Northern Branch 2013

Monday thru Friday activity on the Northern Branch only seems to be the edible oil tank cars going up to Englewood. It will be 2 years in 2013 since a train has gone north of Englewood. However, today (Jan 8)at the Demarest Ave xing (north of the Palisade Ave xing) in Englewood a CSX crew (1 heavy duty truck and 2 light trucks) were working there. The crew was working on the rail joints just north of the xing. This does not make any sense to me since there have been no freight trains for quite while! Does anybody have any insight to this? Is CSX just wanting to maintain the line because that's what management wants or whatever? Thanks for any thoughts.

Well it is an active freight line, and technically that would also include the area beyond englewood even though there hasn't been a freight down that way in two years like you said. Csx however seems to want to keep this line. Remember too that there are still some old siding's still connected such as the old wyerhauser siding and so csx is probably maintaining that part of line in the event of future service.

The line has "call option" value should NJ ever want to extend its light rail lines up that right of way. Perhaps keeping the ROW servicable helps CSX in those discussions from a regulatory or legal perspective. And optimistically, maybe some freight might return up the line.