Winchester & Western: Sand Trains of Southern New Jersey

The Winchester & Western Railroad, which began operations in 1941, is a short line railroad which operates from Gore, VA, through Winchester, VA, Martinsburg, West Virginia and into Hagerstown, Maryland, as well as through Southern NJ, with operations based out of Bridgeton, NJ as well as Millville, NJ and in between. While the W&W hauls many different commodities and mixed frieght, their number one is sand, and their operations are based around two major facilities owned by their parent company, Unimin.

The NJ Division is headquartered out of Bridgeton, NJ, where two trains can be seen during the week, the empty/loaded sand run to Unimin in rural Diving Creek, NJ and US Silica in Newport, via the Cumberland & Maurice River Branch with work at Ardaugh Glass, as well as the Bridgeton - Millville transfer for interchange with Conrail and the W&W opps in Millville. The sand is not only sent out of New Jersey, but is distributed to various glass industries in South Jersey. The W&W has a rather interesting roster of locomotives, mostly made up of Chopped nose GP9s of several different lineages, along with a recently sold GP10, high hood GP9, and their one six axle, an SD9M.

I visited the W&W on a cold January 10, 2018, and started my day at Bridgeton, where the CM-10 crew (CM for Cumberland & Maurice River Branch, 10 for the date) had put together a consist of empty W&W Sand Hoppers to take down the branch with a trio of GP9s, 520, 445 and 517, the 520 sporting a killer RS5T horn, being a former N&W unit. The train passes through Bridgeton, passing a very old signal at Bridgeton, before rolling through rural Fairton and Cedarville before arriving at Newport, passing the old silos of the still active US Silica before making their way into Unimin. After their work, CM-10 returned with 517 leading, slowing down to make a pick-up at Silica, during which I decided to get ahead of them, witnessing them at Ackley Road in Newport before I continued along my way...

January 31, 2018, I returned to do the chase with a friend, W&W 520 and 445 were the power once-more, with an even bigger train this time around. I attempted some different locations this time around.

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