Susquehanna (NYS&W) 1024x768

[CincySouthernRwy]

Susquehanna (NYS&W) v1.0

I have been building the Susquehanna since late 2005. My intent is to offer a representative model of the line (NOT mile-for-mile) to cover as many time periods as possible, so compromises will be made. Several versions are planned, all building off of the base, version 1.0. Version 1.0 models the line as it operated from 1971-1986, only going as far west as Butler, NJ.


Some screenies...

Broadway Street station in Paterson, NJ.

Three RS2's lead an empty hopper train back toward the Pennsylvania mines through Pompton Lakes, NJ.

Headed toward the interchange with the Erie's Greenwood Lake branch. The second unit is lettered for subsidiary Wilkes-Barre & Eastern.

This delicate-looking bridge at Oakland, NJ, has carried double stacks and SD70M's.

During WWI, the USRA started routing Lehigh & New England coal trains down the NYS&W to dump their coal at the Edgwater coal pier. Typically a camelback 2-8-0 headed the train, probably one of the E-13's numbered in the 151-class. These would have been L&NE largest engines at the time, as the E-14's and F-1's were post-war. Here, Bill Klene's H-9s 2-8-0, with the green color changed to gray, mates with the tender from the USRA light Pacific to simulate an E-14.

The locomotive shops at Little Ferry, NJ.

A H-25 class 2-8-0 passes Hackensack station with a local for the Lodi Branch. The station is a brick reskin of a Todd Hohlenkamp (sp?) structure. I hope I can get permission to release the reskin...

Here is a local approaching the NJ Route 17 crossing (at least, the westbound lanes).

This shot provides a good study in the change in NYS&W paint schemes on the GP18's. The first unit, WB&E 1806, in the delivery scheme, wore an orangey shade of yellow. The trucks are from Jointed Rail's GN and Southern F7's, lightened about 1.5 gamma to appear weathered. The trailing unit uses Jointed Rail's AT&SF F7 trucks. In reality, WB&E did not survive long enough to own any diesels of its own.

Parts of this branch are not in good shape at all. The FRA imposed a 6 mph speed restriction here in the late 1970's!

Former Erie N-1 Mikes pull empty hoppers through Crystal Lake, NJ back to the mines in Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, PA.

It is unlikely that accurate models of Susquehanna's five Alco C430's will ever be available, so Randy White's C424 will have to do.

And do it does!

More later...

 

[CincySouthernRwy]

Susquehanna Transfer was instrumental in bringing the line back into the black. Commuters could step off a streamliner or RDC and onto a bus and be in Manhatten in 10 minutes, 40 minutes faster than on Pennsy!

Hackensack station - the old one. (It also reminds me of B&O's Hamilton Depot in Hamilton, Ohio.)

Pompton Lakes freight house and team track from an L&NE coal drag.

Midland Park hosts an unusual crossing:

Maroon and gray gave way to silver. A pair of RS1's - proper Susie-Q power - head down the Passaic Branch.

North Hawthorne is where Susquehanna crosses over the Erie (now NJT)... on an overpass! The middle bridge is the little-used connection track, once an interchange. Predecessor New Jersey Midland began construction here.

An eastbound commuter train led by K-1 #2539 heads over the draw span over Overpeck Creek. Just ahead is Little Ferry Yard and then Susquehanna Transfer. (This is an older pic, so less in the background is completed.)

 

[CincySouthernRwy]

Yellow Jackets passing Marcal Paper:

Deceptively dangerous, this motorist is actually in the clear.

A J-2 "Russian Decapod" leads an eastbound out of Butler, NJ.

Coal pier in front of the Seatrain dock:

Ridgefield Park, the main Southern Division engine terminal since Little Ferry was demolished in 1992. Today, it's single track through here, but I have left the double track used in the prosperous 1940's and 50's.

 

[Tanvaras]

Great screen shots, it really looks like a well put together route. Look forward too seeing more.

Cheers

Trent

 

[jadebullet]

I makes me very happy to see someone modeling the SusyQ. You have done a great job on the coloring of the skinned locomotives, especially that beautiful white and red scheme.

 

[nyswman]

Outstanding. I can't wait to run this route. It is ironic that I see this now. I'm participating in the motor car run on the southern division on the NYS&W this weekend. If you'd like to see the pictures next week, PM me and I'll send you the link to where they will be. Additionally if you need any help or have questions, I have friends on the railroad that I can ask for advice or track arrangments.

