Delaware and Raritan River Railroad-General Discussion

So if they are using their minimum of 800 ft/approach, that's 400 wood ties per approach, X 12 approaches (that's 5 roads crossed, plus 2 approaches for the wye at railroad ave), or 4800 wood ties. Don't know if they would need that many at railroad ave as track speed would be nowhere near 25mph, not even 10 mph. I'm guessing they would flag those approaches.

CharlieL wrote:If that track on the Amboy sec has been there a while, they at one time ran some seriously heavy stuff down there. Remember, it was electrified into the 50s, was a major harbor-to-Bordentown/Camden run through Hightstown, as well as connecting to the Northeast corridor near Monmouth Junction when NEC was PRR. I imagine a large amount of coal came down there.

I grew up just north of that Amboy Secondary and I remember some very long and heavy coal trains hauled by E44 heading to the coal loaders at South Amboy. We would go to church in Spotswood on the other side of the tracks and as a kid I always hoped our trip would be interrupted at the Summerhill grade crossing. And a few times it was!

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CharlieL wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 7:10 am If that track on the Amboy sec has been there a while, they at one time ran some seriously heavy stuff down there. Remember, it was electrified into the 50s, was a major harbor-to-Bordentown/Camden run through Hightstown, as well as connecting to the Northeast corridor near Monmouth Junction when NEC was PRR. I imagine a large amount of coal came down there.

I never knew it was electrified. Whatever electricity poles they have above the tracks, look like the same ones that are seen on the Southern until about Tinton Falls.

It also looks like it was double-tracked at some point too.

It's honestly a shame that the Bordentown-Hamilton section of the line is gone.

CharlieL wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 11:29 am So if they are using their minimum of 800 ft/approach, that's 400 wood ties per approach, X 12 approaches (that's 5 roads crossed, plus 2 approaches for the wye at railroad ave), or 4800 wood ties. Don't know if they would need that many at railroad ave as track speed would be nowhere near 25mph, not even 10 mph. I'm guessing they would flag those approaches.

It's very likely the trains will have to stop in Farmingdale to flip one of the switches, depending on where they are going, so it makes sense to have whoever flips the switch also do flagging too, instead of putting lights there. Saves some money

It was electrified until the early 80s. It was a back route for the PRR kind of. They ran coal trains to South Amboy on it too I think.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 3:49 pm It was electrified until the early 80s. It was a back route for the PRR kind of. They ran coal trains to South Amboy on it too I think.

That is when all the major railroads stopped doing electrified freight.

The Amboy Secondary was electrified from the thirties to the eighties in typical PRR catenary. Some time after abandonment they stripped down all the wire but the conditions with Conrail were that they HAD to leave up the support structure to the point that if they are taken down they must be put back up. There was a bridge replacement on the secondary over Ernston road when they made the underpass from two lanes to four and raised the grade for more clearance, during construction they took down two of the structures and set them aside. During the last phase they stood them back up and reset them even with their damaged string insulators dangling. The bridge has fake rivets applied to make it look like "the historic Ernston road railroad bridge" https://www.nj.com/news/2010/08/histori ... _pres.html I kid you not. Getting back to the Southern, I remember in the early sixties when the poles and cross heads went up for the high voltage transmission lines. I had thought back then that they were going to build catenary under it. But I guess it was an agreement the electrical utilities had with any railroad in the state that if they were going to use the ROW for electric transmission that they had to make the support structure compatible with catenary should it be electrified in the future. The structures down that section of the southern are similar to those that cross the meadowlands on the abandoned boonton line. Put up around the same sixties / seventies era.

JohnFromJersey wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 3:47 pm It's very likely the trains will have to stop in Farmingdale to flip one of the switches, depending on where they are going, so it makes sense to have whoever flips the switch also do flagging too, instead of putting lights there. Saves some money

Very likely, but I wouldn't say certain just yet. If they do a pull-pull operation, they could just opt to run through the wye in whatever direction and then switch locos if they don't like where they're facing. Alternatively, the D&RR could just have a standing procedure that certain switches are always to be left lined a specific way at the wye after the train rolls back on its return trip through F'dale towards Freehold.

