@jdh823 This is gonna be a long post.
Well for starters they do some questionable things up there. Like putting cheap locks on their replay cases. You know, the ones you can buy at Home Depot for $15 that you pick with a screwdriver or hairpin? Yeah. They put those on boxes that hold thousands of dollars worth of equipment inside. Can’t wait to see them be put on the boxes in Lakewood come to find the copper wires, batteries, and signal rectifiers missing the day after! They also have a really bad habit of going 25 MPH on track where the cars are substantially rocking due at 10 MPH… They also re-did the crossing circuits for 15 MPH (for 10 MPH track?) so when a 25 MPH train comes flying down the tracks the lights come on only 7-10 seconds before the train reaches the road. I’ve seen quite a few cars nearly get hit because of that!
Their tariffs? Not only are they the higher than both CSX and NS (last I checked) and most NJ short lines, but they have one that sticks out. $1000 for any car higher than Plate C, wider than 10 foot six, and weighing over 263,000 pounds. First off, they are the ONLY company I’ve seen that does this. Second, why is this charge even here? I get charging for something beyond the loading gauge, but many modern freight cars are bigger and can be loaded beyond what’s specified in the tariff…
They seem to get a number of complaints from NJT about how RP-1 goes down their tracks. Most recent one I heard was a complaint that they dropped cars off in Dover Yard then shoved back towards Lake Junction (presumably to work the Rockaway Branch?) which held a few trains up. Other complaints have included the presence of flat spots on 2005 and 2006s wheels and issues with PTC.
Service? Well in the sense of actually getting their cars to the customer without issues, they are slightly better than Conrail. Although I have heard that a few of their customers have complained. Mainly Royal Distribution who C&D only runs to as needed now. Have also heard the Rockaway Branch customers aren’t happy that RW-1 got abolished and now RP-1 does it. RW-1 served them three times a week, now C&D only goes up to Dover and Totowa as needed. Berrys Plastics complained a lot too from what I’ve heard, which may have played a role in them shutting their Phillipsburg plant down, maybe not.
Maintenance? They rebuilt Washington Yard, (which they had to because it was almost unusable) and added Plate F capacity to most of their network………that’s about it. Everything else is like Conrail. Left to rot or held together with duct tape. Their crossings constantly fail, their engines smoke like a volcano and leak oil everywhere, bridges that noticeably bend under the weight of trains, tracks that haven’t been tamped and have spikes falling out, etc.
It’s literally Conrail North Jersey only it’s a smaller watered down version with higher prices and nearly all of the same problems.
And before anyone goes “Oh its only a small company they are trying their best!”
Why does the Pine Creek Railroad, a non for profit operation with a far more limited budget and resources have better maintenance?
Why doesn’t Seashore Lines have engines that smoke and leak oil everywhere? They’ve even smaller than C&D and don’t make as much money. Same for SMS. They have some of the oldest and most outdated engines you can possibly operate and they don’t smoke or leak oil.
Why has SRNJ, another small company, completely rebuilt some of their lines? If they can rebuild the Salem Branch with heavy welded rail and redo the roadbed and replace thousands of ties, why can’t C&D do it to the Washington Secondary which all their trains go down to access all their customers?
Yes I know all these different companies have their own problems and situations they deal with. But it still begs the question of why they, with fewer resources and money at their disposal, can do what Dover and Delaware doesn’t.
As for Dover and Rockaway, with the exception of RW-1 being abolished they seem better off. Still the same pricey tariffs but at least the service and maintenance is better. They’ve been doing more transloading too
Back to Delaware and Raritan River, they really do have a chance to turn this area into a major rail network like it was before Conrail Shared Assets. But for the love of god, ONLY if they don’t run it like they run Dover and Delaware! Otherwise the Southern and Freehold Industrial will continue on the downward spiral into hell they’ve been on for the last 19 years now.
