{"id":851,"date":"2009-06-05T14:22:19","date_gmt":"2009-06-05T18:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nanosphoto.com\/blog\/?p=851"},"modified":"2009-06-05T14:22:19","modified_gmt":"2009-06-05T18:22:19","slug":"nj-day-4-ns-in-phillipsburg-nj-and-bethlehem-pa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/nj-day-4-ns-in-phillipsburg-nj-and-bethlehem-pa\/","title":{"rendered":"NJ Day 4 – NS in Phillipsburg, NJ and Bethlehem, PA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Yesterday was another less than stellar weather day.\u00a0 But like usual, that doesn’t stop me from going out to shoot when I can.\u00a0 After work I decided to head west to a new spot for me – Phillipsburg, NJ, which is home to the Phillipsburg Railroad Historians<\/a>‘ museum near the former CNJ PU Tower.\u00a0 From there, I wasn’t sure what would happen.\u00a0 I guess it would depend on what happened at Phillipsburg.\u00a0 Luckily things were pretty good there, so I ended up continuing west to Bethlehem.\u00a0 After leaving Bethlehem, I came away with more than just pictures.<\/p>\n

So I left work yesterday under cloudy skies, trying to decide where I was going to go.\u00a0 Bound Brook crossed my mind, but I’ve got a bunch of shots there – and plain old overcast skies didn’t appeal to me there.\u00a0 Either nice and sunny days, or downpours work best for me there.\u00a0 So I started running the maps through my head.\u00a0 Phillipsburg came to mind.\u00a0 It wasn’t all that far from Peapack, and if I wanted, I could continue about 20 minutes further west and hit Bethlehem.\u00a0 So I checked the GPS for directions, and made my way to downtown Phillipsburg.<\/p>\n

I got there, and not much was going on.\u00a0 Two other railfans were there talking with each other.\u00a0 While they chatted, I took a stroll through the museum there to pass the time before hopefully a train showed up, and got a couple detail shots of their former Ingersol-Rand 44 tonner<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:9243] [cpg_imagefixthumb:9242]\n

With that done, I headed back to the car to listen to the scanner.\u00a0 After a bit of sitting around (and watching a local chase his dog), we started chatting.\u00a0 Turns out they were members of the PRRH<\/a>, so we started talking about their preservation efforts, and I gave them a Cliff’s Notes version of the CERM<\/a>.\u00a0 While chewing the fat, we heard a westbound calling signals to the east – finally something to shoot other than the shit! (not that the conversation wasn’t interesting – quite the contrary!)<\/p>\n

As they got closer to us, we found out it was 69Q, an empty unit ethanol train.\u00a0 Not much longer, and 69Q came into view with something interesting – not only was there a standard cab locomotive on the point (an SD60 no less), but trailing was a BNSF unit!\u00a0 The first foreign power I’ve seen in NJ!\u00a0 First shot was of them approaching the equipment on display at the museum<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:9241]\n

Then just the ethanol job passing by us<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:9240] [cpg_imagefixthumb:9239]\n

And for ha-has, a couple going away shots of the BSNF widecab as they approached PU tower<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:9238] [cpg_imagefixthumb:9237]\n

Recently NS put in a bunch of No Trespassing signs in the area, so I got a couple shots of the sign as the ethanol tanks rolled by<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:9236] [cpg_imagefixthumb:9235]\n

With them heading west over the river, it was back to the BSing for a bit.\u00a0 Hopefully there would be another train.<\/p>\n

After another bout of discussion, it sounded like 33K was in the picture.\u00a0 And a few minutes later, they appeared within our viewfinders<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:9234] [cpg_imagefixthumb:9233] [cpg_imagefixthumb:9232]\n

Then something interesting – on the tail end of the train was an empty rail train!<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:9231] [cpg_imagefixthumb:9230] [cpg_imagefixthumb:9229]\n

Not bad!\u00a0 With 33K now west of us, it was time to split up.\u00a0 With the scanner silent, I decided I’d head west to Bethlehem despite the fading light, and see what I could catch.<\/p>\n

When I got there, not much was going on – scanner was silent, and nothing was in the yard area.\u00a0 So I decided to check out the inside of the new Sands casino.<\/p>\n

Well, it was nice, but it wasn’t really a “true” casino – everything inside was slots and video poker\/roulette.\u00a0 No table games at all.\u00a0 Must be some Pennsylvania law.\u00a0 Or I’m spoiled by having two Indian casinos quite literally in my back yard.\u00a0 Either way, I played a little, and ended up walking out of there with all my money, as well as $150 of theirs!\u00a0 I guess I like the Sands – that never happens to me at Foxwoods of Mohegan Sun…<\/p>\n

Once I left the Sands it was dark, so I figured I’d check things out in the yard.\u00a0 As I got down by CP-Bethlehem, I found NS train 25V sitting at the signals waiting for something.\u00a0 So I got a few shots from an adjacent parking lot.<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:9228] [cpg_imagefixthumb:9227] [cpg_imagefixthumb:9226]\n

On a whim, I figured I’d try a shot from up on the bridge.\u00a0 Traffic didn’t seem to be too heavy, so vibration from the bridge moving shouldn’t be that big of an issue.\u00a0 Just as I got up there and set up, I saw a pair of Lehigh Valley Rail management switchers pulling a string of doublestacks up alongside 25V.\u00a0 So I quickly set up and got a shot of LVRM cutting off their cars and starting to move forward (along with the conductor’s lantern signals).\u00a0 Of course the sillhouette of the Bethlehem Steel furnaces looms in the background.<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:9225]\n

Then I moved out a bit on the bridge and got a shot of just 25V and the other cut of cars<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:9224]\n

And finally a shot of 25Vs power pulling away from their cars so they can pick up what LVRM left for them.<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:9223]\n

I called it a night at that point.\u00a0 Four trains and an extra $150 in my pocket.\u00a0 Couldn’t ask for much more!<\/p>\n

Thanks for looking!
\nTom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was another less than stellar weather day.\u00a0 But like usual, that doesn’t stop me from going out to shoot when I can.\u00a0 After work I decided to head west to a new spot for me – Phillipsburg, NJ, which is home to the Phillipsburg Railroad Historians‘ museum near the former CNJ PU Tower.\u00a0 From […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,2],"tags":[284,242,285,243,286,287,288,168,111,178,245,289,290,291],"class_list":{"0":"post-851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-night-photography","7":"category-rail_photography","8":"tag-25v","9":"tag-33k","10":"tag-69q","11":"tag-bethlehem","12":"tag-bnsf","13":"tag-lehigh-valley-rail-management","14":"tag-lvrm","15":"tag-new-jersey","16":"tag-night","17":"tag-norfolk-southern","18":"tag-pennsylvania","19":"tag-phillipsburg","20":"tag-phillipsburg-railroad-historians","21":"tag-pu-tower","22":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}