23-12-23 PHOTOS: Woodstown Central

For many years South Jersey's SMS Lines (which I have to assume stands for Switching Management Service) has been playing the part of a smaller "Class 3" version of the larger Reading and Northern right down to the Reading theming. Run by railfans and for railfans, SMS Lines is best known for being the last home of Baldwin locomotives in daily service, going as far as to raid museums for parts donors to keep its fleet operational. SMS has expanded to handle the switching at an industrial park near Albany and, most recently, took over the contract to run the Salem County portion of the old PRSL Salem Branch between Swedesboro and Salem, after the line was substantially reconstructed. With the line in good condition, SMS decided to jump into the tourist train market with 2024 being the first year in full operation running between stations in Woodstown and Swedesboro under the name "Woodstown Central". Seeing as I would be driving in that general vicinity on my way home for the holidays, I got a ticket to see what all the fuss was about ( mirror ).

With its 0-6-0 steam locomotive #9 still under construction, GP38-3 #2003 was the star of the show. About a decade ago SMS purchased the unit and sent it to Albany before realizing it was actually one of the 10 GP38's purchased by the PRSL in its final years in operation. By 2024 SMS was finally able to get #2003 back to home rails and put it to work on the new tourist service.

The service consisted of a caboose, a coach and a table car, all of of which were former Reading in origin.

A station, passing siding and parking lot were constructed from scratch in a farm field south of Woodstown proper.

When I purchased the ticket only table car seating was left. The service features reserved tables and food service. I unfortunately failed to fully grasp that a special holiday train actually meant a Santa train oriented towards the kids.

Fortunately the staff was nice enough to offer me the chance to get photos and video of the #2003 run-around at Swedesboro. While there is technically a station at Swedesboro, it currently consists of a set of stairs to serve the brewery train service running to Swedesboro Brewing, which I would have much preferred.

07-06-04 PHOTOS: South Jersey Circle

ay back in June I was able to convince Chuchubob into meeting me at 30th St station and then driving me around all over South Jersey. In return he got my usual creativity, navigating skills and general good luck. The stops on the tour were Woodbury where we caught some freight action and then to Paulsboro to see the recently automated Paulsboro movable bridge and then onto the SMS Yard in Pureland, NJ and from there we headed across the Commodore Barry Bridge to Marcus Hook, PA where we hung out at the SEPTA Station before moving onto the nearby HOOK Tower for some additional pictures. Finally, we went back to New Jersey for some photos at the Conrail Paulsboro yard.

We were lucky in that we caught a freight train doing some switching at CP-WOODBURY and then at Marcus Hook we saw another freight go through the station on its way to the industrial track off of HOOK interlocking. Of course we saw a great deal of Baldwins at the SMS yard, but you don't need any luck for that. The weather was pretty crummy, but it was the only day I was going to have off from work for railfanning so I couldn't be picky.

You can find all these wonderful pics at:

http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/07-06-04_SOUTH_JERSEY_CIRCLE/_Thumbnails.html

And for all of your lazy bums here are some samples.

Amtrak 911 from the 30th St Parking carhole showing the roof components.

CSX freight on the hi-line with C44-10W #5471 in the lead.

This was a first for me. Actually seeing a signal displayed at CP-WOODBURY, in this case a Restricting indication down onto the Penns Grove Secondary, which is DCS territory.

NS GP40-2 #3022 taking the signal at CP-WOODBURY

#3022 looking the other way.

SMS ( Switching Management Service) Baldwin AS-616 #554 in Reading colors switching cars at Pureland.

06-11-23 PHOTOS: SMS Thanksgiving 2006

This batch of photos represents a milestone in the history of Jersey Mike's railroad photography. No, it's not setting some backlog record (yes, I know it 2 months late), but these are the last batch of photos taken by my old Olympus C-3020 3.2 MP digital camera with 3x optical zoom. This camera has my primary tool for documenting and sharing my railfan experiences with the world for almost 5 years. It's replacement is another Olympus, a UZ-something with 7.1 MP and 10x optical zoom. Oddly enough my new camera cost $100 less than my original one. Let's hope I can get the same sort of superior service I came to expect from the old one.


