Passenger Trains > Catenary towers at Newark, NJ

While staying at a hotel near the airport I noticed the old PRR catenary towers.
Will these towers ever be used again for future electric trains?
Do you think they are just too expensive to tear down?
Thanks, just curious.

Hal

alaska Wrote:
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> While staying at a hotel near the airport I
> noticed the old PRR catenary towers.
> Will these towers ever be used again for future
> electric trains?
> Do you think they are just too expensive to tear
> down?
> Thanks, just curious.
>
> Hal

Which hotel did you stay at and which catenary towers are you talking of? The ones in what used to be Waverley yard will probably never be used for electric trains. OTOH the ones along the NEC are already used for electric trains. They are all near Newark Airport.

Jishnu Wrote:
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> alaska Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > While staying at a hotel near the airport I
> > noticed the old PRR catenary towers.
> > Will these towers ever be used again for future
> > electric trains?
> > Do you think they are just too expensive to
> tear
> > down?
> > Thanks, just curious.
> >
> > Hal
>
> Which hotel did you stay at and which catenary
> towers are you talking of? The ones in what used
> to be Waverley yard will probably never be used
> for electric trains. OTOH the ones along the NEC
> are already used for electric trains. They are all
> near Newark Airport.

Yes.

The hotels along I-78 north of the airport also back up on the Oak Island yard, where at least some of the old Pennsylvania towers still remain. I believe at one time the poles went across the bridge to Greenville yard in Jersey City.

I remember when those towers still had catenary on them. What you're seeing is the former PRR Passaic and Harsimus Branch, which left the Northeast Corridor at "Waverly", the interlocking just south of Newark Airport station. Track 1 (northbound local) jumped over the lead from the NEC to the P&H. The P&H then paralleled US 1/US 9 through the Jersey Meadows and crossed Newark Bay to Greenville. That was the end of the electrification, although during the Penn Central merger planning there was a study of extending the catenary north to Selkirk.

No, there won't ever be wires there again. They came down after Conrail ended electric freight operation in 1982. There were several reasons why Conrail elected to end electric freight. They included: old power (newest locomotives were E44s from the mid-1960s, aging power supply and catenary, and the need to purchase power from Amtrak (at very high rates).

Here is a picture that describes catenary poles like this, taken from the Newark Airport monorail.

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I hope those drivers move their cars before a train comes by. (LOL)

stone23 Wrote:
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> I hope those drivers move their cars before a
> train comes by. (LOL)

I think it is a new car lot, so no drivers other than the dealers (or possibly some rental company) folks I suppose LOL

Anyhow, those pillars are not going to see catenary in a long long time, if ever. Even if trains were to run on that route, they would run through CP Bud along the NEC and then hang a right past Newark Airport Station on existing tracks to get to the same place where those tracks went in the past.

Note that these structures still carry the 4 - 132 kV 25 Hz Amtrak owned HV power circuits that feed the existing 12 kV NEC electrification.

They will never hold catenary again, but those eight upper wires are still alive and well. Those eight wires represent four energized 138kV, 25Hz circuits (two wires per circuit) that provide power from the convertor sources to the step down substations. The tracks are gone, but the power transmission is still active.

badass Wrote:
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> Note that these structures still carry the 4 - 132
> kV 25 Hz Amtrak owned HV power circuits that feed
> the existing 12 kV NEC electrification.

the only reason why they're standing. the transmission wires and feeders are still part of the Amtrak power grid

This may not be true anymore, but I had read a few years back now that the catenary pole were largely encouraged to stay "in place" (particularly in Pennsylvania) in case electric rail service WAS ever to return. Now we all know this is far fetched at present, and I would imagine that designers would even want to build new poles and infratructure for the catenary, but just wondering if anyone else has picked up on this.

Even the South Amboy Seconday(??) that runs from South Amboy to Monmouth Junction still has cat poles, but no wires (at all) that I can think of. It's likely the RR's just don't want to spend the money to take down these unneeded poles. I do know there was some controversy when part of the cat poles were taken down on the Trenton cutoff in Pennsylvania....

And for what it is worth, there are some abandoned or active rail lines in NJ that are owned by NJT, most of which don't have catenary poles. Interestingly, the power company that follows along the parts of the ROW of the former CNJ "Southern Secondary" does have new poles with width and length that could support double tracking AND even catenary support above. And these are new electric lines the power company put up.

When the NJCL was being electrified south of South Amboy, one plan had the electric catenary ending at Red Bank, but the catenary would continue down an upgraded CNJ Southern Secondary to provide rail service to Lakewood/Lakehurst. The later is still under study as part of the "MOM Rail Line Project" but the catenary poles were extended further south of Red Bank to Long Branch where a yard was eventually built to support operations etc. This yard at Long Branch has space and other constraints, but it works for now. Extending catenary to Bay Head should have been the ultimate goal, even as the PRR wanted.

But a case was built for electric service to end at Red Bank because a "yard" already partially existed south of the Red Bank train station - now used for MOW workers/cars.

I see these poles each time I stay at the Best Western hotel near the Newark Airport, but never notices any wires on the above arms.
The catenary poles run parrele to the NJT commuter line.

Hal

Couple of E-44's in Meadows Yard, Kearny, NJ, in 1966. This is a post card made from a Warren Thamsen photo. The card was published by Audio Visual Designs.

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The poles in the picture from new Newark Airport that I posted are from the old PRR Waverly Yard. The freight line left the PRR main just south of here on one of Penny's famous flyover junctions and the yard more or less paralleled the passenger line into Newark and New York. This yard was abandoned on the Conrail era in favor of the ex-LV Oak Island Yard which is right next to it.