CMSL service Rio Grande to Cape May

Read above....a SHUTTLE BUS,cab,friends pick you up(many riders are visiting friends already there)or for the fit... WALK. Some people just want to go to the boardwalk so they dont have to carry anything or beach goers,the board walk is right there for sodas,pizza ect,what more do you need .It seems a lot of pro rail fans try to think up more ways for it not to be built than look for ways for it to be built.A rail station one and a half miles to the beach and boardwalk is a 100 times better than nothing. How did we (NASA) ever make it to the moon????

How did we (NASA) ever make it to the moon????

With globs and globs and globs of cash. Something severly lacking in New Jersey today.

south jersey trains wrote:Read above....a SHUTTLE BUS,cab,friends pick you up(many riders are visiting friends already there)or for the fit... WALK. Some people just want to go to the boardwalk so they dont have to carry anything or beach goers,the board walk is right there for sodas,pizza ect,what more do you need .It seems a lot of pro rail fans try to think up more ways for it not to be built than look for ways for it to be built.A rail station one and a half miles to the beach and boardwalk is a 100 times better than nothing. How did we (NASA) ever make it to the moon????

If the bus and driver are to be made available for a 1-1/2 mile shuttle, may as well cover the entire 4 or so miles by the shuttle bus. A lot cheaper, more flexible and effcient than reconstructing the entire spur. If land traffic congestion is an issue, let the shuttle bus use the shoulder of the access roads from the mainland where feasible.

I don't know how many of you have physically been to West Wildwood in the past few years, at the site of the Grassy Sound Bridge, but those who have will recall that the property on the island side right up to the bridge is owned by a private homeowner. You can't move 1 foot off the span, if there were one there, without being on private property. The property owner would have to be willing to sell in order for any sort of rails to be put back there, in order to get trains back on the island at all. And this is not counting the 5-6 other relatively new homes that would have to be demolished to bring the operation far enough onto the island to permit construction of a station of some kind with all the latest handicapped-accessible platforms and such that would be required for a station of this sort. It will cost millions alone to buy out those homeowners. Or...we can always utilize Eminent Domain, but we all know that's not going to happen. What a public relations nightmare...

I have given up hope of ever seeing trains in Wildwood again in my lifetime. A far more possible alternative, although still unlikely at this point, is Ocean City, whose ROW is clear far enough onto the island to make it a reasonable possibility.

Mike DiMunno
SJRA / SJRail.com

Face it, folks. OC and Wildwood ain't ever going to happen again. Reminesce about a bygone era, but at the end of the day come back to reality. Passenger volume will never justify such a project even if the ROW AND tracks were still in place. Can we get back on the subject of CMSL to Cape May and, if it isn't going to happen in 2011, what the possibilities might be for 2012?

FWIW, the RDC's are no longer down south. I was in Cape May yesterday and did not see the RDC's between RG and WJ where they were previously being serviced / staged. Unfortunately I did not have time to swing by Tuckahoe but can only hope that they are back "home" and all ready for Santa Train duty. The two new crossings along Rt 9 south of Rio Grande have made absolutely NO progress since the summer, let's hope NJDOT manages to get them completed by next summer so that doesn't remain an impediment to Cape May service.

Do the santa trains run into Cape May? If the road crossings are not complete, how will the Santa trains run?

northjerseybuff wrote:Do the santa trains run into Cape May? If the road crossings are not complete, how will the Santa trains run?

The Santa trains run between Tuckahoe and Richland Village on the CSAO Beesleys Secondary.

As far as down south goes, the rails and crossing pads are fully in place however the paving is incomplete and there is no crossing protection yet installed.

Posted today in the Cape May County Herald:

Pavement reconstruction work continues now along Route 9 southbound and widening work is ongoing at the Route 9 intersection with Bennett’s Crossing, where the old at-grade railroad crossing has been removed. Utility relocation work, landscaping work and final surface course paving and striping work will continue this spring 2012.

Completion of the project remains on schedule for July 2012, pending the completion of the necessary work by the railroad company. Tony Macrie, president of Cape May Seashore Lines, told the Herald he is preparing the scope of work to install new signals at the two crossings. The signals will feature state-of-the-art LED lighting, he said.

