IN THE YARDS PT31

Several carloads of replaced ties sit in Hillsdale Yard, ready for shipment.

Dash 840C 6045 draws the honors as the ties are being shipped to a dealer in eastern Pennsylvania who sells them to garden centers. Creosoted ties are insect and rot resistant, and so make good retaining walls for raised flower beds. As for 6045 herself, she has been downgraded from mainline to local service, as her age catches up with her; she was built in 1988, and has many millions of miles on her frame.

A short string of oil tank cars sit in the yard, alongside a short string of 56' stack cars loaded with 28' UPS boxes. Both sets will be headed east shortly; the oil cars to a local dealer, and the UPS boxes to New York City. A mix-up placed the stack cars in IC49, the Chicago-Baltimore train, instead of CNY60, the Chicago-New York City train; they will be placed on DN39, the Dayton-NYC train.

Another set of tank cars, these in ethanol service, sit on the opposite end of Hillsdale Yard, after having been brought in from Farmingdale Ethanol. These cars will also be headed east; to a refinery in New Jersey to make the E85 blend of gasoline.

The local crane and a pair of HERZOG gons sit outside the shop. As always, track and Right-Of-Way maintenance is a constant item.

Dash 9-44C 5410, the Rock Island Heritage unit, sits in the yard, after having an engine problem looked at. With BNSF and NS rebuilding their respective fleets of Dash 9's into AC-drive units, it remains to be seen if the AP&W will follow suit with its fleet of 200 units. Given that there are over 3000 AC-drive units on the roster, and the last DC drive mainline units were purchased in 2007, the likely-hood of these units remaining on the roster in current form seems relatively slim. Their Dash 8 predecessors, like 6045, are already being placed in long-term storage, pending their ultimate retirement and sale.