Abandoned line to Lawrenceville

JimBoylan wrote:Here's a link to the Reading Company's 1954 Freight Shippers' Guide:
http://www.readingmodeler.com/modules.p ... rt&sid=145

Station Report for Lawrenceville, NJ
Facilities and General Information
Public Delivery

Customers Serviced at this Location
Customer Name Business Delivery
Lawrenceville Fuel Company Coal and Oil Private Siding
Lawrenceville School Institution Team Track
Mercer Feed Company Feed and Grain Private Siding
Princeton Theological Seminary Institution Team Track

Wonder what the Seminary would have gotten delivered? Could it have been coal transloaded to trucks for delivery? Probably they could have done the same from a yard off the Princeton branch of the PRR, only a block or two from their campus, vs. 3-4 miles from Lawrenceville, but maybe the Reading had a better deal...
JS

How about helping restore streetcars to Princeton. Princeton Interurban (the New Dinky) has just applied for a major grant from Chase Bank to convert the Dinky to light rail and extend it to Nassau Street. It just needs 250 votes by Saturday, the 30th to go on to the next step. Please go to http://www.missionsmallbusiness.com, sign on using Facebook, select "Princeton Interurban" and add your vote. If we get the votes in such a short time, it will be with enormous gratitude to Railroad.net.

Hey, I'm the financial wizard of National Interurban, where I convinced Bucks County to contribute $2 million, Pennsylvania $7 million, Siemens $16 million in shadow equity and Lehman Brothers to underwrite a debt instrument for $36 million to restore commuter rail service from the Lehigh Valley to Philadelphia. My interest in Somerset Terminal was primarily the link it controlled, which would have allowed my company's proposed service from Jenkintown to Elizabeth, connecting with the NEC. I've never heard of Mr. Riffin. My current (misad)venture was originally featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, and I am the only principal. It would merely convert NJ Transit's Princeton Branch, which has cost taxpayers over $30 million since the public operator took it over in 1983, to light rail, offer five, not three round trips an hour, meeting virtually every train at Princeton Junction, reduce the single fare from $2.75 to $2.00, and earn a nice profit--after returning over $1 million a year to taxpayers. What due diligence have you done?

Its interesting that the Princeton Latin Academy has far more votes that the 'New Dinky". Not to worry though; all the applicants are to be screened by a panel of business experts.

How'd that plan to restore passenger service on the Newtown line work out for ya, Rod?

Service restoration from Newtown was a lesser part of the plan to restore service from the Lehigh Valley to Philadelphia; both were rejected by Septa after a year's negotiation. We'd gotten the insurance premium down from 110% of projected revenue to 17% with Septa management's help--they joined us in New York to meet with the underwriter. With financing in place, our equipment approved and a schedule determined, Lou Gambaccini decided that the final call would come from Operations. They rejected the entire proposal, which would have saved Septa $68 per passenger on the Cynwyd Line, based on the concern that if stopped at a red signal on the grade up from Market East, our diesel railcars could only accelerate up to 15 mph. National Interurban's counterargument that such a signal meant a general shutdown of that line and that we would operate closed-door past the next seven stations, mitigating the systemwide cascade Septa "feared", was rejected. In his final letter of denial, Gambaccini said "I simply do not believe it is possible to operate commuter rail without subsidy". I got no response from my reminder that Lehman Brothers had vetted my pro formas before agreeing to underwrite the venture, and Ballard Spahr had confirmed, after much discussion, the legality of the tax-free debt instrument, which allowed no operating subsidy. The Board accepted Gambaccini's recommendation, noting that Lou spoke "ex cathedra" on matters of transit. Afterall, he'd been head of UMTA and been New Jersey's transportation commissioner. I moved on.

Wacko of Watchung? I don't get that reference; could you explain? I remember Rod trying to get control of the Dinky in the late 1980s and his locking horns with Princeton resident and then-NJT Board meber John McGoldrick. Rod's plan was to convert the Dinky to light rail service and get a free light rail vehicle or two from NJT - just as private bus companies get buses for free, Rod argued. He also wanted to somehow serve freight customers near the Dinky line. So here we go again...

Ah yes, John McGoldrick. He argued in NJ Transit's newsletter that "passenger railroads are by nature not profit-making", so there! I recall his asking me to point to an example anywhere in the world where a passenger railroad was rescued from bankruptcy by a public operator and then reverted to private ownership. Alas, I could name none. Since then, branches, lines, entire systems--from the old East Germany to New Zealand, including BR and JNR--have gone private, based on the very paradigm that I first advanced.

Has this site been hacked??? I KNOW that I responded right after the post by Professor Edwards, yet there is now a post by Mr. Fisk between those two posts.

Oh wait, what am I saying? This is New Jersey, after all-

Can someone explain how to insert posts in the middle of a thread, thus altering the context of a discussion? Inquiring minds want to know-

I received a back-channel communication from a very learned gentleman this AM; one with (at least) a law degree and a fair amount of military experience. It appears that my line of questioning has driven one of the protagonists on this thread to now post on the NJT Light Rail forum. Funny, but I thought that the Dinky, by connecting with heavy rail, was still heavy rail. I guess I have to look that one up-

Let's move Dinky-related discussion to "New Dinky to Nassau Street". (It was the moderator who moved that topic to "NJ Transit Light Rail" forum.)