Abandoned railroad track from Long Branch to Eatontown

Here's a portion of a C. C. Vermeule topographic manuscript map circa 1870-1887 from the New Jersey Geological Survey, that shows the wye. These maps are at: http://www.state.nj.us/dep/njgs/enviroe ... lemaps.htm

The original Monmouth Park track was a half-mile layout, that featured more harness racing than thoroughbred. There was quite a bit of rail yard trackage back then, according to some things I've come across. Later additions made the track 5/8 mile.

After the ban on racing, and Camp Alfred Vail came into being (later named Fort Monmouth), the track was rebuilt at its present location, as the mile track you see today.

I worked with a guy who had done some landscaping / grass maintenance in the area of the original track in the fort, and he said here and there an old tie would surface through the ground and they'd have to dig it out.

Had to do some digging for this article. Some great stuff for a talk I'm giving to a local Rotary group.

As always, JT had some great input.

Yeah its amazing that there is still rail on the western end of this spur at the southern secondary line.

Here are some pics I took a couple of years ago.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/archiv ... x?id=49026" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

NJ Natural Gas or another provider recently buried a new 12" gas main under this ROW through Oceanport/Eatontown/WLB/Long Branch

scottso699 wrote:Yeah its amazing that there is still rail on the western end of this spur at the southern secondary line.

Here are some pics I took a couple of years ago.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/archiv ... x?id=49026" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Great shots, Scott. I'll have to check them out, before the brush grows back.

Lots of rail still exists in the old ROW that ran from Branchport (near where Rt 36 / Joline Ave. crosses the NY&LB) all the way east through town, north ofand parallel to Broadway. Take most any north-south street and you'll either cross the obvious ROW or dead end at the ROW. Closer to the ocean, the more rail and ROW is visible. And closer to the east, the neighborhoods get rougher.

I love looking through these old posts, especially the history.

Somewhere....I have slides of the last train from Fort Monmouth to Branchport, a single CNJ RS3 sent to pull the coaches that were used as military housing.... a LONG TIME AGO....If I can find them and digitize them, I will post.

NY&LB wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:13 am Somewhere....I have slides of the last train from Fort Monmouth to Branchport, a single CNJ RS3 sent to pull the coaches that were used as military housing.... a LONG TIME AGO....If I can find them and digitize them, I will post.

This is the article I usually recall regarding that:

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/10/03/arch ... diers.html

This abandoned track appears on the NJDOT Monmouth County map.

R36 Combine Coach wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2024 9:08 pm This abandoned track appears on the NJDOT Monmouth County map.

You can still follow the ROW on Google Maps from Eatontown to Long Branch.