Garden State Model Railway Club, Inc. - Virtual Layout Tour

Virtual Layout Tour

Albatross Yard

Albatross Yard is always busy as you can see in this photo. West Albatross is home to Blatz Brewery and Hoffa Cement (see photo below). Note the new benchwork for the Albatross Extension! We will have two additional yard tracks there soon.

A NYS&W General Electric diesel pulls a cut of cars east through albatross yard, past the switching leads to the Blatz Beer Brewery. The older lead has been mostly removed and replaced with the new alignment in the foreground during the Albatross Expansion project, leaving only ties in the grass.

Albatross Yard is the largest switching yard on the Garden State Northern. It is currently 7 tracks wide, with each track being about 20 feet long. In 1999, the Albatross Yard Extension was proposed and aproved. By the 2000 show, the fascia and other necessary benchwork were completed; we hope to have the new tracks in stalled by the 2001 Open House. This project, when completed, will add at least two significantly longer stub-end tracks to the yard, switchable from the east end, as that is where our switching leads are located. Underneath, three more tracks have been added to the hidden yard.

Albatross is the central operating hub of the GSN, and features its own locomotive and car maintainance facilities. The Diesel Facility was scratchbuilt by one of our members in 1997. It is an extremely detailed two track locomotive shop, with a third track that runs outside the building. At the east end of the facility [shown in the picture above] is an extensive fueling and sanding station, linked by pipes to a set of large Diesel Oil storage tanks and the Fuel Pumping station. These were also built entirely by hand.

The GSN also has a steam locomotive servicing facility at Albatross Yard. There is a large turntable and six-stall roundhouse. A water tower and two standpipes are located on the service tracks, and a coaling tower is under construction.

Albatross Yard is also home to an important customer on the Garden State Northern, the Blatz Brewery. Considered to be a seperate scene, Blatz will soon be inside Albatross yard with the completeion of the Albatross Extension Project. The two tracks serving the Brewery are completed and ballasted with yard cinders. The Brewery has an oil-fired furnace, so tank cars are always being delivered to the back. Reefer cars roll up and down the foreground track all day as they deliver ice to the ice house to keep the brew in the outbound cars cool, and to ship away the company's merchadise.

There is never a boring moment at the East throat of Albatross Yard. Here, the seven yard tracks join with those of the Diesel Facility, Steam Facility, and the CNJ Passenger Terminal just east of here. The intermodal facility is also served from the east end of the yard, as seen to the left in the background.

Not much has changed in January 2004 at the east end of Albatross. The intermodal facility has been replaced by the 10th Avenue Slaughterhouse! The Santa Fe GPs are about to be replaced by the BNSF Dash-9s in the foreground, which will take the stack train west.

Back to the Virtual Tour Main Page

Visit the Albatross Yard Locomotive & Car Maintainance Facilities

Eastbound to CNJ Passenger Terminal & PETE Tower

Westbound to Pete's Viaduct