With all due respect, I am not the one coming up with the idea of building intermodal facilities in the Central and Southern regions of NJ, the state (and I assume their private enterprise partners) are coming up with it.
Also, I am kind of using intermodal and transloading interchangeably here, to mean some sort of yard/facility that is centralized and where customers can come pick up and drop off loads from/for the railroad.
As you can see
in this document, there is a lot of discussion about intermodal freight; just Control+F / search the document with the word "intermodal!" Much of it talks mostly about existing yards in Northern NJ, but a fair amount of the document (like around page 187, discussing north-south connections, specifically the "Blue Comet Route") mentions building intermodal facilities in the more southern parts of NJ.
There are not many major yards in South NJ, and if there are, they are right outside Philadelphia - a lot of industry in South Jersey is considerably further east than there. Specifically, on pages 198 and 199, there was direct mention of creating an intermodal/terminal yard in South Jersey.
This report/document was from ten years ago, but the fact that the state gave considerable money to C&D to do a lot of upgrades + projects on two lines that were considered dying just a few short years ago, has to mean something.
Not sure where they would put an intermodal/big transloading yard on the TRIT (if that is even still possible anymore), doubt Fort Dix will give up some land for a yard, especially given the military and geopolitical situation these days.
