Introducing New York - New Jersey Express TOFC Service

 Greetings All,

Introducing 

New York - New Jersey Express

TOFC Service

Well here we are after two weeks of Intermodal Equipment building projects and it's time to introduce the reason. A couple of months ago 1:1 Sir Neal floated the idea of a high speed TOFC service from the never seen in the virtual ops Atlantic Pacific Railroad Intermodal Terminal to the Terminal Yard Intermodal Ramp. 

That caught my interest and as we explored the possibilities Sir Neal pulled the ace from up his sleeve, "I have ten UPS 40' trailers and eight UPS 24' containers on chassis(basically trailers) that we can use for the project. Further discussions led to branding this service as New York - New Jersey Express. With that agreed upon Sir Neal ordered the appropriate decals and shipped the whole shebang to me in a large box.

The Patti-O Paint Shop took up challenge and delivered the eighteen trailers on time and under budget.

Backstory

A recent meeting of the top staff from the Atlantic Pacific, the Penn Central, the Empire Belt Railroads with shippers and consignees from the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania Quad-State area was recently held to address several matters pertinent to the interchange of NY-NJ freight traffic.

One of the topics brought up was Less Than Carload (LCL) traffic that had been lost to the trucking industry and how to win it back by providing a profitable high speed Intermodal Service that would carry 24' containers on chassis(TOFC) and standard 40' trailers. 

"8/1/78, Conrail GP38-2 8110" by OHFalcon72 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Several discussions were held on how to best route these trains to assure that customers would be satisfied with the service and willing to pay the premium prices for this service. 

"Trailer On Flat Car, Florida East Coast" by Gary Lee Todd, Ph.D. is marked with CC0 1.0.

The car route from Allentown, Pennsylvania to Rock Ridge, New Jersey to Terminal Yard in East Bedford, NY isn't Chicago to Los Angeles ATSF Super C train but anyone who has tried to drive from Allentown, PA to Long Island, NY can attest to the clogged roadways, poor road conditions, bumper to bumper traffic and numerous tolls which hampers the trucking industries efficiencies.

"New Jersey traffic jam" by wseltzer is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
The proposed NY-NJ Express TOFC Service would seek to overtake the trucking industry by offering loading dock to loading dock service with trains that wouldn't be negatively affected by weather. The schedule would for trains departing Rock Ridge Yard or Terminal Yard Monday thru Friday at 7:00 PM with the trailers delivered to their consignees by 7:00 AM the following morning.

"2/15/78, CS GP40 3790" by OHFalcon72 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Adding New Equipment

To get started with this new and hopefully profitable rail service 40' and 24' trailers were purchased from United Parcel Service by the Atlantic Pacific Railroad and sent to the Patti-O Paint Shop for repainting and branding.

24' containers on chassis will become part of the NY-NJ Express trailer fleet. Some shippers of LCL merchandise favored this size of container / trailer which could also be driven as a double trailer with a bogey connecting the two. Trust me it's like driving a slinky!!!

Standard 40' trailers were also purchased to meet the shipper's needs. Here is a group of ten awaiting new paint and lettering.

New decals were purchased by the APRR to give the service its own branding.

A Mi Jack Trans-lift Intermodal Crane was purchased by the Penn Central for Terminal Yard. Link to this blogpost below.

A Kalmar Crane was also purchased as back up and to speed the loading and unloading of container traffic on the ramp as necessary. Link to this blogpost below.

The NY-NJ Express Trailers

Go Thru The Patti-O Paint Shop

The first of the eight NY-NJ Trailers (24' containers on chassis) have been released by the Patti-O Paint Shop. The APRU containers wear the APRR corporate orange paint scheme 

The EBRU trailers wear a shade of green to be consistent with the corporate colors of the EBRR and parent PC.

A newly purchased ex-UPS trailer has been lifted from its flatcar and moves towards the Patti-O Paint Shop.

The NY-NJ Express trailers feature the heralds of both the APRR and EBRR. The 40' trailers will receive EBRZ reporting marks as seen below or APRZ reporting marks depending on corporate ownership for tax purposes.

The decals have been added and the trailers are in the decal setting solution phase. The eight trailers sitting vertical have just had their reporting marks and road number added to the rear doors.

The new Mi-Jack is ready to load the 24'ers onto a 75' TOFC flatcar.