Today I am featuring photos from what has become an annual tradition, a trip with Chuchubob to the SMS shortline in Morrisville, PA. The SMS switches cars in the Penn Warner industrial park using a Baldwin S-12 dating from 1953. SMS runs other switching services in South Jersey and operates the largest fleet of Baldwin locomotives in the country. S-12 #301 replaces an older DRS-4-4-1000 dating from 1949 in 2005 so this was my second ride on #301.

While normally the crew doesn't have any work to do on the day before thanksgiving, today we lucked out and not only did they have to do some spotting of cars at the various local industries, they even went up to the NS interchange to pick up/drop off cars from the Morrisville yard there.

After picking up some tank cars chuchu and I rode in the cab as they delivered the cars to some industry where we were educated in how strong the sloshing effect can be in half-filled talk cars.

Time was running short so we left SMS and got some breakfast at the Treetop Diner, before taking the Penna turnpike to the NS Abrams yard. From there we proceeded to the Wayne station to pick up a friend of mine and them we sent by the Stafford R5 station for some pics of the station and of a SEPTA train that went by.

You can find the whole batch of photos at: http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/06-11-23_THANKSGIVING_2006/-Thumbnails.html

As always a brief photo tour.

Here is SMS S-12 #301 at a crossing.

NS GP38-2 #5280 passing the SMS interchange.

NJT hi-railers stringing overhead wire on a new segment of Morrisville NJT Yard.

NS C40-9W #9029 running elephant style delivering the cars for SMS interchange.

03-11-08 PHOTOS: Baltimore Belt Line and SMS

In my first semester of grad school I was largely confined to the Balt-Wash metro area, however the week of Thanksgiving still provided for a chance to go on some weekday railfan adventures with my (then) new buddy, Chuchubob. This set of photos contains both my continued coverage of Baltimore Penn Station and the Baltimore Belt Line as well as my Thanksgiving week visit to SMS's operations at the Penn Warner industrial park in Morrisville, PA. The full set of photos can be found here ( mirror ).

We begin with CSX AC4400 #5117 exiting the St. Paul tunnel on the westbound downgrade towards Mt. Royal Station and Camden Yards. The fall foliage provided by the curbside maple trees was regrettably lost in 2014 when the retaining wall collapsed after a 3 day rain storm.

It was about this time that I discovered a technique to take timed exposure of night Belt Line movements as they emerged from and/or approached the two tunnels adjacent to the open cut between St. Paul and Charles Streets. Although this technique revived my interest in Belt Line photos again. my enthusiasm for monitoring to my scanner and booking it down the back alley to get a photo eventually waned again. Note the westbound CPL dwarf signal for HUNTINGDON AVE interlocking mounted to the side of the tunnel.

At Baltimore Penn Station I caught MARC GP39H-2 #72 hanging out on track #4. The MARC GP39 fleet would survive the coming of the MP36PH-3C fleet that replaced the GP40WH-2's that were actually several years newer (although based on older donor equipment).

Also at Penn Station a fairly new Acela Express trainset with power cars #2003 and #2015 heading northbound on Track #6.

It's hard to overstate just how much the white LED revolution improved night photography. Here Amtrak SW1500 #541 couples to the rear of a Regional trainset in order to tow it back to the yard.

SMS Lines is a Class 3 terminal railroad that operates divisions in South Jersey, Morrisville, PA and Albany, NY. SMS is best known for its daily revenue use of Baldwin diesel locomotives and although most of these are located near their South Jersey shoppes, a single unit is typically detailed to switch the Penn-Warner industrial park in Morrisville, PA. In 2003 this unit was DS-4-4-1000 #302.

The Penn-Warner also used 2 cabeese, an ex-PRR N5C and an ex-PC N11, for office space and storage.

Thanks to Bob knowing the crew, we got to go around with them as they shifted a few pre-holiday carloads. #302 was outfitted for winter with plastic sheeting covering the radiator to help prevent the cooling water from freezing up. The prime mover was a Baldwin model 608NA 8-cylinder inline diesel developing 1000hp.