Gents. Thanks for the nice compliment to my construction update.
I wanted you all to see it as it "just" happened. Again though we all have to wonder since after the crossing was made safe for vehicles, Track Builders took their Johnny on the Spot and left....with the north and south approaches on the rail line hanging in midair! I assume they will be back.
On all the questions about when and if this ROW returns to active use, I have to believe thats a sure thing. Yeah its obviously taxpayer money being spent, and yeah once Clayton reminded the County that they paved over his railroad in 2010 now fix it and the elaborate signalization at Lacey and Wranglebrook, this is NOT as was said a TIGER Works Progress Adminstration Project.
You want to see that go to Fieldsboro by Bordentown, famous for their one man police force ticket blizter who preys on unsuspecting left turns off of Burlington Path. They now have a walkway, as elaborate as you could ever imagine so the folks there can walk to the River Line station in Bordentown two miles away!
I am all for Public Transit but that is ridiculous!
Now our project has a lot more players and lot more intrigue. Some of it just makes you scratch your head and you wonder if the project mochers don't get a little kick out of reading these posts, in the way of let see what the rubes make of this!
Yes if the grass gets any taller around Lakehurst you could make hay bales, and that once state of the art refuler on the siding make be rusting through but in the past six months or so every crossing from Lakehurst to the pit has been upgraded for the possibility of motive power using it. State of the art signalization installed where warranted and more as in the case of Diamond road as required.
This is make work...in the sense that Clayton and Macrie will make it work for whatever purely profit driven motives they have. Macrie though, because of his exisitng business I think has a bigger play in mind. Maybe Clayton has a piece of that too since its obvious they are positioning themselves for an upturn in the construction economy.
The thing of it is though, it secures the viability of a ROW that could have well ended up like the Tuckerton RR or the PRR Atlantic Division ROW. The Tuckerton and the CNJ Barnegat line were doomed from the start, service to nowhere. JCP &L and less so NJ Resources less so for their pipeline under the Barnegat Branch rail tral are the greatest protectors of former ROWS in the state.
Here there is product and connections both at the current "railhead" and points north. Let them ship all the aggregates they can, since active use will only spur renewed interest in south central jersey transit alternatives that a 24 lane Turnpike will never solve for NJ residents not transients.
