Bridgewater Layout
- Page 3
WARNING!!!
The quality of the pictures and the diagrams are very poor. Proceed
at your own risk!
Well, if you've gotten
this far, you're just as crazy as I am. Let's continue with the layout
by looking at pictures of New York Susquehanna & Western areas.
The NYS&W was not fully modeled but well represented by a semi hidden
yard at Coalberg Junction. It had transfer trains run from Croxton
on the EL Main to the Paterson Yard for pick ups and set outs and then
to Coalberg Yard for interchange purposes. Some NYS&W passenger
(RDC) trains were also routed to/from Hoboken over the EL Mainline just
to make operations more interesting. The NYS&W RDC would arrive
at the EL Paterson station from out of nowhere and run against traffic
and end up at Hoboken.
Here's a smaller
version of the map from the last page.
Here's the model of the Coalberg
Yard which actually resides under the Paterson complex
and during operating sessions, is hidden.
Back to the Erie
Lackawanna. From Passaic on the mainline the track enters a tunnel,
goes through a cut in Clifton and gets to the Paterson three track passenger
station. Paterson is a significant city on the Erie Lackawanna mainline
and has a freight yard with turntable. In the old days, it also had
a passenger yard, but that's used for freight storage and some classification
duties for local switching and the Passaic Branch peddler. Some run
through freight trains also stop here and drop off or pick up cars as needed.
So the duties of this area are varied and constant. The operator
here also controls NYS&W movements.
Here is the diagram
for the Paterson Complex.
Paterson is represented by a substantial investment
in buildings and scenery. This entire city was planned, painted,
built and put together by my twin daughters, Pam and Kim, when they were
twelve years old. Only one model was not built by them and was off
limits to children. This was the "Salt Wells Bordelo" model built
by a friend of mine and found, because the interior contained just
"too much" realism, he couldn't have it on his layout. I instructed
my children that I had something to go in that spot and they didn't have
to worry about a building for it. All other aspects of the city was
done by them and they did a great job. Here are some pictures of
the city of Paterson.
Paterson Station
foreground. Paterson yard in background
Paterson west of
station showing three track mainline
and some of the city.
Yard lead from mainline
with county courthouse
in foreground
Slightly different
view of county courthouse further into yard leads
Over
the underpass in Paterson. Inbound mainline left foreground, yard upper
right.
A look down
Main
Street Paterson. Block of stores on left, converted "bordelo" to restaurant
on right.
-
A closer
lookat downtown Paterson, NJ. Note cleverly done (painted) roadway
underpass!
Three track mainline
in foreground with back of row
of stores (six Magnuson buildings) with parking
Traffic
in Paterson looking at front of Paterson station (large yellow building)
in background.
A
childrens park next to Paterson station building. The restaurant's
doing a great business.
Paterson yard
early
construction phase. Eastbound mainline far right and westbound mainline
in middle of picture.
Beginning of the Passaic branch at far left.
-
Paterson yard
leads with mainline in middle of picture.
A "before scenery"
and before turntable view
of the Paterson yard.
Continental
Can Co. siding slightly west of the Paterson yard on Passaic branch.
Continental
Can
being switched while a commuter train goes west on mainline.
This is before completed
weathering (mortor fill) was applied to the building.
-
A NYS&W
localGP-18 with caboose heads for Coalberg Junction down in the cut
while a commuter
train with RS and
Stillwells heads west on mainline towards River Street, Paterson.
Open space center
foreground is a spur without an industry at that point.
The next major area
on the layout is on the Bergen County Line at Plauderville, Fair Lawn (2
stations), and Glen Rock. This area was the best spot for industry
switching. It involves a passing siding, a switch leading in to the
Plaudeville area and a complex switch area of industries in Fair Lawn.
During one session, one of our operators, a man who's day job is as a locomotive
engineer (12" to the foot) was left with the task of switching the Fair
Lawn local area. In the middle of the session, we usually had a coffee
break, but this poor guy was so far behind in getting the cars to the right
place, he refused to come get a coffee. To give you a feel for this
area, take a good look at the diagram
and notice that some industries are switched from the front (south) side
of the area and others from a track at the rear (north) part. Many an operator
of the Fair Lawn drill would seem to find his train set up backwards when
it came to a switching move.
This "trick of the
eyes" reverses the line up of moves from front to back. It was a
bear!
The industries off
of the Plauderville siding were from west to east (left to right on diagram)
were General Motors Parts Warehouse, Ballot Coal Company,
Northern
Jersey Distributors, Castle Ice Cream plant,
Stabilized Vitamin Co. and Fox Bros. Fuel Company. The lead from
the Fairlawn Radburn area service, again from left to right on the diagram
(but east to west this time), Nabisco's large baking plant (2 tracks),
the Great A & P Tea Company warehouse, Eastman Kodak Film Co.,
the Glen Rock Lumber Co. and the Sam Braen Company's sand pit operations.
If you really want some fun, figure out how to block a train, one car for
each industry, so that all the cars can be put in the right slot with minimum
movement. Then consider that there are cars to be moved out or to
stay in each of the industries. You can spend a lot of time here
on the Fair Lawn drill. Here are some pictures of this really complex
switching area.
-
#1. We'll start
from east to west with the Plauderville
shelter with Fox Bros Fuel Co on lower level
and Glen Rock Lumber
behind it.
-
#2. Traveling west
we find the Plauderville shelter in the foreground and Stabilized
Vitamin and Castle Ice Cream center left.
-
# 3. We have two
flats on the siding with Castle
Ice Cream in the foreground and the
BCL Glen Rock station
in the background.
-
#4. Traveling west
we find the Plauderville Siding and spur
switch into the industries.
Northern Jersey
Distributors is center right in the picture
-
#5.Behind the west
end of the Plauderville siding is the A&P
Warehouse on right,
Nabisco bakery in
the center left and Ballet Coal far left center.
-
#6. Further west
and rounding the BCL curve at the Fair
Lawn Broadway Station, we find the General Motors
parts plant in the
foreground and Ballet Coal Company behind it with the Nabisco bakery in
the center left.
-
#7. The
Sam Braen Company sand pit operation. Trucks are loaded here and
taken to the end
of the rail spur for covered hopper loading.
-
#8. A closer look
at the Nabisco bakery and General
Motors parts plant from the curve at Fair Lawn
-
#9. Fair
Lawn station at Radburn and parking lot. Fire truck in center
assisting in getting cat out of tree
-.
#10. A close up
look at the FairLawn Radburn
station parking lot and the sand pit entrance.
-
#11. Bergen
County Line in foreground looking back on the sand pit from the east.
-
#12. Glen
Rock Lumber and Kodak on the Fair Lawn side of the industry spurs.
The mainline (foreground
right) is headed at us for Glen Rock
#13. One of
the DL&W 4 wheel brass cabooses
on the rear of a local.
OK. We have navigated the
Bergen County Line and the mainline and we're ready to join up them again
at Ridgewood Junction and continue on the mainline westbound.
If you still have the time and the fortitude, we can continue on.
On to
page 4 or back to the EL
Train Nut page.
