange started around 2001 or 2002 after the Pocono Main was rehabbed. The first big push on that front had been to the Mt. Pocono flour mill in the late '90s, then the rehab continued east from there.

Keep in mind CR had completely vacated the Lackawanna and Wyoming valleys (in fact everything north of the Hazleton line) in the mid-90s, so after that there was no CR-DL interchange. For at least some of the time, DL actually ran to Pittston over R&N to interchange with them rather than having the interchange brought up to Taylor by R&N.

oibu wrote:Slateford interchange started around 2001 or 2002 after the Pocono Main was rehabbed. The first big push on that front had been to the Mt. Pocono flour mill in the late '90s, then the rehab continued east from there.

Keep in mind CR had completely vacated the Lackawanna and Wyoming valleys (in fact everything north of the Hazleton line) in the mid-90s, so after that there was no CR-DL interchange. For at least some of the time, DL actually ran to Pittston over R&N to interchange with them rather than having the interchange brought up to Taylor by R&N.

Yeah, I remember all that.. I think the Mt. Pocono Mill opened about 1995 or 96? Also, I remember Conjob had ripped out a piece of rail at Analomink with a chain linked fence... So I imagine nothing went through there from like early to mid 80s to 1999??

Conrail ran two detour coal trains to Portland via Scarnton after a bridge washed out on B&P. That was in mid '90's. Other than that I can't recall any other freight north of Analomink until DL took over in Seot. 2001. CP used to bring the grain trains to MT. Pocono via Scranton. Used to be fun watching them go through Steamtown right next to the CP 2317.
I haven't been out lately. Too much work and not enough time. A co-worker lives near Bangor and says the traffic patterns have changed in the last 6 weeks or so. I caught an NS empty going back to Allentown yesterday at 2:00 PM. Definitely a weird time for them.

Effective today the Slateford interchange moved to Scranton. Per Facebook reports.

Heard the same thing. If true ,it is a sad day for railfans in the Lehigh Valley/ Pocono region. There goes my Tuesday ritual.Unfortunately I could not seem to get back up to the old DL&W from Slateford north because the D-L schedule did not coincide with mine. Hopefully they get on a schedule out of Scranton we can follow in the warmer months.

CNJ Fan 4evr wrote:Heard the same thing. If true ,it is a sad day for railfans in the Lehigh Valley/ Pocono region. There goes my Tuesday ritual.Unfortunately I could not seem to get back up to the old DL&W from Slateford north because the D-L schedule did not coincide with mine. Hopefully they get on a schedule out of Scranton we can follow in the warmer months.

How do you think I feel? I was never able to get any shots of any trains between Slateford and Martins Creek.... Wish it didn't end like this as I wanted to move out there next year..