New Jersey Seashore Lines: was CNJ being cleard Woodmansie>N

Happy New Year, all......not to start a rumor, but a gentleman on the SJRA Yahoo group had an interesting thought regarding the line rehab to Woodmansie. What if......the line was not used for outbound sand, but for inbound stone trains, with the very large GSP widening project (exit 98 south to exit 80) just getting underway??? Alot of fill will be needed, and new concrete bridge abutments will be necessary, etc.
Your thoughts?

Doubt it. Isnt most of that project done already?

ApproachMedium wrote:Doubt it. Isnt most of that project done already?

Nope - it is just in its opening phase - they just finished clearing an enormous amount of trees and now can start building new bridges/wider lanes. I drive this route everyday and see there is a lot of work to be done.

Weird, 2 years ago when I was driving cars for a friends auto body shop i coulda swore they were pretty much done with clearing everything up from the bayville exit to the Manhawkin exit. Is it going further south than that?

Approach, this project will be from Toms River north to Wall Twp.; 'an enormous amount of trees' is exactly right, Scott, looks like a war zone in places. This will be no small feat, alot of new roadway & many new bridges will be required, probably over a couple of years time.
Chris

From the plans I have seen there will be new exits and entrances at 91, 88, 89 and church road. Years ago they widened the road and in the process did away with the road's shoulders from 91 to 89 - they are now widening this area and that requires a lot of new bridges for the roadway and ramps. Supposedly it has an anticipated completion in 2014. When it is done it will be a huge improvement for the area. I for one can't wait as I use exit 91 and it is always a mess.

Are we talking about the CNJ being cleared to Woodmansie here?

David, I believe we are still on topic; we are just wondering (due to a major construction project on the Garden State Parkway, not terribly far away from the CNJ) if there is a chance that the CNJ being cleared from Woodmansie north might be used for inbound traffic (i.e., stone trains), instead of the widely held notion of outbound sand trains.
I can start a seperate thread if you wish...
Thanks,
Chris

ApproachMedium wrote:Doubt it. Isnt most of that project done already?

ant, that was work done from Seaside to LBI, this is all north of that. But if they were able to do all that widening and excavating of the GSP south of Toms River a few years ago without trains, they will be able to do this project without trains.

RailsEast wrote:David, I believe we are still on topic; we are just wondering (due to a major construction project on the Garden State Parkway, not terribly far away from the CNJ) if there is a chance that the CNJ being cleared from Woodmansie north might be used for inbound traffic (i.e., stone trains), instead of the widely held notion of outbound sand trains.
I can start a seperate thread if you wish...
Thanks,
Chris

Ok, fine with me--Just integrate the connection with the CNJ-After reading several comments, I was not too sure the connection. Thanks--DCH

From some info I read online about rail projects in nj starting in 2007 and on, it sounds to me that their counting on the southern rail industry to pick up. If this happens it could mean a transload station in Lakehurst and possibly rehabilitating the line all the way to Winslow junction. The for that is to keep frieght off the coast line and have a more direct shot into Philly. This would also explain why seashore rr comp. is taken charge of the line past Lakehurst.

I've often wondered why freight on the Coast Line would be a problem. One round trip between South Amboy and Red Bank each week right now. Another train or two in a week's time couldn't be handled? I don't see NJT pax trains running that close together to be a problem for an occasional freight train. If it got "busy", do like the old CNJ days of running the Jersey City-Red Bank-Vineland JS1-SJ2 at night. Somehow freights fit between the busier old CNJ and PRR pax trains. And there aren't any NJCL on-line freight customers anymore to get in the way like there used to be. I don't see it getting "busy" anytime soon.

Well. Inbound stone and outbound sand, JSRR ,Winslow Junction and SRNJ. Let me catch my breath.

I think I'm missing something, napp1111. A more direct line to Philly from where? Aren't there already sufficient routes in place? How does freight get from NY to Philly now?

Stone in and sand out from west (south) of Lakehurst to Winslow. How does this affect the Coast Line?

Maybe this is right in front of me, but I'm missing it somehow.

My understanding of the NYC to Philly route is that the frieght routes are rapidly filling to capacity and a new route to divert traffic off of them would be useful. South Hersey has another concern, that being it's on'y rail connection to Philly is the Delair Bridge, opening the Southern Dicision back up could provide a circutious, albeit long, route to keep traffic flowing if the Delair were to go out of service for any extended period of time.