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

i dont much about the area u took pics of so a couple questions. is that where the line will end? any idea hoe they will load the hopper cars, loader, conveyer? and are there any more possible customers inbetween lakehurst and the mine pit? thanks to everyone for the info and pics!!!!

There are a few siding located around the main run, all of them are burried and over grown. There is no loading system, just a few run down wharehouses. The heat in the buildings is running, so i imagine people are still in and out of them. theres a Tri-State dumpster, and in it are chemicals of some sort. (been sitting for awhile)...theres a small little power station, and thats about it. that main run continues to run north thru and past Lakehurst. This specific site (Heritage Minerals) is located between Whitng and Lakehurst, there are no other mine site that i know off at the current time.

Between Lakehurst and Woodmansie, there are no other businesses to take rail except for the current Hanson (former Clayton)sand mine (open pit). Most of the whole area is undevelopable anyway due to the Pinelands Commission regulations that control the overall area. Unless someone actually has seen rails at the former Heritage Minerals facility, I do not believe they ever had any service. They had been closed for a long time now. The property was last bought by Hovanian (land developer) but in an agreement with the State regarding radioactive residues dating back to the mid-80's, Hovanians last plan, as of a few years ago, was to develop something like 600 acres as housing and the remaining few thousand acres are to remain undeveloped in perpetuity.

The only thing that looked like a siding was the passing siding thru downtown Lakehurst that stretches south of Union St over the creek. And as previously mentioned, there had been a Wye connection at one time that connected over to the (now) TRIT whose leg started just north of said creek so traffic from down south could get over to the CNJ Barnegat branch and vice versa.

Our forum member, Steam man, posted a while back that there weren't any sidings off the Southern, south of Lakehurst, until Chatsworth (other than Woodmansie).
See http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=32127 which includes the link of track charts for the CNJ (dated 1963).

Heading south from Lakehurst, you run into sand about 2 feet deep. There is a switch trailing point that turns east into a building complex that had tracks into a siding there. ( I assume they are still there)+39° 59' 11.41", -74° 20' 41.24"

It was used at some point for equipment servicing as there are brake shoes etc, scattered about.
I will tell you you risk a fine if you are caught in there.
As for Heritage Minerals, they park one or two payloaders at the entrance, and use them to load sand trucks from time to time. This has been going on for years. These buildings in back were adorned with Radioactive stickers for years, and some sort of abatement plant was built there. Then one day all the stickers were gone. There was also another switch closer to Lakehurst, +39° 59' 57.07", -74° 19' 27.99"
but some one removed it years ago. I do not recall where that turnout went. Also the diamond that was stored in Whiting is now gone. It was used for the CNJ/PRR crossing at Whiting. It was stored off to the south of it's original location.
In Lakehurst Shared Assets tore out the track leading to the southern division, and the town? has made a makeshift parking lot in its place.
The area that Heritage removes sand from is like the Shara desert.
Again you risk a fine or some J time if you get caught in there.
On a side note, they only cleared the main down at the pit in Woodmassie, strange they did not clear the balloon track.

Al

Trackcar2365 wrote:......In Lakehurst Shared Assets tore out the track leading to the southern division, and the town? has made a makeshift parking lot in its place......
On a side note, they only cleared the main down at the pit in Woodmassie, strange they did not clear the balloon track.

Al

Only one track was removed by Conrail. There is still a physical connection to the Southern Div sans the one peice of rail that was removed south of the bridge.

There are various reports that the "balloon" or "Loop track" has been pulled up years ago. I cannot confirm or deny these rumors. It may be possible to load the train on the main with a simple run-around built at Woodmancie, there is enough land to do so.

On a side note the RBMN also has huge plans for the former LV Coxton yard and their newest line the Towanda Monroeton Shippers Lifeline as a sand unloading site for the Natural Gas drilling in Eastern PA.

wolfboy8171981 wrote:
On a side note the RBMN also has huge plans for the former LV Coxton yard and their newest line the Towanda Monroeton Shippers Lifeline as a sand unloading site for the Natural Gas drilling in Eastern PA.

