Monday, April 23, 2007

A morning of meets...

(Train sightings on 4/14/07)

A number of meets took place Saturday morning between the Lehigh Line's CP 62 and CP 67 in Pattenburg (NJ). Starting at 8 o'clock and falling into the heard but not seen category by me was the first meet at CP 64. NS 19G would hold the main while NS 20K and NS 212 went by on the passing siding.


With NS 214 (Atlanta, GA to Croxton, NJ) holding on Pattenburg Tunnel's west side, NS 23M (E-Rail, NJ to Los Angeles, CA), with NS 7545 (ES40DC) and NS 8590 (C39-8), would go west at 8:30.


Following behind 23M was NS 21M (North Bergen, NJ to Chicago, IL) with PRR 8412 (C40-8W, ex-CR 6218), PRR 6770 (SD60M, ex-CR 5513) and NS 9668 (C40-9W).



After 21M went west, at 9:17 NS 214 would be instructed to bring its train of "...just under 7,000 feet." and take the short siding. 214's power would consist of three B32-8s (NS 3527, NS 3553 and NS 3530) and GP60 NS 7146.


The reason for taking the siding was that NS 11J (Newark, NJ to Oak Wood, MI) was coming west with sixty-nine autoracks. It would pass by CP 64 with NS 2616 (SD70M) and NS 8819 (C40-9) at 9:30 with instructions "to take the long siding." Two more eastbounders would be coming through.


An unknown NS intermodal, possibly 24Z, would be first to come east. Motive power was NS 9721 (C40-9W) and NS 2701 (SD70M-2).


The second train would be NS 64J (Mingo Junction, OH to Kearny, NJ) bringing back empty municipal waste containers for refills. NS 9813 (C40-9W) and NS 8805 (C40-9) provided the power.


Not a bad morning for train watching to see how efficiently the dispatcher was moving these trains along.