INDUSTRIAL, OFFLINE
TERMINAL RAILROADS &
RAIL-MARINE OPERATIONS
OF BROOKLYN, QUEENS, STATEN
ISLAND, BRONX &
MANHATTAN:
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WASTE MANAGEMENT & RAILROAD Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY Fresh Pond & Blissville, Queens, NY and Mott Haven the Bronx, NY
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updated:
Monday, 20 May 2019 -
17:00
update summary:
date:
page created
19 May 2019
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As this particular webpage deals with an active
railroad and company, viewers should be aware that this webpage, the author(s) or its contributors are not affiliated with:
. Waste Management Corporation, Metropolitan Transit Authority, Long Island Rail Road, New York & Atlantic Railway, Anacostia Rail Holdings, CSX Transportation, WATCO Company, LLC; Johnson Railway Services, Shuttlewagon Co., or the City of New York, Department of Sanitation
or any of their subsidiaries, holding companies
or parent organizations, employees or otherwise;
and no affiliation or connection with those companies or municipalities is
suggested or implied.
This website and the information contained
within has been compiled for the use of reference only, and any inaccuracies
are purely accidental.
This webpage sees revision for the purpose of the addition of information,
or correction of inaccurate data.
Also, this website does not condone or authorize anyone not employed or affiliated with the above companies or agencies to
enter the properties thereof or the taking of photographs (digital or
otherwise) from other than public property and access points.
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History
In 1893, Dutch immigrant Harm Huizenga began hauling garbage in Chicago, Illinois at $1.25 per wagon.
In 1968, his grandson Wayne Huizenga (b. 1937 - d. 2018) as well
as business partners Dean Buntrock and Larry Beck founded Waste
Management, Inc. The company is now headquartered in the First
City Tower in Houston, Texas.
They began aggressively purchasing many of the smaller
garbage collection services across the United States. In 1971, Waste
Management went "public" on the stock market and by 1972,
the company had made 133 acquisitions and posted $82,000,000 in
revenue. It listed over 60,000 commercial and industrial accounts as
well as 600,000 residential
customers throughout 19 states and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec
in Canada.
In the
1980s, Waste Management purchased Service Corporation of
America, and became the largest waste hauler in the United States.
Currently, Waste Management offers environmental services to nearly 21 million residential, industrial, municipal
and commercial customers in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.
With 26,000 collection and transfer vehicles, the company has the
largest trucking fleet in the waste industry.
Waste Management is now vertically integrated, and its
services include: single and multiple stream recycling facilities,
electronics recycling, methane recovery & power
generation; hazardous materials transportation, to include:
346 transfer stations,
293 active landfill disposal sites,
146 recycling plants,
111 beneficial-use landfill gas projects and
6 independent power production plants.
Waste Management also is a major contributor to other companies
and invests in proven and experimental waste disposal methods,
including plasma arc waste disposal, anaerobic waste digesters and
methane landfill gas to energy generation. One new field is conversion
of municipal solid wastes and sewage sludge into non-hazardous organic
salts. The organic salts are then sent to petrochemical refinery where
it can be converted into gasoline, diesel or jet fuel.
Trackage
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In the New York City area, Waste
Management conducts railway operations in two locations in the New York
City area:
Harlem River Yard Transfer Station - Mott Haven, the Bronx
Varick Avenue Transfer Station; Bushwick, Brooklyn
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. This company concerns themselves solely with the transloading of solid
waste into intermodal style shipping containers placed on flatcars for
shipment to out of state landfills or recycling streams at these locations. Loaded trains are shipped to Atlantic Waste landfill in Waverly, Virginia.
Waste Management published a brochure on their "Waste By Rail" program, and if you so desire you may read it here:
red denotes the limits of the Waste Management trackmobile usage on the Bushwick & Lower Montauk Branches;
yellow shows the routes of the Waste Management locomotives between Blissville Yard and Varick Avenue Transfer Station.
light blue reflects New York & Atlantic Railway trackage outside the scope of this page, and:
medium blue notes CSX operated trackage.
Freight railroad operations of Long Island Rail Road are leased to
the New York & Atlantic Railway. The trackage on
which Waste Management is served extending from Varick Avenue to Fresh Pond Yard is
the Bushwick Branch of the Long Island Rail Road.
One of the interesting aspects of operation over this line is the fact
that the railroad still crosses city streets at grade, most of them manually flagged. They are some of the very
few remaining grade crossings remaining in the City of New York.
The Varick Avenue Transfer Station of Waste Management is
located between Newtown Creek and Varick Avenue, just south of Meserole
Street, Brooklyn. Waste Management is not the
sole customer along the Bushwick Branch, with several small industries receiving
service on stub tracks along this route from New York & Atlantic Railway, mostly
lumber & aggregate. This is a congested industrial & heavy commercial area.
