CR on the Southern Secondary

Maybe we should all pool some money together, find some rich people to befriend, and buy the line ourselves. I'm sure we would do a good job

OCtrainguy,
There used to be a fantastic website that contained a myriad of pictures from when the Southern was running regular freights. Was that your website? Does it still exist?

@JohnFromJersey I was thinking about something like that too lol. Maybe someone in Lakewood could open a warehouse and distribute products to all the local stores in the area. Then they wouldn't need to bring trucks down from Newark. It wouldn't be the most ideal thing now because of the inability to bring Plate F boxcars, but it would be possible under the current transit limitations. (Plate E cars up to 16 feet 3 inches in height with a gross weight limit of 263,000 pounds)

OCtrainguy wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 7:31 pm A lot of discussion going on here the past few weeks on the ol' Southern. With 590 pages now, there's still a lot of passion from the railfans on the former CNJ line. As a child, a drive to my grandmother's in Lakehurst meant crossing the tracks in Lakewood and the Glidden Spur for a chance to see Conrail. That did happen a few times, seeing the train stopped at County Line Road right at 84 Lumber a few times and then once on the Glidden Spur.

We often didn't, but a walk from my grandmother's house down to the tracks in Lakehurst didn't result in seeing a train. Ironically, a weekday soccer game in Manchester during the fall of 1990 resulted in me seeing a train on the Toms River branch . The train was heading back to Lakehurst. I first photographed the SA35 back in 1997, thanks to a co-worker, who lived in western Howell and would cross the tracks in Farmingdale to get to the office. His sightings on certain days helped me get my first photos of the train.

A lot has changed obviously since then. Builders General has shipments consolidated to Freehold (from Little Silver, Toms River and Freehold locations). Gold Lumber was destroyed by fire and never rebuilt. US Components in Lakewood closed (is now a private school). The lumber yard in southern Howell changed names several times, not sure what it is now, but doesn't get rail service. DiNaso is no longer in Lakewood and whoever was receiving the pole cars there no longer does. PolyOne moved (out of state I think) from there location in Howell. They were a large customer for the line. Woodhaven is now the biggest customer. As also noted in the recent discussions, several have come and gone. Clayton has a rail line at their Lakewood location, but doesn't use it. The use of the siding for fertilizer via Ocean Gro was a great idea, but that was killed by competitors. Sand trains have been talked about for quite a while now. That would be a shot in the arm for this line.

There continues to be talk about potential for this line, but to me, that depends on who runs it and how hungry they'd be for that business. For now, I will continue to enjoy the updates we share on the weekly trip of the SA 31 and discussions concerning the line. When weather and my work schedule allows (hybrid of remote and in-office), I will try to get out and photo the train. That's getting a bit more challenging now with sunset at 6:30ish right now.

Couldn't agree more. Speculating is always fun, and a realists' view can't hurt from time to time.

CJPat wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 7:06 am OCtrainguy,
There used to be a fantastic website that contained a myriad of pictures from when the Southern was running regular freights. Was that your website? Does it still exist?

There is Chris' site as well as one with a load of CNJ era photos. The CNJ ones aren't the best quality since they were scanned but are still nice to browse from time to time. I don't have the link right now but I'll post it later.

https://www.app.com/story/travel/2016/1 ... /95162612/

I know this article is from 2016, but I believe it has some pertinent information in it that we must all keep in mind:

FACTS:
1) "The plan — conceived between Clayton Sand Co., New Jersey Seashore Lines and Conrail — is to restore freight service over 13 miles of rehabilitated track between Lakehurst and the Woodmansie section of Woodland Township, where Clayton operates a sand mine, according to Ocean County officials."
2) '"This has been going on over a couple of years," said David J. McKeon, Ocean County planning director. "I know they've been doing some maintenance, they've been clearing some brush away from the tracks. ... (Clayton) is going to use it to transport sand and gravel, that's their business."'
'"If they want to do something else, if they say, 'hey, we're going to expand the lines, we're going to do this and that, then they need to come to the Pinelands Commission and get a permit and work with them," McKeon said.'

TAKEAWAYS (redundant, but factual)
1) Clayton is the sole push for this reactivation. Other customers in the future is undetermined and too soon to speculate.
2) The state is fully aware of the want for the line to be reactivated. This project faces bureaucratic, financial, AND environmental hurdles in order for it to come alive. The Pinelands Commission needs to be involved with this project no matter what, Including possible future expansion of operations. This is something I never knew and overlooked.

BOTTOM LINE
1) We still have to wait...... this project may or may not ever fully takeoff and that's the frustrating part

Coast Line Railfan wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 12:07 pm

CJPat wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 7:06 am OCtrainguy,
There used to be a fantastic website that contained a myriad of pictures from when the Southern was running regular freights. Was that your website? Does it still exist?

