US Navy Earle Railroad

Great video. 2 repowered baldwins and 23 door and a half 50' box cars. Pretty amazing, Glad the RR is still active..

Heard the train go to the pier today around 8:30 with a beautiful new cast P3. Most likely both Baldwins. Look for a return trip later today.

From the DRRR thread, hundreds of ties, if not more, were dropped in Farmingdale over the last week. Word is, these ties will be used to replace ties along the stretch of track between the wye in Farmingdale to the connection with Earle.
Earlier this year, there were a couple of interchanges between Earle and "the outside." I wonder if those were a "test run" for Earle getting some sort of service again, and this tie replacement is in preparation of some sort of regular Earle service?

Per a poster on Facebook, who got this information from C&D during the OLS train, Earle will be replacing 200-300 boxcars with more modern 50 and 60 foot cars, and the ties are for greatly improving the section of track between Farmingdale and Earle.

That's great news. Those boxcars are old, rusty, and squeal a lot. Back in 2008 I managed to catch a very long SA31 with one CSX loco in Red Bank and it had one half of brand new USN boxcars and the other the lumber for Woodhaven.

Wait, 2008 and they were still bringing cars to them? I thought the last time under Conrail was in 2005 or 06?

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Yes I saw it it was very rare

Interesting. I could've sworn the last time was the two insulated boxcars during that time frame. I have the picture somewhere. Will post it when I find it.

I also have a picture of Csx 8751 (still conrail blue at the time) and a CSX Dash 8 sitting just beyond the fence.

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Any activity so far? Haven't heard the train in a while

Over a week ago a friend spotted them working in a yard while going down I195. If they haven't been down the main then a ship probably hasn't been at port for a while.

Rather sporadic operation I must say.

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Does anyone know when we can expect Earle to get their massive delivery of boxcars? From the DRRR thread, it seems like DRRR is still doing work on the stretch of track between Earle and Farmingdale. I'm assuming end of the summer at this rate

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2024 9:24 pm Rather sporadic operation I must say.

The United States has been in a relative "peacetime" for a while now. We can debate if the USA has truly been at peace given some "excursions" of our military in the last couple of decades, but we have not been in a conflict that required massive amounts of ordinance, especially naval ordinance, for decades now.

Due to that, Earle's railroad's activity is not going to have the frequent and regular scheduling it once did, like during the Vietnam War era.

IIRC the last time Earle's railroad had regular and frequent scheduling, it was sometime in the 1990's. My parents used to live in Middletown during that period and said every Tuesday and Thursday nights, the Earle train would run right behind the apartment complex they lived in.

Now given the current geopolitical state of the world, there is a chance you might see regular and frequent Earle runs again...

JohnFromJersey wrote: ↑Mon Jul 22, 2024 8:31 am

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2024 9:24 pm Rather sporadic operation I must say.

The United States has been in a relative "peacetime" for a while now. We can debate if the USA has truly been at peace given some "excursions" of our military in the last couple of decades, but we have not been in a conflict that required massive amounts of ordinance, especially naval ordinance, for decades now.

Due to that, Earle's railroad's activity is not going to have the frequent and regular scheduling it once did, like during the Vietnam War era.

IIRC the last time Earle's railroad had regular and frequent scheduling, it was sometime in the 1990's. My parents used to live in Middletown during that period and said every Tuesday and Thursday nights, the Earle train would run right behind the apartment complex they lived in.

Now given the current geopolitical state of the world, there is a chance you might see regular and frequent Earle runs again...

Very well stated. Thanks for explaining.

Back in early 2022 during the start of the War in Ukraine, one of my coworkers got stopped at the Nut Swamp rd crossing early in the morning for 12 minutes by Navy personnel first in line at the light. The guards needed to barricade each crossing on the line before the train could leave the Colts Neck base due to it carrying wartime missles. As a result, the Middletown school district had a delayed opening that day. The train had two locomotives (unknown) one buffer boxcar and 20-25 flatcars with metal lockers, tomahawks, and covered Grey tarps.

Alright everyone here is my O scale rendition of the train. It features MTH's Railking rendition of Earle's SW1200s #6 and #4 (renumbered). I modified the locos by removing the full "United States Navy" text, weathered them, and added strobe lights to the cab roofs. The last job will be to insert the new cast P3 horn sound file in the sound system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj1YMIqJDdg