Where does this train go. It goes from florida to where…New York?
I believe it goes to some place in New Jersey.
Just went out of the forum to investigate further. It head to Greenville New Jersey. K650, 651, 653, 654 are destined or departing Greenville. The contents come from Tropicana in Florida; Tampa I believe.
I have found 4 different destinations on three different sites.
CSX lists several train numbers K654, K658, K650, K651 and Q409 (there may be others, these are all I found in a quick search)
“Two CSX Tropicana Orange Juice trains originate in Bradenton, south of St. Petersburg, as needed to deliver Florida’s Liquid Sunshine. Train K-652 goes to Cincinatti, OH while train K-650 goes to Bayview, MD.”
“K650 and its return empty train K651 are scheduled to run between Eastside in Philadelphia and North Jersey”
“The Florida to New York trains are the stuff of rail legend, commemorated in the bluegrass song, “Orange Blossom Special” about “the fastest train on the line.””
"The train, which was about 60 cars long, is owned by Tropicana and was hauling refrigerated cars full of concentrated orange juice headed to New England, said Gary Bennett of CSX railroads. " This is from an article about a dump truck running into the side of the train in Florida. It hit the 8th and 9th cars in the train. The dump truck driver (I checked, it didn’t say dumb) said he didn’t see it. Hit it at 1 pm at 40mph. Ran the crossing gates and everything.
“Virtually all the Tropicana orange juice sold in the northeastern United States flows under Baltimore in huge orange refrigerator cars that make up what railroaders call the “juice train.” It stretches almost a mile long and carries citrus juice to a New Jersey distribution plant.”
Some other items from the various sites.
Each rail car can carry four truckloads’ worth of product. They change crews but make no stops
Today’s railroaders call the shipments “the Juice Train” – an express shipment with refrigerator cars packed with 64-ounce containers of Tropicana juice. Tropicana calls it “The Great White Train”.
It is the only dedicated company food unit train.
The Juice Train runs five days a week on CSX’s main line (I can attest to that as
Really; I though some of those trains just did the Greenville run. I went on the CSX Bullsheet website for my information. Is that information out of date?
Kerney, New Jersey, is a juice meca, as the juice has a distribution center there. Minute Maid, also has a dist. center, however their traffic is split between rail, and truck. Common carrier, has replaced the billboard trailers, and so all you recognize is the juice. I’m a Minute Maid family child, Coca-Cola Foods Division heritage, however if you buy citrus, products, just make sure it’s 100% citrus juice. ACJ.
One of the trains operated on the PRR/PC also. It would go through Phillie. Back in college our fantasy was it colliding with a trainload of vodka.
A friend had a friend who was a CR engineer. He was on a clocker and on the next track a G was nosing past his engine. He same one G go by and then another passed, he thought it might be a “Florida” train, then Tropicana reefers started going by. It was the juice train passing a clocker at speed! The Tropicana train’s engineer got some time off for that run.
Dave H.
The March 2000 issue of Trains had an article about it.
Yes, it comes to NJ.
This train was very HOT in the Conrail days CSOJ OJCS was recrewed at Cp Belmont.
I was a van driver in the late 90s and that train was not to sit for more then 15 mins . Today its not so hot for i am driving with CSX crews.
I got the “juice train” video. they say it leaves Bradenton Fla. every morning heading to Kearny NJ. It has priority going up the east coast. The video al says the first crew change happens in Jax.As i was watching it it seemed like the hardest part of the trip was getting out of Fla. because the speed limits are so low.I was talking to a CSX track crew one day here in SC. and he said it passes here in Charleston everyday around 1pm.
It may not be hot from the Taxi perspective…nothing is.
It is still HOT from the Dispatcher’s perspective…the only thing hotter is Amtrak…that being said it has become tougher to find hiding spots for all the traffic that is not that Hot to have a route for the trains that carry heat.
It was a real interesting train to see on the Lehigh Line in Conrail days. It didn’t come everyday, though, but it was definitely a priority train. Haven’t caught it in years.
It is a good article and worth reading.
I happened to notice a bunch of Tropicana reefers and some that had been leased by Tropicana (they were white and I can’t remeber who owned them) head past Dobbins AFB in Atlanta, GA a while back. I belive that these were apart of the shipments to the OH location. I was really suprised to see them as I didn’t know about their newer facility in the midwest. There were some blocks of them headed north as well as some random ones tacked on to southbound trains. I’ll have to scan up the pictures sometime.
Edit: Not really sure if this counts however, as it isn’t a strictly “Juice Train” headed north, but rather a juice section or half.
Greenville is a yard, not a town per se, IIRC. It’s also only honorarily in “North Jersey”; Kearny is roughly at the west end of the Pulaski Skyway, right around Exit 15 of the New Jersey Turnpike (for those who know where they are when they know that). If you were on either road at the ‘right’ time, you might see the train of orange boxcars.
I miss operations under wire in this area!
Some Tropicana cars are coming into California.I have seen blocks of between 4 and 8 cars.These are always right behind the units.
Great! Check out for me, I think some of the cars are just insulated boxcars. Check to see if they have refrigeration units on them. Some of the model builders are using non-powered units. Go! ACJ.
According to the Trains article Tropicana closed the South Kearney distribution center and opened on in the Greenville section of Jersey City in 1991.
Appearently the TPIX 200 and 400 series cars have mechanical refrigeration units, while the TPIX 2000 series and CSXT cars are just insulated (RBL). There may be more car series. Look at TPIX 247 (second car on train) on page 37of the article. It appears that its refrigeration unit is mounted below the car, just to the left of the lead truck. I am guessing the box below the door is the fuel tank. These must be 100 ton cars. Does it appear to anyone else that the first two cars were built by Pacific Car and Foundry (PCF) and third one by Fruit Growers Express (FGE)?
I am not home right now or I would look, but there was also a section in the front of a more recent Trains that mentioned the white leased reefers. I don’t remember who manufuactures them, but they were actual reefers and also had platforms on the end of the boxcar sections.
I can’t even check the pictures or the equiment registery to tell if the orange ones were just insulated or actual reefers. Oh well, I’ll get back to you all.
Well…and…so. I gleefully read the article, was a minute or two ago, however I’ll agree about Kerney. Suffice to say, a lot of citrus juice product wound up in the Kern. This was a major dist. point for the North East region, and Bing Crosby made a lot of minutes telling about it. Remember, citrus products provide a lot of vitamin C, (ascorbic acid), essential to the human diet. Otherwise, we would have to intake a lot of persnickety persimmon. Just a tip! Got a kidney infection? (Painfull urination). Drink 100% pure grapefruit juice. No bacteria known to mankind, can survive a ascorbic acid bath! ACJ.