I don't know if this is evidence of anything going on, but it's certainly interesting.
I decided to take a drive along the old CNJ mainline route west of High Bridge yesterday to see what remained, and to my surprise, found the line to be in better shape than many of the recent street view images made it out to be. What was more interesting was that there was evidence of crossing and bridge work on both the NJT and NS ends of the line. Almost all crossings had brand new blue emergency contact signs on them, the crossing at Glen Gardner had an entirely new crossbuck installed where there hadn't been one a year ago, and the crossing in Bloomsbury had a brand new Siemens crossing gate installed. My question is why would they go to the trouble of doing all this work for a line which is considered OOS unless they had plans for it?
I've included some pictures from the trip below:
New crossing sign at Bell Ave in Glen Gardner.
I was surprised at the lack of weeds and overgrowth on most of the line. Presumably someone is doing something?
Ludlow Station Crossing. Now in NS territory, but still with the new blue signs installed.
I found it interesting that they would install these over the old signs if there were no plans to reactivate the line...
Things take a turn for the worse at the next crossing, where a section of rail has been uprooted on each side of the crossing, rendering the line impassible, and severe overgrowth has occurred.
Confusingly, at this same crossing, all the equipment appeared to be in good shape, and the crossing posts showed signs of being repainted recently.
New signs even though the track has been paved over at this crossing...
Uprooted rail west of the crossing.
New Siemens crossing equipment in Bloomsbury.
If anyone has any info as to why they are doing this work, I'd love to know. Based on internet research, all of this has occurred within the last year.
I decided to take a drive along the old CNJ mainline route west of High Bridge yesterday to see what remained, and to my surprise, found the line to be in better shape than many of the recent street view images made it out to be. What was more interesting was that there was evidence of crossing and bridge work on both the NJT and NS ends of the line. Almost all crossings had brand new blue emergency contact signs on them, the crossing at Glen Gardner had an entirely new crossbuck installed where there hadn't been one a year ago, and the crossing in Bloomsbury had a brand new Siemens crossing gate installed. My question is why would they go to the trouble of doing all this work for a line which is considered OOS unless they had plans for it?
I've included some pictures from the trip below:
New crossing sign at Bell Ave in Glen Gardner.
I was surprised at the lack of weeds and overgrowth on most of the line. Presumably someone is doing something?
Ludlow Station Crossing. Now in NS territory, but still with the new blue signs installed.
I found it interesting that they would install these over the old signs if there were no plans to reactivate the line...
Things take a turn for the worse at the next crossing, where a section of rail has been uprooted on each side of the crossing, rendering the line impassible, and severe overgrowth has occurred.
Confusingly, at this same crossing, all the equipment appeared to be in good shape, and the crossing posts showed signs of being repainted recently.
New signs even though the track has been paved over at this crossing...
Uprooted rail west of the crossing.
New Siemens crossing equipment in Bloomsbury.
If anyone has any info as to why they are doing this work, I'd love to know. Based on internet research, all of this has occurred within the last year.