 

[Euphod]

Looks like a fantastic job of route building, and I like the quaint "Caching Bar" in the first screen!

 

[NorfolkSouthern9708]

What the heck? You don't give anyone room to post, and say :udrool: :udrool: :udrool: :mop: lol. Could I ask where you got the C424s and the SD60?

 

[butch_koch]

Adam

Nice job on this route. I've always enjoyed your reskins and I am looking to forward to running this route. Great job.

 

[posty33]

any idea on a release date, the susquehanna used to run right threw my backyard at my dads as a kid in sussex, nj. would love to have this! looks awesome!

 

[Cozmo®]

It is unlikely that accurate models of Susquehanna's five Alco C430's will ever be available, so Randy White's C424 will have to do.

Ya never know..

 

[CincySouthernRwy]

Jadebullet: Thanks! The maroon and gray scheme was a result of trustee Walter Kidde. His alma mater was Stevens Institute of Technology, so he ordered the standard Alco paint scheme in their colors. Algers Winslow & Western, a southern Indiana coal road, had the same paint scheme on their Alcos, only in red and black.

nyswman: I'd love to see any pics you have. Any help with track arrangements would be a big plus. Most of what I am looking for is historical info on the Wilkes-Barre & Eastern, the Susquehanna Connecting RR, and the NYS&W coal mine trackage that was in Wilkes-Barre and Scranton and the terminal trackage in Stroudsburg.

Ed: That caching bar was put there just for you!

NorfolkSouthern9708: The C424's are Randy White's (whitepass). If they aren't on the DLS, then try TrainzProRoutes. I don't have an SD60, but there is an SD70M. I'm pretty sure I got it from the DLS.

butch_koch: Good to hear from you again! Long live L&NE!

posty33: No idea on release date. Soon... All I am really doing is planting weeds (way behind on this), naming streets from Google maps, etc. Like the V&O, I am in the market for a few beta-testers...

Cozmo: Woo hoo! Awesome. Any chance you'll make a Susquehanna skin?

You know what would be really great? Those red SeaLand stack cars. I can't find any good useable photos of them for skins. Sad.

I also wish someone would make camelback 2-8-0's and 2-6-0's. The ones NYS&W actually ran were small, so bigger ones (like this Erie camel at Little Ferry, so we know it was on Susie-Q rails, or this) would be awesome. I asked Ben Neal, but he has no interest in camels. Even a new 2-8-0 would be great (like this, this, or this).

A more accurate model of H-27 #140 would be good, too. Susquehanna bought a secondhand 260,000 pound 2-8-0 sight unseen that was too heavy for their rail. It ended up as Erie #1540, switching Seacaucus and Croxton Yards. I'd run a fleet of them on the WB&E like Western Maryland ran their H-8's and H-9's on the Thomas Sub - doubleheaded, three midtrain, and two pushers because you could only haul 10 loads per engine!

 

[yoderscoot]

I'll beta test.

 

[CincySouthernRwy]

In 2004 I tried to interest a Yahoo group on the NYS&W in some published map work to accurately locate trackage. No one showed any interest. One person e-mailed me to tell me that they had a 1953 track chart, but he never sent it as promised. Someone finally uploaded one in 2008.

I found an elevation chart on one of the Railroad.net forums. Google maps makes it easy to locate a few industrial customers when you can see where tracks were, but it's not perfect - it doesn't help me re-create buildings that are torn down or names of customers that are there now. Rebuilding in some areas has totally destroyed any "fossil footprints" left behind by past railroad activity.

Here is what I put together of Passaic Junction Yard. It is in the style of a Bernie Beaver map, if you are familiar with that series of maps of CSX trackage. With highways, crossings, and streams marked, they are highly useful, unlike most railroad maps that are little more than spaghetti thrown against the wall.

Here is what I put together of the Passaic Branch. I drew the tracks in bright yellow so I could match them with the topographical map. When I built the Passaic Branch, I built according to this. Where there are houses, I put houses. Where there is a crossing, I built a crossing. I included as much as possible.

USGS topographical maps will give you a rough idea of the trackage, but they leave out much. Often, double track is drawn as single, yard trackage is greatly simplified, and industrial spurs are usually inaccurate.

 

[CincySouthernRwy]

Thanks, yoderscoot! You're on the team.

My apologies if I re-publish any screenshots.

Anyone have a copy of Carsten's book on the NYS&W handy? I'm just missing the Studebaker...

Preparing to leave Little Ferry with a stack train. I know, the Tunnel Motors wren't purchased until AFTER the stack train business was gone.

