Delaware and Raritan River Railroad-General Discussion

CharlieL wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 1:47 pm If they were to reactivate the line from Farmingdale east, they would not need to enter Allaire or even cross 195. The old gravel pits behind Wall stadium are only a half mile from the old ROW.

Not that they would do that.

Allaire State Park still owns all that land, and there's a few trails back there.

Even if Amazon ponies up the money for an intermodal terminal I doubt any of the rail carriers around here is willing to haul containers the relatively short distance from Port Newark or Morrisville (closest terminals) to such a facility.

Furthermore If the fulfillment centers are directly adjacent to an airport served by their planes there's probably not a chance in hell they will use the train. I remember Amazon doing something similar to this elsewhere in the country. Kentucky I think?

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You would be using West coast ports and transcontinental intermodal do NNJ. In a world when the Panama Canal is fully hydrated, that will save at least a week of transit time from Orient to Bayoone.

Amazon would NOT build an intermodal facility or use any rail directly at all. All it would be would be shuttling containers to existing facilities, if they fit the criteria.

The fact that it's a conversation is astonishing. Didn't think anything could top the "sand trains"

It used to be that railroads would build smaller, simpler intermodal terminals to serve local markets (more) directly than they could through regional hubs. Somerville, for example, had a TOFC ramp into the Conrail era. With some exceptions, though, the trend has overwhelmingly been towards large and highly mechanized metropolitan terminals accessed with drays that often break 100 miles. Something like 90% of intermodal terminals extant in the 1960s have since closed. Concentrating traffic helps defray the capex of new terminal construction while keeping operational complexity down for railroads--both of which are important, because intermodal's cost base lies disproportionately in terminal ops, and structurally speaking intermodal equipment/terminals are not set up for extensive sorting. All of that said, this does have some negative impacts on IM's competitiveness and environmental impact, and there have been some (limited) success stories wherein short lines, e.g. the Indiana Railroad, have set up terminals to extend rail hauls closer to customers.

The idea that anyone will build a COFC/TOFC pad in the freehold-farmingdale area, is even crazier than the "Sand trains are coming" talk. Morrisville is only 40 minutes away...right across 195. And i think Morrisville is underutilized these days anyway.

pdtrains wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2024 12:53 am The idea that anyone will build a COFC/TOFC pad in the freehold-farmingdale area, is even crazier than the "Sand trains are coming" talk.

Somehow, the Facebook groups have become more speculative than here

pdtrains wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2024 12:53 am Morrisville is only 40 minutes away...right across 195. And i think Morrisville is underutilized these days anyway.

Morrisville doesn't seem to have a lot of traffic these days. But it's pretty close to the North Jersey ports/yards anyway.

Point is, the local towns and residents through a fit when any of these warehouses are built/proposed, since it results in an exponential increase in truck traffic. The only way to really avoid that would be direct/extremely close rail service (one train could take what, a few hundred trucks off the road at least?), but that would be a stretch

@pdtrains As far as Central Jersey goes, most containers are trucked in from Philly or Port Newark AFAIK.

As to Amazon buying up land around the airport? Plenty of space on the southwest side of the airport to build a warehouse with space to park planes. I don't know why they'd need much more than that unless this facility would be the size of lakehurst or something.

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jdh823 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 7:19 pm Amazon would NOT build an intermodal facility or use any rail directly at all. All it would be would be shuttling containers to existing facilities, if they fit the criteria.

The fact that it's a conversation is astonishing. Didn't think anything could top the "sand trains"

Mythical sand trains and pop up intermodal terminals, where else can you get this kind of entertainment besides here? Some here think you can just open up an intermodal terminal wherever you like. Talked about this yesterday with one of my guys from Wall and it got a good laugh. This was petitioned over 2 years ago. There'll be no intermodal terminal and he says the airport can't handle Amazon planes nor be expanded to handle them. If it does happen, it'll be just another distribution warehouse using cans shuttled in & outta s. kearny. Talk of running intermodal to an Amazon facility that may not be built's just the same trash as those 100 car sand trains that'll be ripping through the F&S. Pipe dream.

JohnFromJersey wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 1:08 pm There is talk that Amazon is looking to buy up a boatload of property in the Monmouth County area. Specifically around the airport in Wall.

I have not been able to find reliable and/or direct sources about this development, but rumor has it that Amazon wants to buy the land behind Wall Stadium (and allegedly Wall Stadium itself), as well as bits and pieces around the airport, and parts of the airport itself. This means, likely Amazon will create a pretty big facility/compound area where they will be able to fly stuff in and out of whatever they build (if they build it)

On some of the Facebook pages, there was speculation that Amazon would use the nearby railroad(s). Amazon has been utilizing railroads a whole lot more in recent years (I have seen it myself, mile+ long freight trains full of Amazon containers running up and down the west side of the Hudson River), and, historically, there are RoWs that would connect to the general area of where Amazon would put their warehouses. The old gravel & sandpit that ran across Belmar Blvd, and the historical F&J RoW that ran to Manasquan. The former route would involve a hell of a lot of land purchasing/easement agreements, and the latter would likely be a tough up-hill battle, since it runs through Allaire State Park.

More likely, IF Amazon uses the railroad IF they build this warehouse(s?), they would likely construct some sort of intermodal facility where containers would be loaded and offloaded, if they didn't do it somewhere in North Jersey. But, according to this article, Amazon has been using intermodal facilities that are very close to their warehouses - North Jersey is close, but those terminals are oftentimes crowded and take a while to offload and onload stuff, not to mention all the traffic congestion up there.

The other issue with this speculative theory is, you can't run double stacks around here. Single stacks are fine, but that means a MUCH longer train. The only way you'd be able to get Double-Stacks going, is if you somewhere routed them onto the Trenton Subdivision.

I like the Facebook groups. Alot of good info and vids on there but sorry to burst your bubble but it's not happening. This talk was from over two years ago.

Speculation is always good for the mind, unless one pins their hopes on it.

SA-31 CSX 6201 8 Cars (Hopper and 7 Centerbeams) at NJCL MP 5.1 County Rd.

CharlieL wrote: ↑Thu Feb 08, 2024 12:07 pm Speculation is always good for the mind, unless one pins their hopes on it.

Speculation's one thing. Talk of inetmodal running these lines's a pipe dream. Much like those sand trains.

Trains in Farmingdale with 8 8:59am

Train will be heading towards Lakewood soon with 4