Full story here: http://www.capemaycountyherald.com/arti ... ly+opening

First let's change the title of this post to CMSL service to Cape May 2012.. With regard to trains running to Cape May it all depends on how soon the new grade crossings are finished by the state. It's not up to Tony. I'm sure that he wants to run trains in 2012.

dlagrua wrote:First let's change the title of this post to CMSL service to Cape May 2012.. With regard to trains running to Cape May it all depends on how soon the new grade crossings are finished by the state. It's not up to Tony. I'm sure that he wants to run trains in 2012.

I tried doing that (notice the header on my last posts) but believe the main title can only be updated by the originator of the thread or a moderator. As far as the construction goes, while I certainly don't believe everything I read in the press, it does appear that Tony was quoted on current progress and next steps to be taken. I'm not sure if this a "chicken or egg" scenario but right now the new crossings are two roads to nowhere.

Last we left off, in 2011 the grade crossings at Tabernacle Rd and Breakwater Rd across the CMSL were under construction.These two crossings pass in the section between Rio Grande and Cape May City. As a result of this construction it was necessary for the CMSL to suspend all Cape May excursions in 2011. This is old news.
Its now 2012 and the status of construction of these two crossings will most likely determine when trains will run to Cape May again. On April 17th we will be heading down that way and we will see first hand the construction progress. The two new crossings will reportedly to have state of the art crossing signals and should be a safe point for the railroad to cross when complete. It is hoped that the grade crossings will be complete sometime this summer and that we will see the trains running again. I am disappointed that we didn't get the chance to ride the train last year but realize that Tony and the CMSL has no control over this. While I cannot predict when the trains will run again, I will provide an observation of the construction progress as I see it. Lets hope.
On a separate note I discovered that the Cape May to Cape May point connection trackage and ROW is still officially listed by New Jersey Transit (its owner) as out of service. The cause for hope is that it has not been officially abandoned but the likelihood of seeing a connection running to the point anytime soon is very remote. The ROW would need to be cleared, the track would need to be refurbished and it would have to cross a federal environmental site at the point. There is no talk of trains running there again but as long as the route is still NJT property who knows?.

dlagrua wrote:Last we left off, in 2011 the grade crossings at Tabernacle Rd and Breakwater Rd across the CMSL were under construction.These two crossings pass in the section between Rio Grande and Cape May City. As a result of this construction it was necessary for the CMSL to suspend all Cape May excursions in 2011. This is old news.
Its now 2012 and the status of construction of these two crossings will most likely determine when trains will run to Cape May again. On April 17th we will be heading down that way and we will see first hand the construction progress. The two new crossings will reportedly to have state of the art crossing signals and should be a safe point for the railroad to cross when complete. It is hoped that the grade crossings will be complete sometime this summer and that we will see the trains running again. I am disappointed that we didn't get the chance to ride the train last year but realize that Tony and the CMSL has no control over this. While I cannot predict when the trains will run again, I will provide an observation of the construction progress as I see it. Lets hope.
On a separate note I discovered that the Cape May to Cape May point connection trackage and ROW is still officially listed by New Jersey Transit (its owner) as out of service. The cause for hope is that it has not been officially abandoned but the likelihood of seeing a connection running to the point anytime soon is very remote. The ROW would need to be cleared, the track would need to be refurbished and it would have to cross a federal environmental site at the point. There is no talk of trains running there again but as long as the route is still NJT property who knows?.

In case you haven't been following the OTHER CMSL thread, there's a couple more issues at hand besides the grade crossings, namely 1-1/2 miles of track in Dennis that was severely damaged by some scrap metal thieves and the continuing vendetta of Mike Voll against Tony and the railroad.

The other thread is here: http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 27&t=94018

While CMSL is most likely not going to make it to Cape May this year, it appears that there is still some business for the railroad. I swung by Tuckahoe today and noticed 7000 coupled up to a tank car and three cylindrical hoppers by the station and a string of more hoppers below the crossing, all with shiny wheels. I couldn't tell if they were coming or going from/to storage and it was otherwise very quiet but nice to see that there has been some recent activity. There was also some structural steel stacked near the tower, not sure if that was railroad related or not but looked like it could be the makings of a car shed?

The freight was dropped by 51 earlier this week for storage.

Mike DiMunno
SJRA / SJRail