Eastern Railroad Discussion > Slow orders on the Lehigh Line

Just came home from railfanning at CP Potter on the Lehigh Line. I was trackside for about three hours, 8PM to 11pm. I usually do not spend that much time out there on a Sunday night but the Lehigh Line was hopping. I caught twelve trains ,six intermodal, five mixed freight, east bound juice train and a west to east light engine move. The North Jersey dispatcher was contacting each train to inform them of four slow orders all on the Lehigh Line. 1. CP Port Reading Jct. 2. CP Townley 3. MP 24.4 to MP24.9 4. MP 30.3 to MP 31 speeds restricted to 30MPH. Does any one know why these slow orders would be in effect on a Sunday night?

thank you for all replies

Frank

Because NJT starts running early Monday morning comuter rush from Aldene to the NE Corrider at NK around 5AM. This gives MW a shot at a work window, although it sounds like they would have been getting out of the way of all the freights you saw.

Port Reading Junction was out of service for the better part of Sunday. They're working on more or less rebuilding the entire interlocking. The first x number of trains, maybe all, have a speed restriction, until they can confirm that everything is kosher with the new track.

Can't explain the other slow order.

nanshant Wrote:
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> Port Reading Junction was out of service for the
> better part of Sunday. They're working on more or
> less rebuilding the entire interlocking. The
> first x number of trains, maybe all, have a speed
> restriction, until they can confirm that
> everything is kosher with the new track.
>
> Can't explain the other slow order.

Usual protocol is the first train or two over gets a 10 mph restriction, and the others get the "bulletined" restriction that remains in place until the track gets put back to timetable speed (either when the defect is fixed, or after so much tonnage has passed over newly constructed or replaced track). The reason so many trains were getting the restriction, was because there was a scheduled "outage" while major work was performed on the interlocking. Many of the trains waiting to get through went on duty before the daily bulletins were updated to reflect the restrictions that resulted from that day's work. The daily bulletins are typically updated in the late afteroon or evening. So, for every train that didn't have the new speed restrictions, they had to be given Form D's with the restrictions.

I'm sure Shared Assets used the outage as an opportunity to work on some other projects that a lack of traffic made easier to address. When the whole line is out for hours on end, it's much easier for the track departmet to get time on the remainder of the line, instead of dodging trains and working under traffic.

Since Sunday is usually the day with the least NJT and westbound trains, it was selected to impact as few trains as possible.