Tom’s Raritan River
Railroad Page
www.RaritanRiver-RR.com
Forgotten History
of the
The
US Plywood in
Owens
Wrights at the end of
the
Green Bay cars in East
Brunswick
The mystery started with an email
from Andy in
Tom,
I am researching the Ahnapee & Western Railway, a 34-mile shortline in
The station shown on the waybills is
"Wrights, NJ" and the shipper is U.S. Plywood Corp. Weldrok Division. The cargo is "calcium of silicate
& asbestos combined in flat pcs." These
shipments were asbestos insulation from Owens-Illinois (later USP Weldrok) to Algoma for use in fire proof doors, being built
there.
I found your website, while looking
for the location of this O-I or USP plant, and I'm hoping that you can shed
some light on which plant these shipments were coming from (for my own modeling
curiosity).
I have some USP records that refer
to the plant being in
Were there two Owens-Illinois/Weldrok plants in the area? I tend to believe the RRR
waybills about Wrights, but the 1947 RRR map shows the plant in Runyon... Any
help would be appreciated. Also, I can share a scan of these RRR waybills if
you are interested!
Andy Laurent
My Reply to Andy:
Hi Andy,
I have posted your question to my
group, but it is summer, and the news group is very slow this time of the
year. I hope to have something to get
back to you with in another week or so.
But I do have a surprise for you!
I am sorting through my collection
of slides to put a page together on the Wrecks, Fires, and Wash-Outs of the
In June of 1969 the
Here is a great photo with a
Here is another of the fire from the
(If they are to large I can scale
them down for you)
Enjoy!
I included the following photos:
Raritan River Railroad customer US Plywood in
View from the Route 18 Bridge looking west.
Hidden in all that
smoke on the right is the siding on the left side of the fence, and on that
smoky siding was a poor boxcar from
Mark, who used the
burned out boxcar pic on his
I see the car is
lettered “WHEN EMPTY RETURN TO P.C.R.R. GAYLORD MICH.” – note that the
__________
Whitefish Bay
The
Andy also sent me the
waybill he was referring to in his original email:
Waybill from the Ahnapee
& Western Railway which sent freight to the
So now the mystery is
why is the waybill for Wrights?
Wrights was at the end
of the
Wrights was never an
agency, station, stop, or a place to ship freight was it?
Owens-
US Plywood was built
in
Wrights does not even
show up, yet it was at the end of the South River Branch, right?
Copy of the official Raritan River Railroad Board of
Directors Meeting Minutes from 1961
From the Bob Kipp
Collection
The questions never
got answered for Andy in 2007, but in 2008 this showed up on Ebay:
We don’t know the
exact location of this place.
The only context clues
we have is the great “
Could this be the
other end of the line in
With a little bit of
help, I’m sure someone in the mid-west can help us identify that building in
the back!
Questions?
Comments?
Here is an entire forum dedicated to
discussions of the
www.railroad-line.com/forum/forum.asp?forum_id=2
References:
Annual Report of the State Board
of Assessors of the State of
Annual Report of the State Board
of Assessors of the State of
Annual Report of the State Board
of Assessors of the State of
Official Maps of the