There is Chris' site as well as one with a load of CNJ era photos. The CNJ ones aren't the best quality since they were scanned but are still nice to browse from time to time. I don't have the link right now but I'll post it later.

http://web.archive.org/web/201004250434 ... oudiv.html

@CR2721 Maybe Clayton is looking to move sand from their pit in Woodmansie to their locations in Lakewood and Freehold? It's certainly a possibility, and doing that would take a lot of trucks off the road...

Also, the sand pit in Woodmansie is capable of supplying 61 loaded cars per day, so there's potential for a big customer to buy from there. The sand is supposedly meant to be used for a new bridge and tunnels on the Northeast Corridor, but maybe Amtrak could use it for some of their other infrastructure upgrades they have planned.

@Coast Line Railfan - Thank you very much. That is the web page I was indeed thinking of. It is one of the most plentiful collection of rail photos from down in that vicinity I had ever seen. I was always impressed by it.

@Bracdude181 - Under typical circumstances, it usually is less economic and takes far greater time to shuttle rail cars around from one point to another within NJ compared to trucks. Trucks have been much less expensive and far more flexible in terms of pick up and delivery. Which is why the sand market and others only ship interstate by rail where the economy of moving large quantities of freight over large number of miles makes it more economical.

The exception is when a customer needs a vast quantity of materials (like sand for a tunnel or bridge) where many, many railcars of the same product are needed delivered in the same spot. Think Unit train.

Due to real estate costs, it doesn't make sense for most industries to warehouse excess quantities of anything as they tend to work with "just in time" deliveries which rail cannot compete with.

Where shipping in-state can work is if you have an industry that needs large and frequent quantities such as the old glass manufacturer's like anchor glass. They needed regular deliveries to keep their manufacturing line moving.

As an exercise, consider the amount of time it takes to call for one or two railcars to be delivered, assume a fast load up, and then the time to call for the cars to be picked up. The cars rarely will be moved direct to the customer, but more often need to be brought up by a scheduled local to 1 or 2 different yards where it has to be sorted and determined if the delivery can be made out of that yard to the customer by a local customer or whether it needs to move on a scheduled train to another yard and then await redistribution by a scheduled local. It could take a week to 2 weeks to move a hopper from Woodmansie to be delivered to, say Barrington, NJ. 5 trucks can deliver that in approx. 1-1/2 hours in traffic , driving approx 35 miles. Rail might take 1-1/2 weeks after pick up by rail and travel 125 miles.

Boils down to response time and money and local delivery by rail within the state of NJ does not handle this efficiently. Now interstate deliveries without drop dead dates like the multiple lumber cars delivered to Woodhaven on the Secondary work very well.

The SA31 is running today with NS 5286 and CSX 4432 along with sixteen cars. Included in those cars is a "On Track for a Cure" pink Railbox car. I caught the train crossing the Navesink River between 4:20 and 4:30 pm.

Yes, Stephen, a very special and rare visitor to the Southern today. To the best of my knowledge, there are only 2 box cars nationwide dressed in Pink. Unfortunately, the disgusting graffiti artists could not stay away...

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=5423635

A hectic weekend, with some unexpected events, so I still have to download the photos, but here is a video of the SA31 crossing the Navesink River.

https://youtu.be/rM8ABpimOE8

Any pictures of the crossings in Lakehurst? I understand there are new crossing signals. Is there a new crossing in Farmingdale?

The crossing on Union Ave was being worked on. The crew was from Kentucky so they did the first half of the work then went home for another project. They will likely return in November to finish the crossing. Once done the crossing will have a cantilever and gates for cars and pedestrians. The old Conrail crossing protection will be removed shortly after.

It should also be noted that the lead for the Toms River Industrial Track is being wired up to this new crossing as well, so maybe NJ Seashore Lines intends to park on the abandoned OceanGro siding once the sand trains kick off.

Two crossings were rebuilt in Farmingdale. The first one is on Academy Street. Academy Street was rebuilt because residents were complaining about the condition of the road surface. The other crossing is on Railroad Ave. This crossing is part of the Gold Lumber siding and hasn't seen a train since 2008 or 2009, so it's very odd that it was rebuilt. I've been hearing a lot of rumors that the Freehold Industrial will be rebuilt to Farmingdale so trains can access the Southern that way, instead of the current Coast Line route. I believe this is why it was rebuilt, but I could be wrong.

I don't have any pictures of Union Ave at the moment, but I have to be in Lakehurst tonight so maybe I'll take a few pictures if I have the time.

Thank you Bracdude181. Keep up the good job reporting.