Couldn't they use a spring switch as long as they are not facing the points? And just run through it. https://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/20459 ... nd%20track.

It is far more probable to have the two switches "normal" in the ETT for the future south leg of the wye to the southern direction on the SOUS. Online traffic is non-existent north of Farmingdale for those 12 miles. This is just as the same as the Conrail ETT normal switch position for the TRIT down in Lakehurst.

nomis wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2023 2:36 pm It is far more probable to have the two switches "normal" in the ETT for the future south leg of the wye to the southern direction on the SOUS. Online traffic is non-existent north of Farmingdale for those 12 miles. This is just as the same as the Conrail ETT normal switch position for the TRIT down in Lakehurst.

Laird's get cars a couple of times a month. ExTech seems to have been lost as a customer.

Allegedly, Brick Recycling on 33/34 could get service again since the rumor was they got service and stopped so fast due to NJT not wanting the scrap gondolas on the Coastline. And this project is getting all freight off the Coastline and making sure any future freight doesn't need to go on it, so...

It's a stretch, but maybe Red Bank Recycling in Red Bank could get cars too now. Another rumor was that they wanted service, but something to do with NJT restrictions and/or the local town council stopped that one.

@JohnFromJersey Pictures exist of the switches they were gonna put in at Red Bank for RBR sitting next to the Dr James Parker crossing.

NIMBYs fueled by NJTs BS put a stop to that.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2023 3:21 pm @JohnFromJersey Pictures exist of the switches they were gonna put in at Red Bank for RBR sitting next to the Dr James Parker crossing.

NIMBYs fueled by NJTs BS put a stop to that.

Sad!

Well, after the connection is done, which, at the rate they are working at, it should be done by summertime, NJT's bs is no longer really in the question.

As I have said before, there are two tracks that pass by Red Bank Recycling. Maybe they could skirt some of the NIMBYism and the town council if they were able to have cars parked on one of those tracks, and load them from there. Not sure the legality of that, but if DRRR and/or CR says its ok, I can't see how they could get in trouble for it.

It honestly perplexes me why they haven’t started repairing the stretch of trackage between Prestone and Okerson yet, and elected to instead skip to laying track east of Okerson. Makes very little sense to me. You’d think they’d want to have the option to bring MoW trains up directly once the Okerson crossing is in.

BattleshipNJ wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2023 5:26 pm It honestly perplexes me why they haven’t started repairing the stretch of trackage between Prestone and Okerson yet, and elected to instead skip to laying track east of Okerson. Makes very little sense to me. You’d think they’d want to have the option to bring MoW trains up directly once the Okerson crossing is in.

I'm pretty sure when you connect to an active line you need to have a safety observer or something like that, a severed rail keeps that from being an issue. And something about maintaining signals, of which there are none.
And if you connect to a active line its becomes active and the taxes go up than if OOS.

AWSmith wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 7:42 pm I had thought back then that they were going to build catenary under it. But I guess it was an agreement the electrical utilities had with any railroad in the state that if they were going to use the ROW for electric transmission that they had to make the support structure compatible with catenary should it be electrified in the future. The structures down that section of the southern are similar to those that cross the meadowlands on the abandoned boonton line. Put up around the same sixties / seventies era.

For sure the PSE&G transmission lines on the meadowlands Boonton line did not have a stipulation for future catenary use, nor I am reasonably certain did the similar transmission structures on the Southern in Monmouth County and elsewhere in NJ. These were standard electric utility H-frame design utilized where the railroad right of way was not sufficiently wide to be able to build the typical lattice type transmission towers with wide bases adjacent to the railroad trackage. The H frame design was used simply to allow for trains to operate through the structures. The modern steel monopole electric transmission line structure design used in recent decades avoids the need to utilize more costly H-frame types on similar narrow rights of way.