Glassboro-Camden Line (Light Rail)

RiverLINE is a mixture of single and double track. NJ indeed isn’t exactly business friendly but from my research I’ve found that’s not exactly enough to drive away everyone who left as far as Central Jersey goes, but more on that another time. I will say that outside of the RiverLINE South Jersey appears to have slowly been getting more traffic over the years.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 19, 2022 10:28 pm Yeah but it says in the link I provided many of the customers had to adjust their operations to accept nighttime deliveries and Conrail reported that operating costs went up. A lot of customers left too but idk if the operation shift was solely to blame for that.

I can see smaller customers leaving due to the night-only restraint, esp. non 24/7 operations. Conrail probably has to pay the crew more for night shift work and passes those charges along to the customer as well.

@NotYou It’s certainly possible. Here in Central Jersey (which is under Conrail North Jersey) Conrail passes on the price to go down NJTs North Jersey Coast Line to the customers. That is a big reason why my nearest rail line (CSAO Southern Secondary) has suffered so much over the past two decades. South Jersey has different people calling the shots and they seem far more caring to their customers than Conrail North Jersey, which I’m sure is a factor for the remaining customers north of Pennsauken have stuck around.

I would also like to point out that the state has mentioned a potential reroute of traffic to Vineland down the Beesleys Point Secondary by reopening the Vineland to Winslow portion of the Southern Secondary. This solves the temporal separation problem, but going that way is 8-10 miles longer than the current one and requires extensive repairs to an OOS track. I would assume this means an increase in cost to an extent? More miles=higher carload rates?

Please go read https://railroad.net/post1562018.html#p1562018.

This is not going to be a heavy rail line.

The GCL will have dedicated tracks for CSAO freight and the light rail.

See page 10 in the linked document.

http://glassborocamdenline.com/pdf/EISf ... iption.pdf

Ahhhh okay. I was under the impression that Conrail and the GCL trains wouid share the one track past Woodbury going off another picture I found showing how the line would be built.

Is this project being delayed, since it's biggest backer, Senator Sweeney, lost his re-election? Senator Durr is opposed to funding it.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 20, 2022 9:52 pm Ahhhh okay. I was under the impression that Conrail and the GCL trains wouid share the one track past Woodbury going off another picture I found showing how the line would be built.

There is going to be some track sharing between Woodbury and Glassboro but since there is only one round trip freight on that line that could easiliy run between 1 am and 5 am, and little to no chance of the need for anymore, this shouldn't pose any type of a problem.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 20, 2022 12:15 am I would also like to point out that the state has mentioned a potential reroute of traffic to Vineland down the Beesleys Point Secondary by reopening the Vineland to Winslow portion of the Southern Secondary. This solves the temporal separation problem, but going that way is 8-10 miles longer than the current one and requires extensive repairs to an OOS track. I would assume this means an increase in cost to an extent? More miles=higher carload rates?

It would certainly be quite cheaper and probably be way faster to construct the GCL if they did this.

Yes. But if they took this longer route would it be more expensive to the customers? Not to mention Winslow to Vineland needs quite a bit of work for this to happen.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:36 pm Yes. But if they took this longer route would it be more expensive to the customers?

From what I have seen regarding the trains that go through Glassboro, they are pretty large unit trains that I assume serve a few large customers instead of many small customers. If the cost is pushed onto the customer, it probably won't be as devastating or as large of an increase as it was a smaller customer getting a few cars. That being said, 8-10 extra miles isn't a whole lot either way.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:36 pm Not to mention Winslow to Vineland needs quite a bit of work for this to happen.

Almost guaranteed that if they end up going for my suggestion (which probably won't happen), the state would fund such work. It would still be far cheaper to fix Winslow-Vineland than add three upwards of four extra tracks to a single-tracked line

JohnFromJersey wrote: ↑Fri Mar 25, 2022 2:56 pm

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:36 pm Yes. But if they took this longer route would it be more expensive to the customers?

From what I have seen regarding the trains that go through Glassboro, they are pretty large unit trains that I assume serve a few large customers instead of many small customers. If the cost is pushed onto the customer, it probably won't be as devastating or as large of an increase as it was a smaller customer getting a few cars. That being said, 8-10 extra miles isn't a whole lot either way.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:36 pm Not to mention Winslow to Vineland needs quite a bit of work for this to happen.

Almost guaranteed that if they end up going for my suggestion (which probably won't happen), the state would fund such work. It would still be far cheaper to fix Winslow-Vineland than add three upwards of four extra tracks to a single-tracked line

They are only going to add one track south of Woodbury to Glassboro, and they will do that whether you have a 30 car 5 days a week through freight or not. To run that train which can easily run overnight through Winslow Jct. to Vineland comes at great expense with 0 benefits.

That’s the picture I mentioned several posts back. I know it’s only one train but seeing as how Conrail has been affected by the River LINE I’m not sure if they will play along with that.

Thing is though, that happened because Conrail sold the line to NJT. If the GCL will run on Conrails track beyond Woodbury wouldn’t they at least need approval for it? I’m not sure if they are to that point. I only know that their environmental impact study is done…

Last I checked the only thing they need is the billion or so dollars from the feds to start the contracting process, which they've needed for the past 20 years. Conrail doesn't care about moving a freight that small up a few hours to run in the middle of the night, especially when they are getting massive improvements to the line between South Camden and Woodbury at taxpayer dollars instead of their own. That line between Woodbury and Glassboro hasn't increased in business in decades so temporal separation is no problem into the foreseeable future. John seems to think they're adding 3 to 4 additional tracks between Woodbury and Glassboro and there's no need to add more than one and no plan or reason to do so in the future. CRSA's been trying to dump the Millville to Woodbury line for years, so I'm sure if TNJ wants it they can negotiate a sale. Among the former PRSL lines they're only interested in keeping Pavonia to Pennsville. I'm sure they'd sell Winslow to Pavonia if the price was right. At one point they were even talking about having W & W have operating rights to Pavonia and handle the Bellmawr industrial track, but I haven't heard anymore about that in a good 10 years.

Interesting. Thank you for the information!