AceMacSD wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 12:41 pm
There's no need to return Lakewood to Lakehurst to service. There’s nothing down there. Real conversations were had with real people who actually make the decisions. There’s NO sand business there or in the near future. Unless real business (not I heard so and so wants rail service) opens up on the Toms River line, there's no need to do any work beyond Lakewood.
Who are the people you spoke with?
A couple of things:
1. Perhaps C&D will be given access to Browns Yard so they can just go in there, and do pick up and drop off? Would make more sense. If CR is going to have to come far down the line and drop off carloads at some yard at say Farmingdale or Route 88, you might as well just have CR start doing service again. Someone mentioned something about a union agreement with CR that would prevent DRRR coming into Browns, and then someone else said that's not true. No one ever posted a link or anything like that to back themselves up, so I have no clue. There is quite a lot of baseless speculation here, and it's not just about sand trains
2. I am 90% sure the grant said something about Lakewood to Lakehurst. I could be wrong. And fixing that up is brush clearing and some mild track work from what it seems, stuff that DRRR has already done on the Southern and will certainly not be the work DRRR is doing between Freehold and Farmingdale. I have a hard time believing that nothing will come out of Lakehurst-Woodmansie, since if that line is dead and nothing will come out of it, why do NJSL and Clayton continue to do maintenance to it? Even if it is "chump change" to spend maybe $10-50k paying the taxes, the maintenance to the abandoned line, etc. there can't be much benefit to doing all of that for something that has no rail potential, like many are saying around here. It just doesn't make sense, even for a state like NJ.
3. The TRIT is mostly dead. I'm not even sure why that line isn't listed as completely abandoned, especially since a year or so ago they did crossing maintenance up to the curve into Ciba-Geigy. I've heard rumors that there would be some sort of transloading site on the TRIT, but if that's true that won't happen until well after Farmingdale-Freehold is done. I think NJT is just making sure the TRIT stays under RR control and is not abandoned, since, if NJT ever ran trains down to Ocean County, having the terminus for that hypothetical line be at the Park and Ride in Toms River would make sense. Almost all property along the TRIT that could have been used for industrial purposes has been eaten up by all the housing developments and healthcare facilities that have overtaken the Holiday City area over the last 20-30 years
4. Obviously there is some sort of very large potential along the SOUS for the state to step in and throw a bunch of money at C&D to reconnect Farmingdale to Freehold. The FIT honestly wouldn't really benefit, since they aren't restricted by NJT the way the SOUS is. I seriously doubt that all this is just for a couple of lumber trains a week, there's something bigger in the works