East of Waste Management, a single track crosses the Newtown
Creek over a small steel trestle and reaches east 2000 feet to service
a concrete plant. This is also known as the Morgan Avenue Yard. This
stub is serviced by New York & Atlantic Railway.
Heading west from Waste Management, waste container cars are
stored along the sidings of the Bushwick
Branch as far east as Metropolitan Avenue. Trackage here is three and
four tracks wide. Just west of and before Woodward Avenue, trackage
reduces to single track.
On the east side of Metropolitan Avenue (out of view on the map above) there is a runaround siding
that joins the single track until 54th Street, before returning to
single track until reaching Bushwick Junction. Here the Lower Montauk
Branch runs parallel to the Bushwick Branch until entering Fresh Pond
Yard. .
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The Garbage Trains
The typical arrangement used for hauling refuse is four 20' foot
containers specially built for the purpose of hauling refuse onto one
89' flatcar. Several flatcars are grouped together forming a cut of
cars. The empty containers on flatcars are switched by utilizing a
shuttlewagon, also known as a trackmobile. Flatcars with empty
containers are brought west over a trailing point turnout, the switch
is thrown and the shuttlewagon pushes east onto a stub track for a
short move into a building, where the containers are loaded with
refuse in an enclosed facility.
After a cut of cars is loaded, they are pulled west out of
the building, switching back onto the Bushwick Branch, the turnout
thrown and the shuttlewagon and cars reverse direction; proceeding east
up the track to one of the sidings. The loaded cut is dropped. The
shuttlewagon switches over to an adjacent track where empty cars wait
to be brought
west to be loaded, and for the procedure to start again. Once
several cuts of loaded cars are blocked together, the block of
cars is hauled to Fresh Pond Yard
using
the new Tier 4 mother/slug set USWX #400 & #010.
As
Fresh Pond Yard is also the primary receiving yard for New York &
Atlantic freight destined to and from Queens, as well as all of Long
Island, the yard can get crowded. So standing Waste Management trains are
stored in Blissville Yard a couple of miles north on the Lower
Montauk Branch.
From here, when completed and
loaded trains are ready to roll, those that are at Blissville Yard
are picked up and brought back southeast to Fresh Pond Yard,
combined with those at Fresh Pond Yard, and interchanged with
CSX who brings them north (over former New York Connecting Railroad
trackage (joint operation of Pennsylvania and New Haven Railroads) over
the Hell Gate Bridge to Oak Point Yard. Here they reverse direction and
head south turning west at the Bronx Kill to the Waste Management
Harlem River Yard Transfer Station. Here the trains from Varick Avenue
Transfer Station are combined with loaded
cars from the Harlem River Yard Transfer Station.
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Looking west along the LIRR Bushwick Branch - Scott Avenue Pedestrian Bridge - August 18, 2009 P. F. Strubeck photo added 19 May 2019
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Looking west along the LIRR Bushwick Branch - Scott Avenue Pedestrian Bridge - August 18, 2009 P. F. Strubeck photo added 19 May 2019
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Looking east along the LIRR Bushwick Branch - Scott Avenue Pedestrian Bridge - August 18, 2009 P. F. Strubeck photo added 19 May 2019
. The facility is serviced utilizing trackage owned by CSX Transportation. In the map above,
green shows the trackage of Waste Management Harlem River Yard Transfer Station.
light blue reflects CSX Oak Point Link
gray
denotes Amtrak Northeast Corridor trackage (two tracks) over Hell Gate
Bridge to Sunnyside Yard, Queens & Penn Station, Manhattan
medium blue
notes CSX operated single track (Fremont Secondary) from Oak Point
Yard, the Bronx; over Hell Gate Bridge to Fresh Pond Yard, Queens
For the Harlem River Yard Transfer Station, the facility receives and
sends it rail traffic via the CSX Oak Point Link via Albany, NY. To the
northwest a few miles the Oak Point Link goes around Highbridge Yard of
MetroNorth Commuter Railroad. North of the Highbridge Yard, the Oak
Point Link merges into to MNCR
where CSX shares trackage rights with Metro North and continues to
follow the Harlem River, turns north at Spuyten Duyvil to Croton -
Harmon Yard, and hence forth to Poughkeepsie and
Albany. Freight on this segment mostly travels off peak hours (nights
and weekends) with some movements between the morning and evening rush
hours. Most of the Waste Management traffic flows this route to get to
CSX Selkirk Yard for shipment to points west.
A mile or two
to the northeast of the Waste Management Harlem River Yard
Transfer
Station is CSX Oak Point Yard. General freight for Boston, and other
points northeast (Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode
Island and the eastern provinces of Canada is blocked and sorted here
for the trip along the north shore of Long Island Sound. Cars to and
from the Waste Management Varick Avenue Transfer Station also are here.
