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

Meghan. Did you ever know a man to ask for directions? It was purely a "foamers dream" perhaps. I was thinking of the perfect world where TM unites his railroad empire, such as it is. Altho if my route planning is ditzy, ill have to sadly remind you that the Former CNJ Barnegat Branch is as far from its former life as are the second power plant at Oyster Creek which kept the ROW on the state plan as that for many years, and a certain Lacey Twp. Committeeman who has stymied the completion of the very lovely in parts Barnegat Branch rail trail for his post Hurricane Floyd claim that after the washout of the Rt.9 bridge there they needed a crosstown traffic alternative, and finally its use today about four or five feet below as a major N/S distribution pipeline for NJ Natural Gas. Dont want any 265,000 pounders rumbling over that. I was permitted to secure Leni Lanape artifacts during that particular excavation.

I think though you are probably right about how long the rail sections have been at the former 539 crossing. I really dont think there is any hope for any rail south of the Hanson Pit. I was just blowing off steam, to use an expression thinking of all the successful excursions there are everywhere else. The powers that be in Ocean County want nothing to do with rail transport only if they get a piece of the action. Public transportation commitments, which in a county nearing 500'000 amounts to a Dial-a-Ride are to be avoided at all costs since the legacy landowners wanted people coming in an out of here by cars. The lawyer who oversaw the abandonment proceedings before the ICC in the 40s of the Camden-Atlantic line was a young lawyer by the name of Joe Citta. If you know Ocean County he went on along with the Leones to become the largest holder of private lands here bar none.

Pastures of plenty indeed.

Hate to be the dangling post....So on a trip for a South Jersey rail trail tour...looking at the former Reading-Seashore through Mays Landing...I stopped in at Tuckahoe to ask Tony directly what's up. Just kidding don't know the man but support his belief in trains. Anyway notice that they redid the railroad crossing at what I will call the Pasadena X-crossing. Looks like it occurred to them to warn motorists a little sooner and they took down the at crossing bucks and went with a more sensible warning on the pavement for both North and South approaches since I took the pictures that appear further back in this post. Why do that if you don't want to warn people about a train?

Somebody is thinking or somebody said that is not Surface Transportation Board regulation. Anyway a mid winter sign of life.

So now the mountains of debris from Sandy definitely pose a threat to tourism dollars. Now watch in true Ocean County fashion how quickly a CSX trash train appears on the Southern Secondary picking up debris. You could not conduct an off load operation on the NJCL and would not have to. I say they will look at the Heritage Minerals site and just run the dumpsters up the road a little from Caldera's trash gold mine on 70.

Now Mr. Macrie and Clayton will have to "get in line" with their sand train out of Hanson's.

As Louie Armstrong says: "what a wonderful world..."

Taken at Tuckahoe this weekend. Yeah rust never sleeps Neil.

Ah, I see. I would have shown you, but I made a wrong turn off Rt. 50. and got back after dark. I will take another shot of what I saw weather permitting. Yeah the ones I shot in the fall are gone. Again i don't want to say this is mysterious, but if you are familiar, and it seems your are with what it takes to get a traffic signal, than the appearance of the signals at Wranglebrook Rd. the signal blocks at Rt. 530 and the appearance and then disappearance of the crossbucks and their replacement with what I would term a state of the art application of reflective paint on Savoy Blvd. or is it Pasadena Rd. there? For the North and South approaches to the crossing, which as you know is on a totally blind curve if you are traveling north, just a couple yards from the sad roadside memorial to Biker Bill who obviously missed it, all of this putting up, taking down and putting it right is wonderful to see as an indicative of the line's reactivation but a little like I said mysterious, since I usually see houses built from the bottom up, not top down. But from an industry who would dismantle the first US rail link from Bordentown to South Amboy to save taxes, that's not unusual I guess.

Yeah, and it once was the DeVico in circassian walnut with gold inlay. Too bad.

I dont get it, replacing rr corssings, siglnals, ties, etc is costly and time comsuming. Why would Hanson, NJT, NJSL, whoever go through the eoffort of replacing long since closed crossings just for the sake of doing it if trains aren't going to run? Who is profiting from it?

Sad to see a Blue Comet treasure deteriorating. Does anyone know if the owners have any plans for eventual restoration? There might be a point of no return for this car in terms of damage, at a minimum, it will require more work if it is restored. Is this car the former NJDOT obs that was in regular service in the '70s, and on the "Blue Comet Special" steam excursion in December of 1975?

The other obs, the Temple used to be the Bay Head yard office, does anyone know what the status of this observation car is? It was retrucked and taken from Bay Head many years ago.

Given all the private car owners in the country, one would think that former Blue Comet observation cars would be desirable for restoration and part of an operational scheme somewhere..friction bearings would have to go for excursion mainline use but a fully restored Blue Comet obs would appear to be something many railfans would appreciate.

Imagine this car restored at the end of an excursion on the NJCL or Southern Secondary...dreams, but cool to ponder.

CNWMAN wrote:Sad to see a Blue Comet treasure deteriorating. Does anyone know if the owners have any plans for eventual restoration? There might be a point of no return for this car in terms of damage, at a minimum, it will require more work if it is restored. Is this car the former NJDOT obs that was in regular service in the '70s, and on the "Blue Comet Special" steam excursion in December of 1975?

The other obs, the Temple used to be the Bay Head yard office, does anyone know what the status of this observation car is? It was retrucked and taken from Bay Head many years ago.

Given all the private car owners in the country, one would think that former Blue Comet observation cars would be desirable for restoration and part of an operational scheme somewhere..friction bearings would have to go for excursion mainline use but a fully restored Blue Comet obs would appear to be something many railfans would appreciate.

