Delaware and Raritan River Railroad-General Discussion

Ok, I just checked Live Maps. I do see it is Rt 88. That housing development threw me. I guess it has been a couple of years since I went to downtown Lakewood.

Marl Road at 12:42 PM

North at DCS ROOSEVELT 1:08 PM

@CJPat Lakewood is constantly morphing and changing. It’s almost unrecognizable from how it was in the 2000s.

Back in Red Bank 1:47 PM

JohnFromJersey wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 1:06 pm How many times a week will trains run on this segment now? As it stands, they run two times a week on the FIT and SOUS each. Will they run 4x a week then, or will they do it twice a week and try to get everything done in one train? Or could we see daily trains again??

No daily trains. It'll still be twice a week service with the possibility of three day service on an as requested basis.

baju wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 4:50 pm We have to remember that in the future the 2 local trains per week will have to make room for the 30 car sand trains!!

Maybe all that sand traffic would require more than one passing siding.

Lakewood is, IIRC, the fastest growing town/city in the state. It's absurd that they don't have some sort of commuter rail service, but that's a different story...

In addition, they have continued working by the wye area. Some sort of highrailer truck with the crane arm on it was moving some rail by the curve. They have installed the actual switch/switch bar that will be used to flip the switch, so I assume they will get the wye done (relatively) soon.

Southard Ave looking towards Freehold.

Adelphia Road looking towards Farmingdale which is being built very strangely and the track is still all over the place.

Yellowbrook Road looking towards Freehold. Not the best picture I know. I’ll get a better one on Friday.

The "Adelphia Road looking towards Farmingdale" picture shows (I think) track that has been assembled and had the first layer of ballast dumped, but not tamped down yet. They will add ballast and tamp it until they raise it to the height of the track through the road crossing.

Why not lay the stone first then put the track on top?

Reminds me of when they had to raise the rails on the sand line cause the road was higher than the track at Route 539 (Clayton Sand Line) but I don’t think they did it this way.

If you look at the size of the stone at Adelphia compared to that at Southard, it is much larger. It will be an underlayment for the ballast. They will lift the track and ties to sit on top of it before ballasting, leveling and straightening. They must expect possible flooding there. It is rather swampy.
They know what they are doing.
They also used the heavier stone on both sides of Southard before adding ballast. And if I remember correctly, also at Okerson and Howell roads and south (east?) side of Yellowbrook.

Took a ride down Southard today, too

Thank you for showing the new switch stand I was gonna show it but my picture was garbage.

I noticed that all the tractor trailers and other sundries have been cleared away up to the building on southward ave. I wonder if this is all railroad property between the poles and building. Have they been storing their stuff for years on railroad property. If this is railroad property it makes for quite a big yard in the future. If business ever picks up.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 27, 2023 1:29 pm Why not lay the stone first then put the track on top?

Reminds me of when they had to raise the rails on the sand line cause the road was higher than the track at Route 539 (Clayton Sand Line) but I don’t think they did it this way.

It's easier to assemble new track on the roadbed and then bring in all ballast using the rails than it is to truck in all the ballast and then assemble the track (this is the same way Brightline built their new line in Florida).