Delaware and Raritan River Railroad-General Discussion

Taken by a friend. Here’s what’s going on at Okerson Road today.

One of the spurs off of a branch that is right before fieldcrest on the "main". Small warehouse

Ahh okay. Thanks for that. Still a little new to watching trains around there so I don’t know all the tracks they work. Seems their schedule is based entirely around the customers needs on a given day. Awesome for the customer but makes it hard to chase their trains lol.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 9:58 am I received a picture this morning showing a large amount of pole cars sitting in freehold again. EH Allen has been getting way more cars lately…

I think I saw three maybe FOUR fully loaded pole cars on that siding when I drove by Thursday. On the left of this photo.

There’s at least three sitting there going off a picture I got this morning. It’s interesting, because under Conrail he’d only ever get 1 car every few weeks usually. Wonder if he’s supplying someone who needs this many poles…

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 12:18 pm There’s at least three sitting there going off a picture I got this morning. It’s interesting, because under Conrail he’d only ever get 1 car every few weeks usually. Wonder if he’s supplying someone who needs this many poles…

I can't imagine they are trucking it all back to Old bridge off Cheesequake road. They must be going directly to a customer. Perhaps pilings for a shore project. Where they used to stock material is now mostly all shipping containers. Before that it was a wood recycling site.

I have been told that EH Allen’s poles are for Jersey shore homes built on poles. If that’s where they are going, then it makes sense why there wouldn’t be any at their place in Sayerville. The Freehold Team Track is about as close as you can get to the shore since NJT doesn’t allow pole cars from South Amboy to Red Bank. They used to unload these cars on the Lakewood Team Track. Dinaso helped unload them I think.

Poles are used like pilings in sandy soil when a larger building is being constructed on a poured slab. Syabilizes the soil to prevent subsidence and cracking of the slab.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 11:27 pm As far as this area goes you don’t have to go 50 miles if your just transloading. Raritan Center to Lakewood is only 35 ish miles.

The Edison area to down here in Central Jersey is not an easy drive, especially for trucks.

AceMacSD wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 10:11 am Transloading only works if the consignee has the need for a quantity of product that can be shipped by rail and if the shipper has access to ship by rail. There are many industries that do not have/want/require rail service and therefore utilize the highway network to move their materials. Trucking is much more flexible than rail. Transloading also adds the cost of trucking the materials from the transloading site to the consignee location.

Trucking is also more expensive. You'll still have to move the material by truck, but it's a lot cheaper to move it a few miles by truck after it's shipped by rail, instead of shipping it the whole way by truck.

AceMacSD wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 10:11 am The Raritan Central's days are numbered. The number of cars moving between Oak Island and Metuchen have be on the decline. Their idea of an intermodal facility at their "port" sounds nice on paper. Throw in the costs of running a port facility and see how business does. From what my guys told me, the owner of Raritan Central is extremely anti-union. These longshoremen that work these port jobs start out making over $100k a year with extremelygood union representation. A Raritan Central crew member makes under $60k a year with no representation.

What? The Raritan Center has had a fair amount of customers move into, like Arizona Iced Teas, and use Raritan Central as their railroad. The "port" isn't the doing of Raritan Central, that would be the state and/or the owner of the Raritan Center (not Raritan Central) doing that, who would handle the building + staffing of such a facility.

AceMacSD wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 10:11 am Finally, the mystical sand trains. Hasn't this prank gone on long enough? Also, consider that the competition has the advantage. Lakewood to Lakehurst most likely will not be returned to service while the Cape May Lines has any stake.

I would agree that the sand trains are "mystical" if NJSL and Clayton haven't continued to repair and maintain the 13 miles of track between Lakehurst and Woodmansie. Seriously, if they keep paying for that section of track to be maintained, something has to be happening there at some point - there are no other industries on that line beside the sand pit.

AWSmith wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 3:06 pm I can't imagine they are trucking it all back to Old bridge off Cheesequake road. They must be going directly to a customer. Perhaps pilings for a shore project. Where they used to stock material is now mostly all shipping containers. Before that it was a wood recycling site.

Ocean Grove is currently rebuilding their pier, and it's a pretty big project. So that's probably why there are all these pole cars coming in. What do the cars even look like? Does someone have a picture?

Here’s what they are. Flatbed cars with bulkheads at each end and rods extending up from the bottom to about the height of the bulkheads.

The cars are currently being unloaded at the empty space on the right between the parked trailer and two pickup trucks.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 5:18 pm
Here’s what they are. Flatbed cars with bulkheads at each end and rods extending up from the bottom to about the height of the bulkheads.

The cars are currently being unloaded at the empty space on the right between the parked trailer and two pickup trucks.

Wow, that is a ****load of poles. What day(s) do they usually appear at on the Freehold Team Track?

Don’t know. They only come in whenever they are ordered. No idea where they originate.

JCP&L has major subtransmission line upgrade projects underway: https://firstenergycorp.com/newsroom/ne ... ounty.html

JCPL actually doing something about their god awful network? IMPOSSIBLE.

In all seriousness though, I’m not sure if EH Allen supplies poles to JCPL. I don’t see anything there that specifically mentions wooden poles.

I have seen EH Allen trucks unload those cars before, but not JCPL. Wouldn’t they come get the poles themselves?


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Pole cars tend to appear Thursday or Friday and are unloaded by a truck with a grapple crane on it's bed and transferred to another high-stake flatbed. Poles appear to be about 2/3 the length of the railcar. Sometimes to release the rail cars for the next batch they will pile the last load of poles on the ground so the rail cars can be released to make room for the next batch.
They have been doing 3-4 cars a week since early January. As a guess, 40 poles per railcar??