Assigned Motive Power

The lip service provided to the shippers promising a new fast freight TOFC service means nothing if the railroads concerned cannot supply the necessary motive power to get these trains over the road.

To convey the run thru stature of these trains traveling between Rock Ridge Yard and Terminal Yard PC locomotives that Sir Neal and I have in common will be prime candidates as the Penn Central has agreed to contribute second generation GE or EMD locomotives to this service like these U25Bs.

Load them Up!!!

The new trailers get their first loads at Moore & Company in Empire City.   

Over at the Quaker Oats Plant in the Haydon Heights neighborhood of Empire City a 24' and 40' trailer take on loads.

An NY-NJ Express trifecta at Key Food in Bedford NY. A PC tractor pulls a loaded 40' trailer, a 24' EBRU trailer takes on freight as a NY-NJ trailer heads to the Terminal Yard ramp behind a yellow tractor operated by a contract driver.

It's getting late in the afternoon and the cut off time has approached. A pair of GP7s couple up the the first NY-NJ Express train on the Terminal Yard ramp.

The distinctive New York New - Jersey Express trailers are loaded for their first revenue run.

The Empire Belt 40' trailer with a hot load going to Rock Ridge Yard was added to the train with a waybill including this premium service charge.

The 24' trailers (containers running on chassis) bring up the rear of the train.

The terminal switcher tacks on PC caboose 26043.

It's time to go!!! Sir Neal watches the train get pulled from the ramp as conductor John checks his watch to make sure we are running on time.

A good look at four of the ten new NY-NJ Express trailers.

Seven of the nine New York New Jersey Express trailers remaining at Terminal Yard are lensed near the ramp as they await movement to their next loads or onto the next NYNJ-1 Train.

New York New Jersey Express Train NYNJ-1 departs Terminal Yard for Rock Ridge Yard behind PC U25B 2568. The counter part Rock Ridge-Terminal Yard train will be symbolled Train NJNY-2.

Next Stop Rock Ridge Yard!!!

Not so Far Fetched

Short haul premium TOFC trains have been tried by several railroads that come to mind with mixed success. The Penn Central instituted a TV (TrailVan) train between Harrisburg, PA and Buffalo, NY which wasn't successful and was removed from service.

A bright light was the Boston & Maine - Central Vermont formation of the combined "The Rocket" piggyback service in the early 1980s which ran from Montreal, Canada to New Haven, CT. 

"bm 309 at binghamton" by Slideshow Bruce is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

In the Classic Train Winter 2025 magazine author Brooks A. Bentz does a great job detailing how two downward spiraling NE railroads used aggressive marketing, the freedoms of the Staggers Act and concessions from the railroad unions to run these trains with a two man crew and no caboose. Negotiations led to an agreement to run 15 car trains with no caboose and two crew members.

"Central Vermont Railroad" by Harfang is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Mr. Bentz was at the forefront of this as general manager intermodal services for the B&M. He also founded motor carrier BMX, for Boston & Maine Express. Sounds a bit familiar...

The initial foray into the short haul intermodal business was dreadful with loadings of only a single trailer at times. As a result the BM-CV trains cut a deal with Conrail called "Cooperative Competition" which enabled the B&M to route traffic on Conrail's high-speed dedicated TV Trains from the west end of the B&M at Rotterdam Junction, NY to and from Chicago, St. Louis and points west on the Santa Fe via Streator, Illinois. 

"trackside building and TV train" by Slideshow Bruce is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Final Thoughts & Comments (Finally!!)

First and foremost kudos to Sir Neal for originating the idea of this dedicated high priority TOFC train to run between our layouts and supplying the equipment and decals to make the NY-NJ Express a reality.

As you have read the short haul TOFC trains could be successful with union agreements for smaller crews sans cabooses and a connection with a major class 1 railroad that could provide long haul connections between the east and west coasts.

For now that connection is the Penn Central. Don't laugh the PC was dominant in the intermodal sector and won the golden freight car award for their TV Trains in 1973. I don't however see the militant 1:87 scale trainmen on our layouts giving any concessions and  running a train without a caboose!!

Additional Links & Info

Adding a Mi-Jack Crane

Adding a Kalmar Contained Crane

Classic Trains Magazine Winter 2025

Thanks for reading and watching!!!

See you soon!!!