CNJ Raritan & Delaware Bay line

[ChrisU]

Hi I was wondering if any body had any pictures of the R&DB line. Also what were the stations names and where did freight trains run to on that line?

[Jtgshu]

Hi I was wondering if any body had any pictures of the R&DB line. Also what were the stations names and where did freight trains run to on that line?

Are you referring to the Raritan and Delaware Bay line? If so, it was the original main line to " interior South Jersey" and never was as successful as it should/could have been becuase of the powerful Camden and Amboy.

Way down south jersey, the line is still in service, as well as from Red Bank to Lakehurst. The line was teh CNjs main line to South Jersey and hosted very long, significant freight trains......

[GSC]

It was designed, among other things, as a "post road" for mail going from "Brooklyn" (which was not a part of New York City at that time) south to Delaware, Baltimore, and Washington, utilizing ferries and rail.

Camden & Amboy held a monopoly on New York to Philadelphia traffic, and legal wrangling claimed the R&DB as "not serving NY or Phila".

C&A attorneys used their NJ political buddies and then-legal monopoly power to crush R&DB, claiming any and all income derived during the Civil War, hauling mail, military ordnance, etc. That was the end of R&DB.

Jay Gould, Jim Fisk, and their cronies took over the squashed Raritan & Delaware Bay RR into their Southern Railroad of New Jersey, so the line continued to exist, later becoming part of CNJ.

That's the short version. It was quite involved.

[GSC]

Adding Port Monmouth and Belford, all other station locations are still in existence (on paper at least) from Red Bank south. Find any old timetable that includes the "Southern Division" and you have the stations listed from Red Bank on.

Don Wood's "Unique New York & Long Branch" book has a R&DB timetable reproduced in it.

[ChrisU]

COOL . Thanks for the Information.