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The CSX River Subdivision
Blauvelt 1 (of
2)
Added 2/2008; Updated 3/2008 Copyright © 2008 Lewis Bogaty
Erie Street
Erie Street in Blauvelt intersects with Route 303 just south of the handy Blauvelt Diner and climbs a hill after crossing the River Sub tracks. That provides a nice vantage point for a broadside view of a passing train from above. The trees east of Route 303 have beautiful color in late October. The spot is best for video however, since, as this photo shows, there is not enough clearance for a good still shot, even of just the locomotive.
Above: Q410 heads north across Erie Street on
October 29, 2003.
The Blauvelt Train Station still stands on the southwest corner of the Erie Street crossing. This is not the original 1883 station, but a station that replaced it in 1955.
Above & Below: The Blauvelt Station as it
looked on March 2, 2008.
Q254 heads south with a surprise Conrail leader.
Above: The original Blauvelt station was built in 1883, designed by the New York, West Shore, and Buffalo Railway and constructed by James H. Banta from Sparkill, NY. The Blauvelt, Orangeburg, and Tappan stations all followed "station plan #5," though the Tappan station was the mirror image of the other two. Thanks to Allan F. Seebach, Jr. for photo and information.
CP 22
Getting there: From Orangeburg, and
Erie Street, continue north on Route 303.
Make a left turn at the traffic light at Bradley Parkway to the tracks.
Above: Q108 on May 4, 2007.
Below: A thick fog on January 13, 2006.
Our favorite spot on the lower River Sub (south of Bear Mountain) is the misnamed Bradley Parkway (hardly the Garden State or Palisades Interstate Parkways, it is a small, empty street that dead-ends at the tracks). We have seen many interesting things here. For starters, CP 22, the south end of the four-mile-long controlled siding between Blauvelt and Valley Cottage, is here. There are also a south-facing siding and a north-facing siding, generally referred to as "Xerox" by crews, though Xerox is long gone. Local train C712 delivers covered hoppers periodically on the Xerox siding (actually the Bradley Corporate Park siding), and both sidings are used for various purposes, including setting off damaged cars.
Above: Q108 on May 4, 2007.
The hold point for southbounds is just up the hill at the also misnamed "Chromalloy" crossing, actually Pine View Road. (There has not been a company named Chromalloy there in recent memory.) It used to be that a one-minute drive through the corporate park and up the dirt road (as long as your car had decent shock absorbers) took you between Bradley Parkway and the Chromalloy crossing as the need arose (for example, to see the signal for southbound trains). But sometime around 2004 or 2005, if memory serves, an automobile dealer moved into the then Alloy Technology building. The new owner paved the dirt road and put up a chain-link fence around that part of the property, blocking access. Now that one-minute trip takes a circuitous, roundabout ten minutes!
Above and Below: Southbound Q254 crosses Bradley Parkway on May 4, 2007. The beginnings of both the south and north sidings are visible in the above photo, as is the controlled siding behind the signal.
Early in the morning on July 4, 2004, W097, a ballast train with a broken air hose between two engines, reversed onto the Bradley siding to make repairs. Unfortunately it could not fit without the lead engine fouling the main track. So it came forward and reversed onto the controlled siding to allow Q164 to pass by.
Above & Below: Switching hoses on the Bradley industrial siding on July 4, 2004.
Two Below: Pulling forward off the siding in order to reverse
onto the controlled siding.
Below: Reversing onto the controlled siding.
Above: Q164 passes the ballast train at 8:59 AM on July 4, 2004.