I'm assuming your trying to give us hints by tying in this operation to the huge plans of RBMN?? Why else would it be posted??

Many moons ago when I visited Woodmansie's pit for business, I asked about the former rail operations and the gentleman I was working with that day told me that they used to have a track that went around the pit and the loaders would load the trains at night. When he pointed out where the tracks had been, I believe he meant to indicate that the tracks used to be there but they had since mined out the area where the tracks had been. I'm not 100% on that, but I think that's what he meant.

-After going to google maps-

Looking at the satellite imagery, though, it looks like the siding ROW is in place, if not the rails themselves.

If I get a chance to get down that way, I'll see if the folks are still friendly and ask a few questions.

blockline4180 wrote:

wolfboy8171981 wrote:
On a side note the RBMN also has huge plans for the former LV Coxton yard and their newest line the Towanda Monroeton Shippers Lifeline as a sand unloading site for the Natural Gas drilling in Eastern PA.

I'm assuming your trying to give us hints by tying in this operation to the huge plans of RBMN?? Why else would it be posted??

Wolf is a master at dropping hints; in the past, I've gotten good info from posts of his, but only after reading between the lines 4 or 5 times.....

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 30&t=67447
Scroll down.....

looks that info answered it all. i couldnt see all this work being done for nothing. just curius how often we'll see a train

NJtwoM wrote:

blockline4180 wrote:

wolfboy8171981 wrote:
On a side note the RBMN also has huge plans for the former LV Coxton yard and their newest line the Towanda Monroeton Shippers Lifeline as a sand unloading site for the Natural Gas drilling in Eastern PA.

I'm assuming your trying to give us hints by tying in this operation to the huge plans of RBMN?? Why else would it be posted??

Wolf is a master at dropping hints; in the past, I've gotten good info from posts of his, but only after reading between the lines 4 or 5 times.....

I do not have a inside source on this matter, the following is my profesional opinion:
Sometimes you have to keep your eyes open and listen to things going on ouside your neck of the woods. If you take everything just on face value, you have a sand pit that hasn't shipped by rail in over 20 years. You also have a huge new business about 150 - 200 miles away by rail that needs sand. Your not going to get much additional sand from say the W&W as most of that sand is actually in captive service since Unimin owns the Sand pit, the railroad and the destination as well. To my knowledge there isnt sand pit as close to Eastern PA that would be able to handle the extra traffic as Woodmancie. You also have two railroads bending over backwards to get places ready to handle this traffic ( DL and RBMN). If the traffic is big enough, its perfect for a short haul unit train from North Jersey to Reading/Allentown becasue it would only need one crew to get it there.

Some people also think its going to go for the tunnel project. While that could happen as well, i dont think the haul is long enough to be profitable for all involved. Such a move would be captive to Conrail Shared Assets, since the split there really hasnt been such a short haul on SAA. That said, you would still have to go thru either CSX or NS to get Conrail to move the cars since Conrail can not make rates and so forth.

Interesting.......many thanks for your insight, Wolf, whether it be opinion or something signed 'on the bottom line'.

Question for all...I know sand production needs several environmental factors to all work together to bring about the final product; is there any other region in the northeast that produces quality sand like south Jersey?

According to people who know about such things, NJ sand is far better than other sand deposits. Whether for glass or concrete/asphalt/masonry use, our sand is supposed to be the best. The pine forests seem to be an important part of it as well.

What would be really great would be with sand trains running, Anchor Glass might consider re-opening the Aberdeen plant......

It looks still totally intact, albeit not used for almost 15 years (wow, its been that long?) and if it wasn't scrapped a few years ago when scrap metal prices went through the roof, maybe there is still a little hope????

Anchor Glass was a major supplier of new beer bottles. I hauled a few loads of new empty Budweiser bottles up to Merrimac NH to the big Anheuser Busch plant there. Take the factory tour while waiting to be unloaded, sample up to 3 glasses of what was being made that day, take the tour again, 3 samples again...

*hic*