Camden & Amboy Railroad Memorial (original stone sleeper)

hello again...

after 4 days of zig-zagging the old Camden & Amboy RR line (now Norfolk Southern RR)...I finally found the original railway section, laid on stone sleeepers...located at the old Anheuser-Busch plant in Old Bridge. It was on display there, seemingly for decades...& was even extensively covered in a 1986 film documentary on the C&A ('Tracing the Camden & Amboy') by John Warrick.

well...the site is overgrown & in poor condition...w/ signs & markers gone...& also w/ the rails missing from the sleepers.

I web-processed the shots I took today of the site; & posted them here, for anyone interested (the site in is the very early stages of development; & I hastily popped them up there on my C&A page):

http://www.jerseyrails.com/Camden&AmboyRR.htm

So...my question is...is this scenario by design...I trust ??? I.e., the beer plant was demolished two years ago (according to the locals)...& I'm hoping that some historical enity has the rails in storage, w/ a plan also to relocate the sleepers.

Does anyone have any knowledge as to what lies in store, here ??? It would be a travesty if the rails have been carted away by theives; & if there are no plans in existence to either restore or relocate the site.

Sure would appreciate some input on this...thanks,


Mark Forman
JerseyRails.com


BTW - If anyone has viewed the Warrick documentary...(or has actually visited the site back-in-the-day)...in my next to last photo...the two rusty steel posts in front of the evergreen shrub grouping, supported a bright red sign w/ white C&A RR lettering

MoonMix, Where in Old Bridge was the old A-B plant?


Some more info on stone sleepers: Hightstown.

Hightstown's Historic Sites
Hightstown may not be overwhelmed with historic buildings, however, there are
still a number of existing historic buildings and sites that deserve public
appreciation and respect. Most notably they include:

• Railroad Sleeper Site - northeast corner of Rogers Avenue and Railroad
Avenue
• Ely House and Railroad Freight Station - 164 N. Main Street (corner of N.
Main Street and Bank Street, adjacent to the Borough Hall)

CarterB wrote:MoonMix, Where in Old Bridge was the old A-B plant?

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&F ... &encType=1

Sure would be a shame if at least some of those sleepers aren't preserved.

Get your photos of them while you can.

Moon mix,.....Check your PM, chief

holy crapioli...logged back in & found all this...thanks all.

Andrew has it right, Carter...on maps.live. thanks, Andrew. thanks for the other Hightstown info. the freight station on north main is actually where the C&A historical group meet. also, went right by Rodgers & RR the other day...must have missed 'em. contacted the Smithsonian today...the National Museum of American History...told them the whole story; w/ the hope in mind they will get involved.

got the pm tbred, sent you back. can't see a yellow house from there, tho (on google earth)...check yer pm, anyway

thanks again


mf

If Smithsonian, where the original John Bull resides, is not interested, the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania http://www.rrmuseumpa.org/ might be. The replica John Bull is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

There are several C&A sleepers at Pine Creek RR at Allaire State Park, rescued before a construction project got to them. Not really on display, they are saved, and are on the station side at the shop crossing. Square blocks that aren't very exotic, most of the general public wouldn't know what they are, but there they are, preserved.

Hopefully we can make the sleepers brought to Pine Creek into a nice display piece, it is another piece of NJ rail history -Chris

Has anyone looked into whether or not they can be moved? You surely must have someone's permission to do so. Are they railroad property?

Later!
Mr. Ed

CarterB...

contacted the museum in pennsy (as I have not heard back from the Smithsonian).


Chris...

are you affiliated w/ the PC RR at Allaire ?


Mr. Ed...

not sure. you're right, tho...left there in that condition too long cannot bring about any good scenarios


mf

MoonMix,

If Penn Trans Museum is not interested, then perhaps a group of us can get together to try to determine who owns that property next to the ROW (if not the Shared Assets) and try to find suitable home for them. I'd be glad to help.

As GSC points out, once they're taken out of their historical context, they're just square rocks with some holes in them. It's just like I saw a Portage Railroad stone sleeper at University of Pittsburgh's Johnstown campus. I doubt that anybody else recognized what it was, but I'd seen some along the trail that leads to the Staple Bend Tunnel. I fully expect that there are thousands of Portage Railroad sleepers hiding out in the woods, buried under a few inches of duff.

Mark-

Yes, I`ve been volunteering out at Pine Creek for 8 years now. (most of the time doing trackwork coincidentally enough). If you`re looking for a place for these sleepers to go, I can at least run the idea by the higher ups and see what they say. Like GSC said, we just got a whole bunch of them, so I`m not sure what their reaction would be, but its worth a shot....... I`ll pm you when I find out...... -Chris L.