Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 13, 2020 10:48 am
At this time, a takeover by Chesapeake and Delaware (or any other railroad) has not been confirmed. I haven't been able to find anything on the STBs website pertaining to the Southern Secondary or Central NJ freight trackage. All I found was Conrail requesting permission to abandon an industrial track in Pennsylvania that has no customers on it. I agree that until something is filed with the STB, we won't see any other railroad take over.
I believe this takeover rumor comes from recent efforts by North Jersey management to sell off some of their trackage south of Sayerville. (mainly the Southern and the Freehold Industrial) North Jersey no longer wants anything to do with Sayerville and the lines that connect to it, as they feel they are losing too much money on these lines. There are people within the organization who want to turn Central Jersey into something very profitable, but are unable to because of upper managements cost cutting and business practices.
Their most recent attempt was to sell the Southern to NJ Seashore Lines for a price between 8 and 30 million dollars, which NJSL said was too much. Other railroads were interested as well, but they all backed out for various reasons. (track conditions, freight limitations on NJ Transit, cost of improvements, areas to expand, etc
As for the decline of rail freight in Sayerville and points south, I personally haven't witnessed it personally. However, a very good friend of mine has witnessed it firsthand.
My friend has been watching the trains come down through Monmouth and Ocean counties for 30 years. (practically his whole life) Prior to the Conrail asset split off, the Southern saw two trains a week and a weekend switching crew that ran as needed. The trains were sometimes very long (40 cars or more) and there was a lot more customers than there is now.
Around early 2003, a sharp decline began. The SA35 was abolished and rechristened SA31, customers were dropped left and right, trains became shorter and less frequent, and service was eventually cut back to South Lakewood. He asked a crew who he knew personally about why this was happening, and they told him the following.
1. Traffic was dying because upper management felt that certain customers were not worth serving, even if they got a sizable shipment every trip.
2. NJ Transit had begun making large restrictions on freight cars. Certain types of cars and cargo were banned altogether.
The situation is further hampered by the fact that Conrail isn't allowed to look for business. Potential customers have to contact them and then go through NS or CSX to get rail service by Conrail on their behalf.
Of course, this isn't why ALL of the former customers are no longer are. Some have gone out of business and others have moved away. Gold Lumber stopped getting cars after their lot burned down.
It is however, the reason why customers like Brick Recycling and EH Allen can't get rail shipments. In the case of Brick Recycling, Transit said their cars could no longer come down citing fears that the weight of the cars would damage bridges on the Coast Line. Brick Recycling attempted to get service again, but Conrail was not interested in serving them.
This now means that Brick Recycling must ship by truck, which is significantly more expensive. The whole reason they moved in to that spot was because it had a rail siding. Now they can't use it, and are understandably very upset.
In EH Allens case, he has a siding and was getting cars frequently. At the time his siding was getting very old, so he asked Conrail to fix it. Conrail declined. Several other attempts to restore service were unsuccessful.
So now instead of having his cars shipped directly to his business in Sayerville, they are shipped down to builders general in Freehold. They are loaded onto a truck and brought back to Sayerville.
With all this in mind, is it any wonder why there's so many rumors about other railroads supposedly taking over Central NJ? Conrail has driven away so much business down here that it's no wonder they want to sell it all off to highest bidder.
Wow. I really hope Conrail sells the line off then, that's pretty counterproductive and neglectful. I don't think there's much they could do to fix up the line, even in advent of a management change, since they can't even try to recruit customers.
What were the other customers on the line? I knew by Collingswood Auction, there was a plastics factory, and there were various concrete facilities on the ROW as well; I believe the Farmingdale Industrial Park on the way to Mulligan's used to have some sort of freight service within the last couple decades too. There was customers on the TRIT (mostly Builder's General, who I thought elected to end freight service) as well.
Given the NJSL's recent troubles with operations down in Cape May (I don't think they ever recovered from the stolen track a few years ago), I'm not surprised they didn't pay millions for the Southern; though I could see them relocating to Central NJ. What other railroads were interested? NS? CSX? And I can't imagine the track quality was different 30-40 years ago, the Southern has been in the 10-20 MPH range for a while now.
As for NJT restrictions, there's a ton of freight on the Coastline north of Sayerville, and
even more on the northeast corridor. NJT shares a lot of single tracked lines, like the Atlantic City Line, with freight that uses said lines more than them. Why is the Coastline such a prized jewel for them?
They might as well give up the line for free at this point.