Imagine this car restored at the end of an excursion on the NJCL or Southern Secondary...dreams, but cool to ponder.

Actually, the car at Tuckahoe IS the Tempel, former CNJ #1169.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rspict ... ?id=328828

1178 was the obs used on the Mainline Steam Foundation trip in Dec.,'75. I'm not sure but the name may have been DeVico in ages past. NJT retrucked the car with inside bearing Vomet trucks, and used it as an inspection car and for PV purposes. I don't know if it is still around, but maybe URHS has it in their collection.

EDM5970 wrote:1178 was the obs used on the Mainline Steam Foundation trip in Dec.,'75. I'm not sure but the name may have been DeVico in ages past. NJT retrucked the car with inside bearing Vomet trucks, and used it as an inspection car and for PV purposes. I don't know if it is still around, but maybe URHS has it in their collection.

CNJ 1178
Builder: Bethlehem Steel Company
Type: Observation
Built: 1925
Original Owner: Central Railroad of New Jersey
Storage Location: Boonton, NJ
History: This car was rebuilt by the CNJ for service on the Blue Comet passenger trains which operated from 1929 through most of 1941. The Blue Comet was a deluxe blue and cream all coach train that ran from Jersey City to Atlantic City. The 1178 was originally named the DiVico after one of the astrological comets. It was one of three identical observation cars rebuilt for Blue Comet service. After the train's discontinuance, the coaches were repainted green and used in commuter service. The 1178 was renamed the Monmouth II in 1968 and was the last open platform car in regular service in the United States. In 1982, it was converted to an inspection car (NJT 1) by NJ Transit and was removed from service in 1993 as the result of an accident. It was donated to URHS for the NJ Transportation Museum collection in 2003. It will be restored either as the "Monmouth II" or as the "DiVico" when funds become available. http://www.urhs.org/roster.html#cnj1178

You can enjoy a fine meal in the third of the Blue Comet Obs cars, the Biela, which is part of the Clinton Station Diner dirctly at Exit 13 of I-78. See: http://www.clintonstationdiner.com/ and http://www.clintonstationdiner.com/biela.htm

The car in boonton never had Comet trucks. It has heavyweight 2 axle road trucks that many heavyweight cars of the period get when upgraded for todays service with amtrak roller bearings. The only thing in it from a comet car is the ceiling which is a full lighting and HVAC package from a Comet I or II. I forget which car exactly it came from but it was one of the wrecked cars.

Thanks to all for the provenance and photos. I want to get the Savoy Rd. X crossing photos but it looks like a deluge for Saturday.
Some delightful whistle stops on the board, but c'mon Tony turn some dirt at 539 I'm beginning to feel like we running out of things to foam on about.

I think you foamers in central Jersey ran out of ideas about 6-1/2 years ago. Your pipe dreams made for some wild ideas thats
for sure. Cape May Seashore can't get it together, what makes anyone think that Claytons sand pit would be any different?
Those grade crossing improvements were probably part of Obamas 2010 "make work" projects that would put people back to work
for a period of time (Just like Alaska's Bridge to no-where!)

ladder2 wrote:I think you foamers in central Jersey ran out of ideas about 6-1/2 years ago. Your pipe dreams made for some wild ideas thats
for sure. Cape May Seashore can't get it together, what makes anyone think that Claytons sand pit would be any different?
Those grade crossing improvements were probably part of Obamas 2010 "make work" projects that would put people back to work
for a period of time (Just like Alaska's Bridge to no-where!)

Sort of like all the rabid North Jersey-ite's who are foaming over restoration of the Cutoff?

glennk419 wrote:

ladder2 wrote:I think you foamers in central Jersey ran out of ideas about 6-1/2 years ago. Your pipe dreams made for some wild ideas thats
for sure. Cape May Seashore can't get it together, what makes anyone think that Claytons sand pit would be any different?
Those grade crossing improvements were probably part of Obamas 2010 "make work" projects that would put people back to work
for a period of time (Just like Alaska's Bridge to no-where!)

Sort of like all the rabid North Jersey-ite's who are foaming over restoration of the Cutoff?

Yes, it is sad -- over the past ~3 years or so, the main sources of foam have been the CNJ southern division (nothing doing it sure seems), the Newark Branch of the Erie (NS invested quite a bit to rebuild it, and there were rumors of 20-100 cars/week, etc, only to have the only customer on the southern part of the line shut down), and now the only one with some credibility (I don't count the cutoff- that never sounded real beside the few miles NJT started working on ) is the hope for daily intermodal by NS on the old Erie mainline to Binghamton (now west of Port Jervis it only sees 3 rounds trips per week by NYSW).
JS
EDIT: By "Newark Branch", I should say the "northern remnant" of the Newark branch (west of the Passaic River); the section east of the Passaic River was abandoned at least 5-10(?) years ago.

I know this is not to do with the goings on south of Lakehurst but still an interesting bit of of info - While on my way to work today I was driving on Pine Brook Road - which follows the southern line along side Ft. Monmouth - I saw a whole track crew working on the switch that leads to the Marpal Disposal garbage transfer yard off Wayside Road. Why bother working on the switch unless you planned to use it right? (my luck I'll come back that way later and there will be straight rails where there used to be a switch!) Any one hear of anyone saying if they might start using this as a TransLoad facility again? I mean the put that switch in some 15 years ago and it seems there have been dumpsters stored sitting on the siding ever since. I will post this over in the CR on the Southern Secondary thread too (It may just belong there...).