NS use of the term "Secondary."

An interesting question. I live near the Port Reading Secondary, which had that name when the Reading RR built it. It has kept the name through Conrail and now NS.

 

I imagine the term secondary designates a second (or third) tier route, an alternate to their mainline. Perhaps a more heavily trafficed route than a branch.

 

I was under the impression it was a PRR and mostly an Eastern thing. 

I could find nothing regarding the naming convention in the NS rule books available. Tried to a reference to the term on the FRA site, but it finds the word secondary in too many documents. One clue had to do with a HAZMAT emergency regulation from 2011.

I suspect it is compliance with some regulation to classify a line.

 

We have a line like that in S. NJ near me that services petro-chemical and few other manufacturing industries. They have been doing a lot of track work lately. Long sidings to store cars on. I suppose to improve traffic management.

They are just different names for different lines or districts.  The term Line, Branch, Secondary, etc. does not indicate the track designation (at least not any longer).  The names are all carry overs from Conrail.  The Port Road Branch, Harrisburg Line, and Lurgan Branch are all mainline signaled routes. 

Most (but not all) Secondary Tracks are dark territory (i.e. Require paper authority to operate- Form D or Track Authority).

That certainly is the case for the two NS Secondaries in Upstate NY that I am familiar with -- Corning (ex NYC) and Ithaca (ex LV).

 

Poppyl 

Then you have the NS West Virginia Secondary.  A pretty significant secondary main.  But the NS New Holland and York PA Secondary are nothing branchlines.

 

Did Conrail have any dark lines with significant traffic like NS does where TWC rules multiple trains?  or Block style lines line CSX uses?  Some of the CSX Block Dark lines in the South are handling 15 trains per day.

My experience with studying just about ANYTHING PRR releated is that they liked to make things about as clear as mud.  My impression of that company is that they were so big, so powerful and so full of themselves that likely even THEY didn't know why they did things the way they did.  They seemed to have a knack for being being the most forward thinking and backward thinking company all at the same time.

As others have said, the term was unique to the PRR as far as I know before the Conrail merger. (The WV Secondary is former-PRR.)

 

I don't think 'X Secondary' is identical to the 'Secondary Track' definition in the rule book. Most railroads talked about main lines and branches. PRR had a lot of redundant trackage, especially in PA, so it developed a term to describe routes that had characteristics of both main and branch. A Secondary generally rejoined the main track it originally branched off from at some point.

 

An example of a 'Secondary Track' which could be occupied without dispatcher authority would an industrial lead or spur to coal mines. These aren't 'Sidings', because PRR's definition of a 'Siding' a track used for meeting or passing trains.

 

The New Holland Secondary branched off the main in Downingtown, and rejoined it at Conestoga, near Lancaster. The eastern section has been abandoned.

 

I'm not familiar with the 'York Secondary,' but the segment from Harrisburg to York is the remnant of the Northern Central to Baltimore. (The Hanover Jct. - New Freedom section of this route is now a tourist line.) There was also a branch from York to Frederick, MD. 

 

The WV Secondary is an outlier in that it doesn't rejoin the main.

 

 

Hurricane Agnes did a tremendous amount of damage to the infrastructure of several already-bankrupt railroads in 1972. The Northern Central south of York was one of the many lines eventually abandoned, as was part of the York to Frederick line.

 

 

 

I found this map online years ago, it should give you an idea of how much redundant track PRR had at one time, and how much has been abandoned over the years.