The Lodi Branch local rumbles past the station in Hackensack.

On the Edgewater Branch's northern extension, 0-6-0 #104 with hoppers from ALCOA:

The same operation with an Alco switcher:

Weeds. Hey, is that a roll of duct tape down there?!?!?

The biggest loco that Susquehanna never ran. It was too big to even be the Little Ferry hump engine, so it was transferred to parent Erie who renumbered it and used it at Secaucus and Croxton as their hump engine.

Ford Motor Company is out of sight to the left, but you can see Corn Products Refining Company and to the right General Chemical Company, then Barrett Manufacturing, and Spencer-Kellogg & Sons. Today, Edgewater Terminal is all condos and shopping malls. The tunnel portals remain, but that is it.

For this area, I measured the width of the Hudson River in Google Earth and on the topo maps, then replicated that distance so that anything that one would happen to see on the east bank across the water would be realistically distant. I just keep the draw distance down when I'm in Trainz to speed things up a bit.

 

[Cozmo®]

Yes it will have a Susquehanna skin.

 

[jadebullet]

Well, I have to say that I am inspired. I might have to do some Susie Q skins myself.

 

[CincySouthernRwy]

Cool! What did you have in mind to make, jadebullet?

The other day I was thinking about all the trouble the Suskie had with their RS1's in the late 50's/early 60's. They were running them nearly 24/7 and the darned things kept overheating and shutting down. Then in 1962, they purchased the trio of GP18's because so many of the RS1's were out of service. Someone wrote that they started running 5 on the train to Hainesburg to interchange with the L&NE in the hopes that two would be running well enough to get over Sparta Mountain and back!

NYO&W stopped running in 1957. The NW2's were quickly purchased and the F3's found new homes almost as fast. As for the FT's, B&O bought a pair of A-B units, #807 and 808 I think. The other seven pairs sat rusting away in a yard somewhere in NJ until NYC bought them in 1965 and traded them in on GP40's.

What if NYS&W acquired them? I'd rather imagine them in maroon and gray, maybe some EMD-inspired scheme, not in the historically accurate (for 1957) solid silver.

Approaching Bogota. That pilot needs to be corrected to gray! As seen on #821, I added a screen mesh to the F7 skin so that the area between the portholes would look like a Phase II F3A. It wasn't bad for 2004 or so, but I think I can do better nowadays.

Bogota station. The road in the foreground is Fort Lee Ferry Road, a three-lane road with a middle left turn lane.

I haven't finished adapting my NYO&W reskin to Jointed Rail's model, so I used Auran's. I don't remember Auran's model reflecting like shiny metal so well as in this shot, especially around the class light and the numberboard.

Bogota station is behind the locos with the eastbound platform off to the right. Beyond the main, in front of the lead unit, is the Bogota house track.

 

[CincySouthernRwy]

Passaic Junction Yard became the major yard and interchange point for NYS&W following the conversion of Little Ferry to a SeaLand terminal. This was one of the details that won the contract for NYS&W over Conrail.

The yard has an unusual design and history. Its west end curves away from the NYS&W and junctions with the former Erie trackage that crosses over top of the NYS&W a few hundred feet further west. This was the route of the original haulage trains starting in 1982 and the first stack trains until the tracks to Sparta Jct. were placed back in service in 1987.

A closer look at the switches climbing the grade toward the Erie mainline and a silver RS2 - a "what if" on my part. You can't really tell in this shot, but I made yellow/green target switch stands for yards and spur tracks off of a mainline to be used along with the red/green mainline switch stands already on the DLS. One of the target lamps (on the right) is lit up yellow instead of red. I also like how the concrete ties look like extremely faded wood.

A reverse shot looking eastward showing the modern hotel that occupies the spot just north of the yard here in real life. I think the white warehouses are too tall according to some recent research, so I will need to find suitable replacements.

I-80 is in the background, but the draw distance is turned down too far to see it.

Passaic Junction depot burned to the ground in December 1959, though I have included it here. (My original target date was 1944-1948 for this layout.) In its petition to the ICC, NYS&W got to drop this as a commuter stop by explaining that in the first four months of 1960, ZERO passengers were picked up here.

They got permission.

 

[applegathc]

It's the Old Woman!!! I have an article about this railroad in one of my many copies of 'Great Model Railroads' Magazines. They called the SusyQ the 'Old Woman' (sorry if I'm pointing out the obvious). And oh by the way the route and the reskins looks GREAT!!

cam