Did the Penn Central Run in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, in 1972?

[HO Hobbyist]

All:

I'm back with another question. The response to my other questions has been great. 

I have read "The Lehigh Valley Railroad: The New York Division" by Mike Bednar. It has a map of Bethlehem and Freemansburg, PA, and Phillipsburg, NJ. One of the lines in Phillipsburg is labeled PRR. Since the PRR closed in 1968, was this trackage taken over by PC?

 

- HO Hobbyist

[Flintlock76]

It certainly was!

I've just consulted a map which shows the PennCentral (PRR) running from Phillipsburg south to Milford NJ and north to Belvidere NJ.  It originally ran as far south as Trenton but that segment was abandoned at some point, when I don't know.

This line used to be called "The Old Bel-Del."

Hope this helps!

And isn't Mike Bednar a gem?

[mudchicken]

Yes - per the USRA Final System Plan, nobody wanted it or it's like named burg in central PA

 

In the USRA Preliminary System Plan, North of Phillipsburg was to be kept initially and south of P'Burg was to be offered to BR&W for a connection at Lambertville or not included into CR.....USRA Line Codes 121, 121a, 121b and 121c pages 572-575.  Final system plan showed 121 and 121a being dropped and 121b and 121c being kept (all old PRR lines w/ really bad tie condition) pp 206-209....The connection at Lamberton probably kept things in place for a while while BR&W looked for a new connection to the outside world. Later Line Code 1124 as ConRail came into being.

PDN: USRA thought all the business was north and south was barren. How stuff evolved?

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

The Delaware River Railroad still operates about 6 or 7 miles of it, from P-burg to the south:

http://877trainride.com/rivertrain.htm 

What I'm not confident about is whether there is still any freight service from P-burg to the north.  I kind if think there is, but not sure.  The Wikipedia article says there is - also indicates the line was intact until the 1978 - 1982 time frame, per the article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belvidere_Delaware_Railroad#Decline 

- PDN. 

 

[PennsyBoomer]

The Bel-Del was operated by Penn Central and into early Conrail times. It handled iron ore traffic for Bethlehem Steel (on a part-year alternation with Reading Co.) as well as manifest traffic, and through most of the 60s into the PC years the route handled one of PRRs hottest schedules - the old JET-1 and JET-2 (later CB-1 and CB-2) that ran from Maybrook to Chicago (and as New Haven symbols Adv. BO-1 and OB-8 between Boston and Maybrook) via the L&HR to Phillipsburg, thence to Morrisville and west. These trains ran on a 33 hour schedule - Boston to Chgo. - with 1:50 timecarded between P'burg and Morrisville.

[Overmod]

Note the use of the Poughkeepsie Bridge to get from Maybrook across to Cedar Hill -- and include the mandatory 10mph over the considerable length in the timing of those trains.  (This was presented of course as terrible evidence of crumbling infrastructure, and there was certainly enough random stuff falling off the structure and 'down' before the fire, but even in the 1920s there was a severe restriction across it...)

The Bel-Del service north to Stroudsburg ended (abruptly, I think) with Hurricane Diane; the bridge over US Rt 46 was pulled (and the road dramatically widened at what had been a bottleneck) and the very substantially graded remainder progressively whittled away, with arch underpasses progressively daylighted for the road crossings.  I don't remember when the official termination of service to Martins Creek power plant occurred -- ISTR 1959.  You could see the bridge piers long afterward if you knew where to look, as well as a whole rusty bridge parallel to what had been a substantial road crossing of the Delaware.

 The interchange with the L&HR (which was on the route duplex locomotive 6100 took to and from the prewar World's Fair) continued for some time... the route 'hid' far below the line of the D&LW Old Road viaduct (which I think still stands) and it was surprising to find it there.  That was the north end of service well after 1970, but this wasn't a serious through route for Conrail rationalization.  I still find it hard to believe L&HR is gone (let alone L&NE, which shut itself down by board consent when the anthracite market was demonstrably finished, in 1963); I remember as a child expectantly hoping to see a train on the Old Road bridge during the (then huge!) delay on 46 at the road intersection that was actually under it, until that was removed.

There is coverage on the Web of the progressive cutback of the Bel-Del service but I believe there was even some local service north of the L&HR junction past the end of the Penn Central years.

[Conrail27]

Fascinating. For the Phillipsburg to Morrisville segment, would the westbound JET-1 and JET-2 actually head south on the Bel-Del through Lambertville and Trenton, and then link up with the PRR Mainline at FAIR Tower in Trenton, and then cross the Delaware River to the Morrisville flyover track?   

[Samuel Johnston]

I think it still did, I remember reading, but others have answered it better.  But nearby is my question regarding the CNJ's and the LV's bridges over the Delaware at Phillipsburg:

      I went on an October 1982 fan trip from Penn Station Newark NJ to Allentown that went out the CNJ (which I had ridden in regular sevice as far s P'burg in 1977) and came back via the LV and the Pattenburg Tunnel.  Now, did it do BOTH bridges?  Furthermore, what was the routing in PA so I can trace the proper line on my atlases?  Much oblidged.