WY34/WY33 The Camden - Millville Turn - Part I

WY34/WY33 was the local turn that ran from Camden through Woodbury to Millville. It did a whole lot of switching along the line and will take at least 2 posts to cover.

In the very early 1950s the line was still double  (and triple) tracked and that is the period I chose to model. All the switches in this portion of the railroad were trailing point so one side of the railroad got switched going southbound (WY34 or WY841) and the other side was switched on the return leg (WY33 or WY840) of the turn.To me, switching is the fun challenge of the layout.

Towns did not like having their automobile intersections blocked so operators are required to split their trains at each crossing during switching moves (that's 4 locations before you get to the main Woodbury station).

The Woodbury yard also has an icing facility (probably long gone before 1950, but thanks to a friendly time warp, it is still present here). All the reefers get iced at Woodbury. Those new fangled mechanical reefers are serviced by a local gas truck. The bulk of the wooden reefers spend time at the icing facility before reaching their farm destinations. South Jersey was loaded with farms and many provided Campbell Soup (in Camden) with their vegetable needs.

I also have all the locals drop their cars needing northbound deliveries in the Woodbury yard (no sense lugging them back and forth) to be picked up by the next northbound local.

 The yard Baldwin switcher, one of the few engines I have that actually fits the period (and the railroad), gets WY34 blocked and ready to roll:

This is southern New Jersey (i.e. the "Garden State") so the farms need plenty of reefers to get their produce to market and in this time frame the bulk of the reefer fleet was still ice hatch oriented.

Power for today is a pair of PRSL GP38s (there's that time friendly time warp again - these didn't arrive on site until 1967-1969; someone please make a Baldwin road switcher in N scale!)

We trundle across the Timber Creek trestle with 14 cars in tow.

We need to deliver 3 cars in Westville and pick up 6 empties. First we have to get the 3 empty hoppers from the PRSL generating station. (Time warp again.) The power plant was built in 1906. It used to supply electric to power the passenger service using an outside 3rd rail. The state banned wooden passenger cars [they telescoped in accidents, increasing fatalities] and the electric passenger service was then replaced by steam and diesel powered steel car trains in 1949. (And RDCs in 1950-51.)

The local power company (Public Service Electric) made an inexpensive offer of electric power in 1922 and the plant was shut down and the smoke stacks removed. It then sat there abandoned until being torn down around the turn of the century.

We also need to pick up an empty gondola and replace it with 2 loaded ones at the Buzby Bros. cement mixing facility and replace an empty 50 box car with a loaded one on the team track.

We also need to snatch an empty box car from the middle track (Texaco storage).

With 17 cars NOW in tow, we head off to North Woodbury to continue our switching duties.