NS Through Valley Forge PA

this might help explain:

A lot of westbound freight traffic from the greater NJ/NY area runs on former LV (and CNJ) lines into Phillipsburg, NJ and on into the Lehigh Valley, running well north of the ex-RDG & PRR trackage you mention. What line from the Allentown area to Harrisburg they run on, I cannot recall.

 

I think Allentown to Harrisburg is a Reading Line.  So more traffic flows west from NJ/NY than Philly?

As PRR Man points out, the Lehigh Line runs into Allentown from NY/NJ.  Some traffic out of Allentown heads north to Wilkes-Barre/Binghamton but most of the traffic continues on the old reading line down to Reading.  Traffic from Philly and the Allentown traffic merge there and proceed west on the old Reading main to Harrisburg.

 

Poppyl

The line from Allentown to Reading has maybe 50 trains per day.  So Valley Forge may see about 15-20 I guess?

The majority of the traffic destined for the Pittsbirgh Line originates out of north jersey or the Baltimore to Wilmington area.  Intermodal trains depart from Croxton, Elizabeth Marine Terminal, E-Rail and freight from Oak Island and the Chemical Coast traveling over Conrail's Lehigh Line to NS's Lehigh Line at Port Reading Jct., NJ.  From there it's the Lehigh Line to Allentown, Reading Line from Allentown to Reading, and Harrisburg Line to Harrisburg.

Trains out of Deleware (where a good portion of oil is being refined now) and Baltimore travel Amtrak's NEC To Perryville, MD where they head west on the Port Road Branch to Enola, Pa.

There is a small intermodal facility east of Valley Forge in Mortisville, Pa where two trains originate and terminate each day. One freight train in and out of Morrisville each day stops at the yard just east of Valley Forge (Abrams) to handle cars coming to and from the Philly / South Jersey Area.  This line also sees some unit trains of steel and oil that travel the Pittsburgh Line as well.

Thanks for the info.  How many trains daily use the port road branch?    Conrail was pretty smart in putting bits and pieces together to create a triangle in the northeast that funnels to Harrisburg.

Because of restrictions on the NEC, 90% of the traffic on the Port Road operates in the middle of the night.  Depending on the day of the week, there can be as many has 12-18 trains a day. That doesn't sound like much but when you consider it is primarily a simple track line with only 4 passing sidings and most of these trains are compressed into a 10 hour period, it can be quite impressive!

The former reading main between Philly and reading was better utilized under conrail, especially west of norristown, where it connected (via septa) to the prr Trenton cutoff to morrisville.  In the 80's philly had more industry and lots of iron ore coming from its port.  Then in the late 80's traffic was rerouted off the prr Trenton cutoff and amtrak west of norristown, running west over the reading.  This brought trailer trains (former prr business) to the line. The stack clearance across pa in the 90's created the woodbine connection to the Trenton line, resulting in the routing of north jersey trains over the rdg main.


Post ns takeover, the rdg main has lost importance. Csx routes north jersey traffic over the NYC or the b&o. Ns routes nj traffic over the Lehigh line, which was cleared for stacks.  So, the rdg main has little traffic left, as it serves the small and post industrial city of Philly, and even csx has much of that. However, the Pittsburgh main and Harrisburg to Allentown rdg line remain busy with lots of nj, Bethlehem ,  and Baltimore traffic.  The port road to Baltimore and Delaware sees much more daylight traffic under ns, with lots of oil and more midday trains over amtrak.