New Jersey Seashore Lines: was CNJ being cleard Woodmansie>N

scottso699 wrote:Here is a question that no one has brought up yet and I was wondering - where are the sand hoppers going to come from? Would they lease them from somewhere? Buy new ones? I know that CMSL and this new NJSL doesn't have 30-40 or more hoppers to make this happen? Any thoughts? I don't know how things like this work so I thought maybe someone on here would know.

I'd figure they'd just lease them (there must be some suitable hopper-cars in the tens of thousands of railcars stored), possibly with an option to buy (or not, if the maintainence is thrown into the lease and is cheaper than maintaining them on their own).

scottso699 wrote:Here is a question that no one has brought up yet and I was wondering - where are the sand hoppers going to come from? Would they lease them from somewhere? Buy new ones? I know that CMSL and this new NJSL doesn't have 30-40 or more hoppers to make this happen? Any thoughts? I don't know how things like this work so I thought maybe someone on here would know.

Scott

Until the destination of said sand is known, there is many possible options.

something i had wondered when this work started again was is it possible that this new company could be a NJT shell company? Getting things approved faster to start getting ready for the big dig in North Bergen?

Ok, really now, what makes anyone think they need sand to build a tunnel? The tunnel, from all the reports, will be dug with a tunnel boring machine, which uses pre-cast concrete sections. Because they are pre-cast, those sections could be built anywhere in the world and delivered to New Jersey. It really makes no sense to ship sand such a short distance by rail.

Sirsonic wrote:Ok, really now, what makes anyone think they need sand to build a tunnel? The tunnel, from all the reports, will be dug with a tunnel boring machine, which uses pre-cast concrete sections. Because they are pre-cast, those sections could be built anywhere in the world and delivered to New Jersey. It really makes no sense to ship sand such a short distance by rail.

Only reason I asked is cause every one of those colosal construction, mega builders, etc shows that has to do with building a major tunnel, all the pre-cast sections have been built on site in a make shift plant. So if that was the case they would need the sand.

When undertaking any large scale civil works, it makes (monetary)sense setting up local concrete and asphalt plants (granted, there will probably be a lot less asphalt laid than concrete) close to your job site. You can prefab concrete panels anywhere, but then you have to ship them. Shipping the bulk materials is far cheaper than shipping the finished product (and you don't worry so much about damage during transit). Even when using prefab panels, you still need sand for backfill materials and there will still be lots of cast in place concrete support structures. And in any construction, transport of materials makes up a fairly large chunk of your budget. Local suppliers are frequently preferred due to lower cost to ship the product as well as if any off-site inspection of materials needs to be done, it cuts down on your transportation cost to their facility and time away from your office/site.

And I'd imagine they'd need some sand to fill for the extra tracks to Secaucus Transfer that are part of the project.

Story on Railwayage.com (they also have an excellent industry magazine)concerning the NJSL.

http://www.railwayage.com/breaking-news ... ersey.html

The story reads:

A new short line railroad operator, the New Jersey Seashore Lines, began existence this week as rail right-of-way once owned by the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) was cleared of underbrush in preparation for upgrading.
The 13 miles of right-of-way, owned by the Clayton Cos. Inc., will be rehabilitated to allow access to the company’s sand mine in Woodmansie, located in the state’s Pine Barrens region. Clayton Sand has contracted with New Jersey Seashore Lines to operate service on the route between Woodmansie and Lakehurst, where ex-CNJ right-of-way is owned by New Jersey Transit Corp.

All grade crossings along the stretch will be upgraded, with funding provided by the state’s Department of Transportation, one source told Railway Age.

The development follows a decision by the Surface Transportation Board Sept. 25 which, in part, noted, “Anthony Macrie (Macrie), a noncarrier individual, filed a verified notice of exemption pursuant to 49 CFR1180.2(d)(2) to continue in control of Cape May Seashore Lines, Inc. (CMSL), an existing Class III carrier, and its corporate affiliate New Jersey Seashore Lines, Inc. (NJSL), upon the latter becoming a common carrier.”

“NJSL concurrently filed a verified notice of exemption ... to operate line of rail ... owned by a shipper, Clayton Companies, Inc. (Clayton), but Clayton is not an applicant here,” the decision read. “According to the parties’ filings, after Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) abandoned the line, Clayton acquired it from Conrail in 1985 for use as a private industry track. Clayton has now engaged NJSL to operate the line for 10 years ... NJSL states that it will hold itself out to provide common carrier rail freight service over the line during the 10-year period.”

Im not a civil engineer, but it would seem to me that sand would make a very poor fill material. This, coupled with the ready availability of fill dirt already, would seem to make purchasing sand that has other uses, and therefore a greater value, a very poor decision cost wise.

