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

Wow. This is potentially terrible news for the railroad between Phillipsburg and Stroudsburg. Not a heck of a lot of online business...or really any at all that I can think of outside of the Phillipsburg area.

Power plant is gone. There used to be a plastics business in Portland, by I have seen nothing on their siding in decades, ever since 2005ish when my old company was interested in the location. There is a siding to a little farm supply place that made or received fertilizer somewhere near Bangor that hasn't seen a car in decades.

I would highly doubt it would get ripped up. That I would find unlikely, but the near term future of the line is not bright. Why maintain 20-30 miles of track, one or two major bridges, and Lord knows what else simply to maintain a redundant interchange?

Semper,

The grain facility in Martins Creek is booming. They just did a large expansion and now get unit trains to the facility.

But west (north) of Martins Creek there are no customers, nor do I really see any potential for any as the properties adjacent to the line just don't appear to be conducive to the use of a large shipper.

On Saturday there was a large transformer on a depressed center car with two idlers at the power plant in Portland so there may be occasional shipments to the power plant. Rumor is the power plant can burn oil now and NS rebuilt the track adjacent to the facility to bring in unit oil trains if necessary. But has never been a need to date.

My guess is the line will be mothballed or leased out to the Counties to reduce any tax liability.

Totally forgot about that. My bad! Thank you for the good news.

Heard other rumors that empties may go back via Slateford, but like I said rumors are rumors. Either way D-L still serves a customer in Tinkertown and I believe Gravel Place. Just wondering if these cars would still come in via Portland ?

Ah a real crying shame! Loved seeing them smoke up the valley from Tammany.

For now, the DL has rocktenn and that lumber customer in stroudsburg to switch (both still get cars right?), so I think the line that’ll really suffer is the portion through the gap — south of the gap NS’ll probably keep it in some state of usability for the power plant.

A year or so ago, there were rumors about NS maybe selling to Martins Creek, and giving the DL rights to Hudson Yard. Do you think that’s in the realm of possibility?

THere is related discussion on the NY forum: viewtopic.php?f=128&t=75317&start=1590" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

One poster (SecaucusJunction at the end of his Feb 3 post) says part of the reason to move the interchange is a first step to shut down the hump at Allentown.

Related, does NS still run their daily pair of trains over RBMN through the Lehigh Gorge? Most of us assumed they would go away when NS took over the D&H lne along the Susquehanna river a few years ago, but some time after that they were still running. But my news is at least a year or two old on that if not more so. JS

pumpers wrote:Related, does NS still run their daily pair of trains over RBMN through the Lehigh Gorge? Most of us assumed they would go away when NS took over the D&H lne along the Susquehanna river a few years ago, but some time after that they were still running. But my news is at least a year or two old on that if not more so. JS

Yes, 36T (south to Allentown) and 37T (north to Binghamton/Buffalo) still operate daily over RBM&N between Dupont and Penn Haven Jct(I think). And 37T drops NS interchange for RBM&N at Penobscot on its way north. Not sure if 36T picks up any interchange off RBM&N on its way south.

johnpbarlow wrote: Yes, 36T (south to Allentown) and 37T (north to Binghamton/Buffalo) still operate daily over RBM&N between Dupont and Penn Haven Jct(I think). And 37T drops NS interchange for RBM&N at Penobscot on its way north. Not sure if 36T picks up any interchange off RBM&N on its way south.

Interesting. If it is true that part of the reason the Slateford DL interchange went away was to achieve less activity at Allentown, maybe something will change with this RBMN interchange at Penboscot.

And did RBMN ever do anything about building (or getting real in terms of plan about) that new bridge at PQ(?) (north of Jim THorpe) so they could run Penboscot to Reading without reversing? I thought they got some state grant for part of it at one point.

pumpers wrote:

johnpbarlow wrote: Yes, 36T (south to Allentown) and 37T (north to Binghamton/Buffalo) still operate daily over RBM&N between Dupont and Penn Haven Jct(I think). And 37T drops NS interchange for RBM&N at Penobscot on its way north. Not sure if 36T picks up any interchange off RBM&N on its way south.

Interesting. If it is true that part of the reason the Slateford DL interchange went away was to achieve less activity at Allentown, maybe something will change with this RBMN interchange at Penboscot.

And did RBMN ever do anything about building (or getting real in terms of plan about) that new bridge at PQ(?) (north of Jim THorpe) so they could run Penboscot to Reading without reversing? I thought they got some state grant for part of it at one point.

It’s in the works, land is being preped for the planned supports and ROW. I believe 2019 is the current forecast.

That's exciting, thank you for the update. I hope it stays on track (pun not intended).
If anyone has pictures of any visible work or progress, please post. Get those drones up in the air!

I rode the Hometown Bridge excursion last October. The access road along the R.O.W. is in place, the site on one side is cleared and there are some steel components of the bridge on site. There probably isn't much progrees right now due to the winter weather.

I doubt that Allentwon hump will close. They do a lot of merchandise/local freight west of Allentown. The yard is usually stuffed full. Last time I was there, three jobs came in at once and went out to Steel to be humped.

The March Railpace has a short update on the new R&N bridge. To be completed "in 2019" it says.

Now the speculation department. Railpace also says moving the DL interchange to Scranton happened in large part because of the new Portageville bridge in NY on the southern tier, so traffic to and from points west can go Scranton north to Binghamton (ex Lackawanna) and then Southern Tier to Buffalo and then ex-Nickel Plate to Cleveland and beyond - much easier than going over the Pennsylvania mountains on the ex PRR main.
So how about New York area traffic on NS - should it go via southern tier too? And then the question is, how to get from the Southern Tier to NY/NJ - ex Erie from Binghamton (now Central NY(?) RR /NYSW), or maybe Binghamton to Scranton and then DL to NS in portland (although the connection from Hudson yard is facing the wrong way to get to NJ, or from Scranton by heading back west and then down the R&N Lehigh line to Allentown??..... Just wondering what might happen next (besides nothing)