River line question

I often railfan the river line in the lower Hudson valley. I am familiar with the passing sidings at W. Haverstraw and Newburgh. I was wondering, where are the next passing sidings on the river line north and south (east and west) of these sidings? Thanks in advance.

From memory of when I used to run trains there (it's been a while!), north of Newburgh was Milton (CP66), then Kingston (CP87). South of W. Haverstraw was W. Nyack (CP24), then CP10 where 3 tracks now begin (I think!).

I believe they are supposed to be installing a new siding or double tracking more sections. Not qualified, never been down there....therefore I am clueless, sorry.

CSX, you don't know what you are missing, years ago every trip was like
a wild adventure. Things got better after Conrail took over from the Penn
Central disaster.
I last worked the line in 1982 and the changes that have occurred after
that time include closing the line through Weehawken and selling the
property to New Jersey Transit, cutting the siding back from CP-13 to CP-
10 (the siding was useless from CP-10 to CP-13 anyway as there were
many crossings in the area), the addition of a second track from CP-7 to
North Bergen and the third track between CP-10 and CP-7, extending the
siding at West Nyack and moving the north end of it from CP-24 to CP-26,
extending the West Haverstraw siding by about a half mile, extending the
Newburgh siding from CP-53 to CP-52, changing the hand thrown, electric
lock switch at the north end of Roseton to an interlocked switch using the
name of CP-63 for this location, extending the Alsen siding from CP-104
to CP-102, changing the electric lock, hand throw switch at the south end
of the Ravena siding to an interlocked switch with the location designated
as CP-128. In addition to the above, all of the sidings on this line except
for Kingston were circuited to allow 30 MPH through them on signal
indication instead of restricted speed on signal indication. Why Kingston
was never done, I don't know.
Most of the work that I mentioned above was done by Conrail before the
CSX takeover and today the line has much more capacity than it did when
I worked it but it also has a lot more trains too. When I worked this line,
it had three hot box detectors, now it has seven of them, this helps too.
I remember working the line in Penn Central days when around half of it
was restricted to 10 MPH and most of the rest of it to 30 MPH. Took
forever to get over the road and the dispatchers did not like it when we
lived up to the 10 MPH.
Penn Central also got nailed for "doctoring" the signals on that line at least
once, I recall a trip north when the signals were out and we were running
on reds which was not too uncommon during the time, I had another train
right ahead of me and all of a sudden after running on reds for quite a
distance, I had a clear. I called the caboose of the train ahead on the
radio and he was only about a mile or two in front of me and was still in
the block, told the conductor that I had a clear behind him, plenty of hell
was raised about this one and it did not happen again at least to me.
After the Conrail takeover and a massive track project, things got much
better and I had a lot of very good trips on that line.
I loved the ride along the Hudson River and through the upstate hills but I
hated the stretch through north Jersey and the terminals in New Jersey
were one stop from hell too. Many times it would take longer to get from
CP-7 to Weehawken, The Meadows or wherever ever we were going to go
than it did to get from Selkirk all the way down to CP-7.
With Penn Central, you knew every southbound trip was going to be 12
hours with a recrew a good possibility. Oh yes, when we outlawed we
were "priviledged" to get five good size men into a Newark taxicab which
was usually a discarded vehicle from a New York City taxicab for a very
uncomfortable and unpleasant trip back to Weehawken.
I could tell you a lot of stuff about this line.
Noel Weaver

My best memories of this line was from the late '70s when train swapping was regular procedure.

Crews departing from either end would proceed until they met a train with a crew from the other end. The crews would exchange trains and proceed back to their home terminal.

If a crew encountered no swappable train before too many hours had elapsed, they would continue to the end and deadhead on arrival.

Sometimes, we would leave Selkirk and get no farther than Ravena -- swap with another crew, and come back into the terminal with about 3 hrs on duty. Pay was the full mileage to the other end plus 100 for the return trip. If the return trip was more than 100 miles, the actual miles were paid.

I was able to hold this for one entire summer. I made a really good buck and slept at home every night (or day).

The practice was terminated when management in E'port HQ changed, and analysis showed they actually used more crews when swapping regularly. Also, a couple of injuries for guys climbing on/off cabooses sewed it up.

