CR on the Southern Secondary

Tanker1497 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 19, 2021 6:46 pm As per my previous post, They only rented the 450ft of track to work on 3 cars mentioned above. They are waiting for siding to be re connected to live track.
So another customer for Southern.
But first cars will be trucked in as stated above.

Based on the more often than not high prices to have track put back in, I can imagine a rail connection would be on the back burner, as the projects in the foreseeable future don't necessarily require to be delivered by train, and not to mention the hassle of getting the rolling stock cleared to run on NJ Transit.

Sneaky buggers, on the move at Bank for Church...

Following signal indication at BANK interlocking 8:34 PM.

That’s enough for me. Time to go home and play some GTA lol.

Tanker1497 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 19, 2021 6:46 pm As per my previous post, They only rented the 450ft of track to work on 3 cars mentioned above. They are waiting for siding to be re connected to live track.
So another customer for Southern.
But first cars will be trucked in as stated above.

Who will be in charge of reconnecting the siding while the D&D deal is up in the air? I wonder if this will be a long time thing, and we will see different restoration projects coming in and out of the place; that would be really cool to see random historic cars and perhaps even engines being shuttled in along with Woodhaven's loads.

RailsEast wrote: ↑Fri Nov 19, 2021 6:32 pm

Stavola could be a possibility if the sand trains from Woodmansie ever get running, but I doubt it. I believe there's another place called Ewing Landscape Supply somewhere around there that also has a siding still in tact, but not connected to the line.

According to my father, Freehold Cartilage tried to convert the old window factory in Freehold into a waste transfer station some years ago; there's a clause somewhere in NJ law that as long as a property is connected to rail, the owners of said property can use it however they want since that's automatically an industrial zoning. However, the spur from the FIT had to be rebuilt, and the company was not able to jump on that opportunity since zoning blocked it, obviously.

I could see the Tinton Falls Landfill getting service, perhaps. I'm surprised they aren't already, they're right next to the mainline, and they have a lot of property back there that would be good for that. It would certainly be a more appropriate spot than a random spot in Howell like they are planning.

There's also a lot of warehouses being built around here, not sure if they would get any service.

John from Jersey wrote:

Stavola could be a possibility if the sand trains from Woodmansie ever get running,

Highly unlikely. Stavola and Clayton are basically competitors and not likely to buy / sell to each other. That is beside the fact that the distance is too short to be profitable.

The landfill can only see rail traffic in one of two situations

1. The landfill completely fills up forcing all inbound waste to be loaded onto trains.

2. Any recyclable material they get through there is usually baled and sold. Load the bales in a boxcar and send them off to whoever is buying.

Stavola wouldn’t get sand from Clayton, but they could get stone and tar for their road paving that they do. (Not that they’d get that from Clayton) Question is do they deal with enough to justify getting train cars of it.

The earlier posts on Red Bank Recycling are accurate. Only thing is it was NJT who told everyone that RBR would get like 20 more trucks per day in there because they didn’t want more scrap cars on the Coast Line.

Freehold Cartage actually did try to ship their outbound waste with Conrail? Wow. Sucks that they couldn’t do that. Would be a big money maker. Maybe Freehold Cartage can have the transfer station somewhere else?

Howell is trying to get some sort of waste transfer facility in, such a project would be better at an already existing dump.

The biggest issue this line has is not really Conrail IMO, it's the fact that so many local towns are extremely hostile towards industry that would get served by rail, if not rail as a whole.
Keep in mind the biggest reason MOM never formulated was because of so much pushback against it, when the rail was already there.
Not to mention when towns like Howell have any sort of warehouse or industry coming into the area, the locals will come out in droves to the town council meetings to make sure the plans don't go through. They've been pretty successful recently. Even for existing industry, the townspeople will make sure they can't expand, an example of this was who we were just talking about, Red Bank Recycling.

The only spot on the line that Freehold Cartage could put a waste transfer facility is the old Gold's spot. It still has a spur, but it is pretty small compared to what they were trying to work with in Freehold. In addition, the landlord/owner of that property is a well known cheapskate who owns a lot of empty properties due to him refusing to rent/lease to anyone who won't pay him a lot of money, i.e. retail chains and housing/apartment developments.

Google maps shows most of the siding still intact for Standard Roofing / ABC Supply and Ewing Irrigation in Tinton Falls. Maybe another company can share rail service like at Brick Recycling?

As far as I know, the ABC/Hatteras switch is disconnected from the main, but still intact where the spur split. I would imagine business would be deterred now that the switch was disconnected because of the cost to reinstate it, a common case with other spurs here and elsewhere.

@RustyRail5634 I’m over by that ABC whenever the train runs and they usually don’t get that much in there. It seems to be more of a repair facility for all their trucks than anything else. From what I understand ABC somewhere in South Jersey gets cars from Conrail on a night job out of Camden. I’m fairly sure Conrail tore the switch out in 2017 or so even after ABC told them not to.

@JohnFromJersey Slightly concerning to hear Howell seems rather against any sort of rail freight in the area. Most of the potential growth areas are in Howell and points south. They may not want the train now, but will they say the same about all the trucks on the road?

Down here in Ocean County, feelings towards trains are very mixed. Some love it, some hate it, some want MOM, etc. Really depends on who you ask. Especially in Lakewood where you get to see both sides of the story just by coming out to see the train!

I wouldn't say they are opposed to freight trains or trains in general as a whole, but they are definitely opposed to industrial facilities moving in.

The issue is of chicken or the egg. The tracks came first, but none of the warehouses/industry moving in seems to be including rail usage in their blueprints/plans at town council meetings to get people to ease up a bit. Not sure why, I'm assuming cause of Conrail's management practices; maybe C&D would be different? Who knows. All those warehouses have opted to use trucks and what not instead.

@JohnFromJersey The reason why most warehouses don’t use trains is because of the “just-in-time” delivery strategy that most warehouses use now.

https://www.hollingsworthllc.com/infogr ... -delivery/

If the shipment needs to go long distance they put it in containers and put the containers on a hub-to-hub intermodal train. It’s cheaper that way, and to them it’s all that matters.

Here’s a picture of Lakehurst Yard at some point during the 1930s.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/RRGbYHLz3h9Szpsw8

Wow. Imagine if we could have this now!

Just gotta stop subsidizing highways, airlines, oil/gas, etc and we'll have that back in no time.