Belle Mead General Depot

Nice shots from the air. You can clearly see some of the old ROWs and all the ties left to rot.

Hillsborough Township and Somerset County are working on purchasing about 1/2 of this property from the government, and funds are available for the cleanup (contaminated soil, miles of old ties and ballast, 60 acres of concrete) etc. The plan is to make it into mostly parkland. A company called Hillsborough Properties owns the other half, who I think wants to put in low income housing.

I'm wondering the method they will use to remove the bad material. Common sense would say to use the existing crossing @ rt 206 and connection with CSX, or use thousands of trucks clogging up an already crowded highway.

I have biked back there, its mind-blowing how big this place is. If you're thinking about exploring this area, keep this in mind...the US gov still owns it, and there was a fire there on Tuesday. You can access it from Pleasant View Rd, at the end of the park. But now because of the fire, I expect them to close off the opening in the fence, and step up the police patrols.

Yup, If you have access to it, read the Beacon.

Yeah, the mayor's pushing the gov to fix the fence, and send in the cops. All because of some kids (allegedly) setting a fire (allegedly). I was planning on going back this weekend, but now I won't, 'cause I don't need the hassle of being arrested for trespassing.

I stumbled upon this website while looking up info on Belle Meade. When I was a child I actually lived in a house at the Belle Meade Depot, from 1970-1974. This is so interesting to see the pictures of what it looks like now. Are there still any houses left? We lived in a single, ranch style house at the end of a street with a fence next to it. There were about 4 more larger, apartment style homes in this area. There were only 4-5 families that lived here. My dad worked for the GSA and we moved from Belle Meade to upstate NY when he got transferred. He then worked for the DLA before retiring after 37 years with the federal government. If anyone has any more info about toxins in this area, please post. My dad developed Alzheimer's at the age of 64 and I have to wonder what he was exposed to by working at depots like this one.

If you mean the Depot off of Montain View Rd, (having two in Hillsborough is confusing), I don't ever remember seeing any houses on the property. The only structures left are a water tower and one building, which was recently torched. As far as chemicals go, I only know of residual creosote in the ground from the ties. Maybe the EPA has more info.

Well, I wasn't alive then, but a family member that worked at the Belle Mead GSA/VA depot never described apartments on the property. I'll check Historic Aerials to see a basic layout.

I am talking about the GSA depot off of MountainView Road. We lived there from November 1970 to November 1974. I went to Woods Road Elementary, but for the fourth grade I was bused to a small old schoolhouse that only had 3 fourth grade classes. I don't remember the name of that school. The houses were just outside of the fence after you went past the front gate, there was a road that brought you back to the houses. We lived in the house that was the farthest up the road. The first house(ranch-2 family) had 2 families, the Jacksons and the Evans-who moved before we did. Then there was an empty house that ran parallel with the fence. Then there was another 4 unit apartment type of house. 2 families lived there-I only remember the one daughters name was Penny. There was a basketball court behind this building. Then there was a road and then our house. We had a row of garages across the street from us and the depot fence ran behind the garages and alongside of the house. I haven't been back to that area since we moved away so I don't know if the houses are still there or if they were torn down. There used to be another 4 unit type building next to us but that was torn down one day while we still lived there, so maybe the rest were torn down too. Looking at the aerial shots of this depot I can't believe how desolate it looks in that area. I can't see any houses where they should be, I called my mom and asked her to look at the pictures to see if maybe I'm missing them. If I get back up north sometime I would really like to go by and see where we used to live. I wish my dad was still with us I'd really like to know what he did while working there. My mom really doesn't know.

Well, this is actually not a railroad themed thread, so some may bark at me, but who cares.

Now that you mention it, I kind of remember houses there a long time ago. This is where it gets weird. The school you are refering to was the Flagtown school, I too went there in 1974, you may have been on the bus with my old friend Mike Maurer. He lived off of Mountainview. If you want more info, you can PM me.

Peter

Robynmarie211 - In response to your original question about toxic chemicals, Mercury was originally stored at the Depot until sometime in the 1960's and then supposedly moved to the Depot closer to Sommerville. (See this article at http://ndep.nv.gov/mercury/docs/mercury111606.pdf. There has been some kind of environmental remediation being conducted. In this newspaper article, they say "Township and Somerset County officials have been working to clean up the environmentally compromised property that has low levels of surface-soil contamination caused by railroad ballast and oil used to control dust on the site. They want work to begin this year and expect it to take 18 months to complete." This article can be seen here http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/ ... /810240390.

If you want to see your house as it was from a 1971 Aerial photo, go to http://www.HistoricAerials.com and enter Belle Mead, NJ and select the year 1971 and you can zoom into the facility to look.

And to keep this railroad related, you can see the extensive rail network too.

Gentlemen,
This was probably discuss somewhere but I can't seem to find any threads so here we go.
The Belle Mead General Depot is considered a polluted site with Mercury so my question is what kind of manufacturing was done here. There are so many tracks and sidings that it looks more like a large size major freight yard. What is the history behind it? The right of way still there and and it has not been removed. So how long has it been closed and who used to served them.
Also are there any plans for this area.
Thank you very much for your info gentlemen.
many19

The Belle Mead depot was a major storage facility for the General Services Administration (or GSA_). It closed in the mid 1980's. The depot was served by a spur coming off the old Reading line ( still in operation by the Norfork Southern) where it crossed Rt 206 and also by a spur coming off the old and now abandoned Central RR Jersey Flemington Branch near Flagtown. In its heyday the Belle Mead depot was a large and very active rail yard facility that had many warehouses located on numerous rail sidings. After a massive cleanup by the federal government it is presently being converted into parkland for the township. Strangely the spur coming of the Norfolk Southern mainline is still in place.

The old Reading line is now CSX, not NS. I believe the spur coming in from the north was from the LV mainline (now NS), not the CNJ Flemington branch (which ran on the north side of the LV more or less parallel to it there).

Jim

The old Reading line is now CSX, not NS. I believe the spur coming in from the north was from the LV mainline (now NS), not the CNJ Flemington branch (which ran on the north side of the LV more or less parallel to it there).
Jim

Jim yes you are correct the old LV Line is now CSX. Now for the spur coming into the depot from the North I assumed that it was the old CRNJ Flemington Branch as this line appeared closer to it than the NS tracks. The ROW crosses Amwell Rd, then So Branch Rd and I don't know where it headed from there but the two lines were close. You're probably right about where that spur connected to the main line.