I remember very well when the swapping situation changed with no notice
to the workers whatsoever. I was working the list out of "Jersey" and
went to work one afternoon at the Meadows where we were reporting at
that time. The conductor called to sign us up while I busied myself doing
something but I do not recall just what.
When the conductor got off the phone, he said that he had bad news and
that was that they would swap us if they could but that if we went all the
way, there would be no more deadheading that we would go in for rest.
He also stated that as of that time, there was nothing southbound on the
road.
Now, normally, I did not like to have trouble in the yard, just wanted to
get on the train and get out of town but this day we had plenty of it. We
had a couple of cars to come out of the train in Oak Island before we
could even think about leaving town. A couple of other things came up
that again, I have the records here somewhere but do not have the time
to try to find them right now but we had to stop at North Bergen for
something and we had to stop somewhere around Orangeburg to remove
debries that we hit on the track and got stuck underneath the lead unit.
By the time we reach West Haverstraw we had been on duty for about
nine hours and there was a southbound train waiting for us on the main to
swap with. We saved a crew by swapping there as they would probably
have had to relieve us up the road somewhere the way things were going
at the time.
We got back to the Meadows without any more major incidents and when
we marked up, I marked off. I missed the bid on the New Haven side by
one day so I spent the week qualifying on the Harlem Division between
Woodlawn and North White Plains as I knew I needed to expand on my
qualifications to take advantage of my existing seniority.
The following week, I bid a job on the New Haven Line and never again
did I work the River Line on a regular basis although I worked extra on
my day off a couple more times but only when assurred by the movement
director of an immediate deadhead at Selkirk.
I did three extra trips in that manner but the third time after I got to
Selkirk, the movement director did not want to know for nothing although
I finally convinced them that I was a regular passenger engineer off my
division (at that time) and was entitled to deadhead. I made the last bus
back to NYC that night by minutes and when I got back to NYC, I called
the caller's office which at the time was in E'Port and told them to take my
name out of their books that I would never again work the line and I held
my ground on that although they tried again from time to time. By then
it was getting close to the split and I had already decided that I was going
to go to Metro-North on January 1, 1983.
It was told to me at the time that the company put an end to the deadhead
by bus or train and the unions at the time told the company that if there
was to be no more deadheading, there would be no more swapping and
that was pretty much it. The unions were very concerned about the
fairness issue at that time, if they did not like you, they would run you all
the way and put you in bed while a crew behind you would swap and get
right back to be home.
The company would not back down on the deadheading and the unions
would not back down on the swapping so that pretty much ended the
situation right then.
Noel Weaver

Noel, thanks for the information. All I know is the River Line still seems to be congested.....and we thought the B&A was bad, lOL.

As for train swapping, I heard some small rumblings that they might consider doing this again, but I doubt it.

I have heard many people complain about the terminals on the River Line being the worst part of the trip as you mentioned, but at least they don't have to work 11 hours & 53 minutes before going overtime, as we do on the B&A. (And with the 'trip-rates' for the conductors, it might even be longer ).

CPSK to CP 128 (Ravena)
CP 121 to CP 118 (Coxsackie)
CP 106 to CP 102 (Alsen)
CP 90 to CP 87 (Kingston) (Non - Controlled)
CP 69 to CP 66 (Milton/Marlborough)
CP 55 to CP 52 (Newburgh)
CP 35 to CP 33 (Haverstraw)
CP 26 to CP 22 (West Nyack)
CP 10 to CP 7 (Teaneck)

A Jersey trip is considered for pay purposes 154 miles. It pays $180 one way for a conductor at 100%. Overtime is accrued after 9 hours and 27 minutes.

Must be nice to be able to make o/t on the road, lol. Boston to Selkirk is paid 193 miles which starts o/t at 11h53m.

Why is there a difference of 3 miles in the miles paid between the engineer & conductor?

I think that's how it's negotiated. The thing that sucks about the Riverline is these Jersey twits that like to meander along, while others are just trying to make it over the road.

csxchris wrote:Jersey twits that like to meander along,

That's referred to as the Jersey flush, LOL.

I take it you are a Selkirk guy. And judging by your name I think I know who you are.