Woodbury and Beyond

Although my Camden yard folks will argue with me, I think Woodbury is the heart of the layout. Although not much industry is there, everything came together here. It was the junction of 3 branches that spread across South Jersey. The main line was directed towards Millville and Vineland to the east. The Penns Grove / Deepwater branch followed the Delaware River to the south. This branch grew into the largest traffic generator as it serviced refineries and chemical plants along the Delaware River.  A third branch in the middle went into the rich farmlands in Elmer and Salem. New Jersey had a well-earned reputation as the "Garden State" and it fed vegetables and produce far beyond the Campbell Soup plant in Camden.

A wye connected the Salem and Penns Grove branches with a small yard in the middle. Salem trains used to terminate at Woodbury and drop their cars in the yard to be picked up by trains returning to Camden from the other 2 branches. At one time there was some sort of icing facility in the Woodbury yard but I have yet to uncover any pictures of it. The farms all needed iced reefers (in 1950s mechanical reefers were just beginning to show up) so it gives a big excuse to add operational interest.

Before you arrive in Woodbury, North Woodbury has 2 sidings. One for the Hollaway Lumber Co and another for a pipe company. The pipe company was later replaced with Cornell Steel, a steel fabricating business. I still haven't decided which will be the permanent resident of that siding.

North Woodbury; Cornell Steel and Hollaway Lumber

Woodbury had a bottling plant, a cement mixing spur and a furniture factory spur. I only modeled the bottling plant. The station itself had multiple team tracks to service the Acme food stores and a potato packing plant. Beyond Woodbury (and beyond the actual layout) were all sorts of farms and industries (DuPont, Sunoco, Oil, Shell Chemical) to generate a myriad of service requests.

Woodbury looking west

South Woodbury looking east; Bottling plant on left; yard between Millville and Penns Grove / Salem branches

There was not enough room to incorporate the wye but the small yard will see a lot of action since all the reefers headed for farm country will be stopping there for icing. Any local cars that need to be spotted on the northbound return trip can be dropped in the yard and picked up on the way back.

So I rest my case: the railroad, both real and modeled, exist to service customers and that should be its focus.