Even if we assume that the pre-cast sections were to be built nearby, there is already a large concrete production facility in Harrison that seems to have no problem getting sufficient quantity of aggregates by truck. Again, moving sand by rail from Woodmansie to an as yet unknown, unbuilt facility somewhere in north jersey is a very very poor decision. It would take several days to get the sand from A to B while a truck could do the same in a few hours.

Seriously, Im not saying there isnt a demand somewhere for the sand, just its probably somewhere else. Wolfboy posted a link to an article that mentions a proposed rail to truck transfer facility that would receive pipe and sand. I think this might be the destination everyone is looking for.

I had read the same article in the Scranton Times and theorized the same destination somewhere up here.

I thought the Meadowlands Sports Complex was built upon sand from Woodmansie.

Steve F45 wrote:something i had wondered when this work started again was is it possible that this new company could be a NJT shell company? Getting things approved faster to start getting ready for the big dig in North Bergen?

Why would NJT need a shell company?

Drew

As stated previously, there has been only speculation that the destination would be for use in the construction of THE Tunnel. However it is an excellent example of a large civil works project that can use large quantities of sand. And the construction of the Meadowsland is what the last major haul of sand from Woodmansie was used for.

Sand is an excellent material for lining excavations and trenches because it readily distributes itself well without leaving voids and compacts easily and drains well. Rock is excellent for bulk fill but contains a lot of voids between the stones that could lead to shifting. Dirt is cheaper but a poor construction material because it is mostly made of organics. It takes more effort to compact as well as proper moisture monitoring/enhancement to use. And it continually settles as the organics continue to break down. So as a lining material, sand is the proper choice.

South Jersey provides the most easily accessible large sources of sand (not counting the area protected by the NJ Pine Barrens Commission) in the NYC area. Using the previous 40 car sand trains that ran on Conrail as an example, Sirsonic should be one of the first to be able to tell us how many truckloads that represents. Setting up a continual rotating convoy of that many dumptrucks and maneuvering them thru North Jersey is a very daunting excercise. Dump trucks are not as readily available as say box trailers. It would require the brokering of many, many independent owner/operators to obtain the needed quantity of trucks and the complexity of such an operation is not easy to maintain. And large scale construction projects require a steady stream of continuous supplies. It is understood that a single 35 ton tandem dump could reach NYC far faster than the railroad could get a sand car there, but once you overcome the time lag, you can establish a steady, reliable flow. The railroad really excels at moving large bulk materials over trucking.

I used to manage a rail to truck transfer facility roughly 4 tractor trailer loads to 1 railcar. NJ has some funny laws that allow ten and 14 wheel dump trucks to Gross 70,000# BUT usually it is a short haul restriction for the ten wheelers. So 4 dump trailers or 6 fourteen wheel tri axle dump trucks to one RR car load of sand.

When I arranged for sand hauling for Sakrete the tri-axles were allowed 80,000 GVWR as long as they stayed in New Jersey. if they left the state they had to drop to 72,600 GVWR. So a full tri-axle in state represents about 25 tons of sand which, as someone said, would be about 4 railcars.

I just found this article - don't think it's been posted here.


http://www.railwayage.com/breaking-news ... ersey.html

New short line starts up in New Jersey

A new short line railroad operator, the New Jersey Seashore Lines, began existence this week as rail right-of-way once owned by the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) was cleared of underbrush in preparation for upgrading.

The 13 miles of right-of-way, owned by the Clayton Cos. Inc., will be rehabilitated to allow access to the company’s sand mine in Woodmansie, located in the state’s Pine Barrens region. Clayton Sand has contracted with New Jersey Seashore Lines to operate service on the route between Woodmansie and Lakehurst, where ex-CNJ right-of-way is owned by New Jersey Transit Corp.

All grade crossings along the stretch will be upgraded, with funding provided by the state’s Department of Transportation, one source told Railway Age.

The development follows a decision by the Surface Transportation Board Sept. 25 which, in part, noted, “Anthony Macrie (Macrie), a noncarrier individual, filed a verified notice of exemption pursuant to 49 CFR1180.2(d)(2) to continue in control of Cape May Seashore Lines, Inc. (CMSL), an existing Class III carrier, and its corporate affiliate New Jersey Seashore Lines, Inc. (NJSL), upon the latter becoming a common carrier.”

“NJSL concurrently filed a verified notice of exemption ... to operate line of rail ... owned by a shipper, Clayton Companies, Inc. (Clayton), but Clayton is not an applicant here,” the decision read. “According to the parties’ filings, after Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) abandoned the line, Clayton acquired it from Conrail in 1985 for use as a private industry track. Clayton has now engaged NJSL to operate the line for 10 years ... NJSL states that it will hold itself out to provide common carrier rail freight service over the line during the 10-year period.”