Pine-Aire

Was the switch from the old Pilgrim hospital lead to the Pine-Aire siding reinstalled? What about the crossover from the eastbound main over to the Pine-Aire siding?

No. The west switch was only reinstalled to Pilgrim. There is no access to the long siding from the west switch.

There are also no crossovers at the west end anymore between No.1 and No. 2 tracks. They were never used anyway.

Passed over on the Sagtikos S/B around 0840 and back N/B around 1700.....both times, the little pocket yard was empty and nothing was sticking out onto the siding from the long spur that branches off the siding east of the yard. Saturday, the yard and the siding were full, and power was there as well, both in the morning and also around 1840. Obviously the NYA was busy during the overnight, Saturday night into Sunday morning.

A few new things at Pine-Aire: the woods on the north side of the tracks were cut back a bit, it looks like, and that unclimbable fencing is installed. Also, lights have been installed, illuminating the yard at night, pretty well, from what I can see when passing over on the Sagtikos. Was that done to make it easier for the NYA crews working in the yard at night, or to keep the local "socio-economically depressed" minority youth from breaking into the boxcars and grafitti tagging the locomotives???

are there any pics of the newer set up?

Happen to be traveling along Pineaire Drive the other day. There appeared to be construction work on the north side of the tracks just west of the switch that leads up alongside the Heartland Industrial park. How I knew something was going on I spotted an excavator working alongside the tracks.

It looks like a new switch was cut in just east of the crossing at the Deer Park station and a section of track extending east to the current Pilgrim siding. The track isn't set or ballasted so it looks like there is more work to be done by the existing Pilgrim switch and the west end of Pineaire where the other switch was removed. I'm curious to see how it is put together in the end.

Happened to be driving up through the Heartland Industrial area a few days ago. On the siding that runs north away from the mainline right by the Windowrama building was a rather large orange Tropicana Reefer. The orange color really made it stand out. Does anybody know where this car gets delivered?

The track off the new switch is ballasted and set all the way down to the pilgrim siding. The existing switch and siding are still intact. There is a prefabricated switch lying adjacent to where the switch was removed from the west end at Pine Aire.

There was work going on down on the siding west of the Sagtikos Pkwy. overpass this past weekend. Several construction vehicles and personel could be seen, briefly. What are they doing down there, exactly?

I believe they put the new west switch in service down by Executive Drive crossing, and took out the switch to Pilgrim.

So the Pilgrim spur is now disconnected? I thought they needed the capacity the spur offered.

Was up in Heartland 2 days ago. There were cars up alongside the Windowrama building on that siding.

I saw on Google maps that the new switch only allows access to the westbound main. Originally there was also a crossover from the eastbound main to the Pilgrim DEF. How will eastbound trains access the Pilgrim DEF?

Re: Pine-Aire
by LRail » Fri Jan 09, 2015 8:04 am
I saw on Google maps that the new switch only allows access to the westbound main. Originally there was also a crossover from the eastbound main to the Pilgrim DEF. How will eastbound trains access the Pilgrim DEF?

LRail,

The freights have always run down number one track instead of diverging to number two at the JS interlocking west of Deer Park(to get to Pineaire). When freights switch Southern Container and Roberts plywood west of Deer Park off number two main, they just simply reverse to the interlocking to head eastbound on number one at JS. However you bring up a good point, if these costumers are still around after the double tracking project some sort of crossover is going to have to be put in to be able to get back east to Pineaire. It will be interesting to see what they will do. I doubt they will want freights running all the way from Farmingdale to Deer Park on number one track. I'm sure an interlocked crossover will be added somewhere with the double track project between those two points.