Empty & loaded Waste Management cars are also here: empties to go
over the Hell Gate Bridge to the New York & Atlantic interchange at
Fresh Pond Yard, and loaded cars to be joined with cars here at Harlem
River Yard Transfer Station for the trip north. .
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Historical Connection to New York New Haven & Hartford
On a
historical note, this facility resides on the former location of the
New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad "Harlem River Yard". There
were at least two float bridges at this location, just to the east of
the Willis Avenue Bridge approach. When the Willis Avenue Bridge was
first constructed, it required the reorientation of the yard tracks.
With the construction and opening of the modern NYNH&H
Railroad's Oak Point Yard and
the associated electrically operated transfer bridges, the
Harlem River Yard would see a downturn in traffic. Its purpose
would be relegated pretty much to carfloat
traffic serving the offline terminals located on the Harlem River
(Delaware Lackawanna & Western "Harlem Transfer"; Central
Railroad of New Jersey; Lehigh Valley; Erie; and the New York Central
at Bronx Terminal Market). This was so that NYNH&H marine equipment
could avoid navigating Hell Gate (which was treacherous to say the
least) and around
Randall's Island multiple times
a day.
Following the bankruptcy of Penn Central Railroad, most of
the Harlem River Yard not already removed was torn up. Upon Waste
Management taking up residence and redevelopment of the area, the
yard tracks to service Waste Management were built parallel to the Oak
Point Link through track, much as they had been prior to 1900 and the
construction of the Willis Avenue Bridge! .
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Locomotives & Equipment
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There are many locomotives wearing Waste Management livery
seen throughout the United States, as they have multiple facilities.
Only a few have been confirmed to have actually operated in New York.
Only those believed to have worked at either the Varick Avenue
or Harlem River locations will be listed here.
It appears that Waste Management leases their locomotives
from companies that specialize in railroad equipment leasing.
Those being: Johnson Railway Services, WATCO, and Shuttlewagon. Also if
needs dictate, New York & Atlantic Railway will switch out cars
using locomotives on their roster.
LIRR Bushwick Branch - January 4, 2012 P. F. Strubeck photo added 19 May 2019
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LIRR Bushwick Branch - January 4, 2012 P. F. Strubeck photo added 19 May 2019
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east of Blissville Yard, Long Island City, Queens, NY - November 22, 2015 P. F. Strubeck photo added 19 May 2019
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Waste Management 8379 (JRMX 8379) - CSX Locomotive Shop; Selkirk, NY - May 3, 2014 Note notched plow corners for MetroNorth third rail clearance. authors photo added 19 May 2019
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Waste Management 400 & 010 - Fresh Pond Yard - Glendale Queens, NY G. Grice photo used with permission added 19 May 2019
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Waste Management Roster (for New York City Area Operations)
number / name
builder
c/n
model
build date
acquired
loco history
disposition
notes
ref
SWX 4658
Shuttlewagon
leased
G 42 Brooklyn
Shuttlewagon
Navigator
leased
WATCO
Brooklyn
USWX 2
EMD
14030
SW8
9/1951
?
ex-ITI 2 exx-Conrail 8673 nee Lehigh Valley 259
Bronx
Reed
PREX 103
EMD
7196
NW2
9/1949
leased
nee Indiana Harbor Belt #8785 (PREX acq. 2001)
Bronx
Reed
JRWX 8379
EMD
25031
GP10
12/1958
used (lease)
Illinois Central 9379 [EMD GP9] to Illinois Central Gulf 9379; rebuilt December 1974 to GP10 by Paducah; ICG 8379 sold 1991 to
Carolina Piedmont RR 8379 sold 2009 to
Johnson Rail Services as JRWX 8379 leased to Waste Management Inc; 2012
USWX 400
KLW
SE23B-M
new
EMD GP40 built 11/1966 c/n 32654 as Baltimore & Ohio 3694 to Chessie System 3694 to CSX 6510 to HATX 415 to Knoxville Locomotive for rebuilding to SE23B-M (mother)
in service
mother Brooklyn / Queens
USWX 010
KLW
SE23B-S
new
EMD SW9 built 2/1951, c/n 14329, as Saint Louis Brownsville & Mexico 9191. to Missouri Pacific #9191 in 1956 renumbered 1962 to Missouri Pacific 1253 renumbered 11/1974 to Missouri Pacific 1217 rebuilt 11/1981 as slug Missouri Pacific 1420 to Union Pacific S29 on 9/30/1988 and renumbered Union Pacific Y923 on
10/11/2001 to Knoxville Locomotive Works for rebuilding to SE23B-S (slug)
in service
slug Brooklyn / Queens
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JRWX:
Johnson Rail Services
USWX:
USA Waste Services Inc. (a subsidiary of Waste Management)
