Conrail MA-80 arrives in the yard at South Plainfield on a rainy Saturday morning. This job typically runs on Saturdays to serve Marino\WARE, a steel fabricator. The pair of NS GP38-2s are in the process of running around a cut of coil steel loads. The crew will spend a few hours shifting loaded and empty cars in and out of the facility. Unlikely as it seems now, this was once the main line of the Lehigh Valley Railroad between Easton, PA and Perth Amboy, NJ, where freight yards and large coal terminal were established at the waterfront. By the late 1880s, the LV had developed a new main line to Jersey City (much closer to the lucrative New York City market), with this line then becoming the Perth Amboy Branch. During Conrail's ownership online customers dwindled and the center portion of the branch was abandoned, leaving only the two extreme ends in service. The abandoned segment of this line has since been converted into a walking trail known as the Middlesex Greenway.
