Bay Head yard severely altered

JLo: O.K., you made me look it up...temporary timetable was put into effect April 10, 1978 with BUS service west of Sea Girt. Some trains only went as far as Asbury Park. Trains were stored on temporary sidings built in Bradley Beach (there were some sidings there already). Timetable is CONRAIL/NJDOT.
"Effective Monday, April 10,1978, the Manasquan River Bridge will be taken out of service for a four week period because of major repairs. The bridge serves the North Jersey Coast Line between Brielle and Point Pleasant Beach.
Bay Head, Point Pleasant Beach and Manasquan commuters will be buses to Sea Girt and Asbury Park for Eastbound trains. Please refer to timetable for bus departures. Westbound trains terminating at Asbury Park and Sea Girt will have waiting bus service to all stations to Bay Head. Only four trains will not have bus connections."
The next timetable showing service restored to Bay Head was June 4, 1978...so it looks like the four weeks was really more line 8!

so "15-20 years ago" vs "about 30" turns out to be 27 years, 11 months...I win...closest without going over!!!!! (just like The Price is Right!)

I win...closest without going over!!!!! (just like The Price is Right!)

Those that write the rules, usually do win!

JLo: Just kidding!!!!! Thanks for making the correction!

I gotta tell you, that bridge is scary. The current is real strong at the bridge. Going through it in my boat, the channel holds around 15 feet of water on either side but in the drawspan itself the depthfinder suddenly drops to 35. That 20 foot drop in the bottom has to be from the scouring action of the currents and makes me wonder how far down the footings of the bridge's foundations go? One of the problems at the WR bridge over the Passaic was that it's foundations had been undermined by the scouring action of the river current making it potentially unstable and likely to topple over. Is the same thing happening at Brielle?

NY&LB, figured as much.

Snavely, there are actually a few "holes" in the Manasquan near the bridge, but the one you described sounds like the grand-daddy.

As a kid, I recall talking to an ancient fisherman who remembers the bridge being repaired after a hurricane that wrecked the old Rt 35 bridge. He claimed that the pilings for the rail bridge were pounded so deep that the bridge was barely touched by the storm. The bridge also is somewhat unique in that the Manasquan did not originally have the inlet as it is today. It was a tidal inlet, protected by a bar. At low tide, you could walk between Manasquan and Point Pleasant. During the 30s, the inlet was created. The dredge spoilings were dumped upriver to create Gull Island, which is the sandy island protecting the bulk of the rail bridge today and which creates much of the scouring action in both channels.

Yes, you're right, today's inlet is mostly man made. The original jetties (added on to with dolosse- the jacks like concrete things in the 1980's) were built with rock excavated from a subway project in NYC. I have a video copy of home movies made at the time showing the building of the jetties, dredging of the inlet and a boat parade led by the then governor of NJ that officially opened it. Your old fisherman must be right about the bridge pilings going pretty far down, 'cuz it sure is some deep water right there in the draw. I'd like to ask one of the bridgetenders some day if the structure ever gets shaky during strong currents and/or storms.

JLO is right about the inlet,it was started being built, in the summer of 1931,and ready to go by 1932.As for the rail line bridge,that was built in 1880,so it's been there a 126 years and counting to date.The inlet will be 75 years old this year.

Here is a few good views of the inlet pre- and during construction:

http://home.att.net/~ppbhist/images/Images_17.jpg
http://home.att.net/~ppbhist/images/Images_29.jpg
http://home.att.net/~ppbhist/images/Images_30.jpg
http://home.att.net/~ppbhist/images/Images_31.jpg
http://home.att.net/~ppbhist/images/Images_32.jpg

Compare the last one to a view from the 50s.

http://home.att.net/~ppbhist/images/Images_21.jpg

great pictures you have there JLO!
Good flashback to the past.
thanks.

snavely wrote:Yes, you're right, today's inlet is mostly man made. The original jetties (added on to with dolosse- the jacks like concrete things in the 1980's) were built with rock excavated from a subway project in NYC. .

And the dolos were to be the breakwater for PSE&G's floating nuclear generating station ("Atlantic 1") that was to be located 2.9 miles east of Altantic City. They were designed and built for PSE&G but became surplus when the nuclear station project was abandoned.

Actually the current bridge is not the original 1880's one. That one was replaced by the present structure in the early 1900's, can't lay my hands on the exact year right now, but believe it was around 1912 which would make it ONLY 94 years old now. You know, when you stop to think of it, the architecture, engineering and construction that went into all of the structures built by the railroads pre World War II was absolutely first rate. Those people built things to last. Now we build a highway bridge and thirty years later it's falling apart.

Sorry to say I was snooping through the rest of the postcards at this site and came across a reference to the first and second Point Pleasant stations:

http://home.att.net/~ppbhist/images/Images_2.jpg

I never knew they moved the first station to make room for the second one.

Does either one still exist?

Infact here is a great shot of the long abandoned bridge across Twilight Lake just south of Bay Head!

http://home.att.net/~ppbhist/images/Images_5.jpg


http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q ... 012703&t=k

Tom, neither station exists today. The second station was demolished when Route 35 was realigned so that the original highway (Richmond Ave.) is now one-way southbound and the northbound lanes use Cincinnati Ave. The new alignment went right through the station, so it was replaced by a "temporary" building alongside the eastbound track. This temporary building was used for over 20 years until it started falling apart and was replaced by the fourth, current station, also on the eastbound side. The new, present, station is built in a style reminiscent of the traditional railroad architecture of the second station.

One of the reasons things were built heavier and lasted longer "back in the day" was due to less understanding of the strengths and nature of building materials. After years of development in engineering of structural materials, the actual shear, torsional, and tensile strengths and capacities of steel, concrete, wood and other building materials are well known (of course, the development of steel and reinforced concrete helped). This allows engineers and architects to use minimal materials in design to achieve the design strengths desired and hence reduce construction costs. In the old days, they just used a healthy safety factor (multiplier) and figured they were covered.

Case in point, look at the Brooklyn Bridge. It was designed to handle pedestrians, steam trains and horse and buggies. The original designers would have had heart palpatations if they knew their design would be supporting solid bumper to bumper bus, car and truck traffic as well as the frequent subway trains and pedestrians. The designers never could have anticipated that kind of weight and vibration loading.