Branch off CSX line near Trenton

[carajul]

Just before Trenton along the CSX line there is a branch that goes south for a mile or so. It leaves the main on a wye just after the main crosses Parkway Ave. Anyone know if this branch is still used? The rails look pretty bad but there are xing flashers along the line. I think this was the coal spur for the Trenton Insane Asylum for coal deliveries to the powerhouse. I don't know if there are any other customers. Any info would be appreciated.

Following the branch south more even in the 1970s it looks like it continued much further than it does today. It went thru several warehouse/industrial parks and there were spurs everywhere. Then it went thru Trenton down the middle of a street. There were box cars spotted here and there. There was a large rail yard along Rt 1 where Olden Ave goes overhead. Then the branch connected via another wye the NEC just north of the Trenton station. Looks like it was a busy industrial branch back in the 40s-70s with cars spotted everywhere.

Now the row is built on as a road or highway.

So basically this line went from the NEC just north of Trenton station to West Trenton CSX line.

[SemperFidelis]

Unless I'm screwed up, two marriages and two stnts in the service being evidence thereof:

That is a spur (ex-RDG) that used to run to a massive GSA Depot, operated by the federal government. The other end of the line connects to the former LV (now NS) Lehigh Line. I imagine the location was chosen to foster competition.

I would love to see it become some sort of intermodal termnal, but the area is pretty affluent (IIRC) and I doubt they'd appreciate a few hundred trucks per day onto an already overcrowded road.

[carajul]

Sorry you're a bit screwed up

The spur into GSA is in Hillsboro. I'm talking about a branch in West Trenton.

Just did some research... this line was the RDG Co "East Trenton Branch" it terminated at a yard and freight house in downtown Trenton on Willow St. The wye off the current CSX line was known as "Trenton Jct". Amazing how busy the branch was. Guess Trenton was once very industrial. By the late 1970s the line was dead.

[kilroy]

That' why the bridges across the Delaware say "Trenton makes, the world takes."

[LocoCam]

We call it the "Trenton Industrial" just use it to set off cars that hit the defect detector @ mp 38.

[CJPat]

I maybe misinterpreting how others have responded to Carajul's question, but I believe he is asking about the Trenton Industrial branch that originally was the Reading's access to downtown Trenton terminating at the Trenton Reading Station off of Willow St (?). It sounded like Carajul, in his description, may have crossed over lines accidentally and then started describing the Pennsy line running along the Delaware Canal and Delaware River from Phillipsburg to Trenton and followed the line over to the old Barracks yard north of the Trenton Station on the Pennsy mainline (now NE Corridor). I believe the Pennsy line (BelDel?) actually branched over to the Barracks yard, but otherwise continued running south along the Delaware River along what is now referred to as the Riverline down to Camden.

The Reading Trenton Branch served the Trenton Psyciatric Hospital, as well as Homosote (I think this was the last customer), and numerous factories in and around Olden Ave. I also believe there was a rail connection (Interurban?) that ran from a connection off the Reading north past Rider University, thru Lawrenceville, and up to the Princeton area. That part is confusing because I would have thought the Interurban would have been an isolated line and not connected to heavy rail? I think Trainlawyer and a few others have a much better understanding of that line than I.

The other references to the branch that ran to Belle Meade GSA facility occurs further north off the CSX/former Reading line just south of Hillsborough.

[pumpers]

That trolley line had a few names over the years, including the "Johnson line" and "Princeton Fast line" and "Trenton Princeton Traction" (it used to go to downtown Princeton, near where the library is now). It also was used for freight, so when the trolley company finally went under (date ?), the Reading RR took over the freight service, connecting from where the Trenton Branch crossed the trolley, and ran up to Lawrenceville, which by then was the end of the line, to deliver coal and service a few other customers. It lasted to Lawrenceville at least until the late 1960s. I don't know if the southern end of the trollley (south of what is now I-295) made it up to the Conrail era or not. Before the Reading took over service, I assume the trolley line interchanged with the Reading at the junction with the Trenton Branch, but it is possible they got cars from the PRR somehow in Trenton.

Lots of links on the web, including railroad.net
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 27&t=58424" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (Has some of Trainlawyer's first hand observations as a primary source!)
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 27&t=24020" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
One of the posts in those links says the trolley line was built to heavy "interurban" standards and thus could handle the heavy freight cars.
JS
Edit: Here is a 1918 Mercer County and 1919 Trenton maps that shows the relevant branches and trolley and more
http://mapmaker.rutgers.edu/MERCER_COUN ... /index.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://mapmaker.rutgers.edu/MERCER_COUN ... /index.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
1. As mentioned, the Reading Trenton branch never did connect with what is now the NEC (PRR main). It ended at a station at what is now Route 206 or North Warren St just north of the Tucker St intersection.
2. The interurban in question (called the NJ and PA Railway on the maps) did not connect with the Reading line to the station in Trenton, but rather with an industrial spur off of it to the NY Ave area (parallel to the canal) called the East Trenton Branch. (There apparently was also some interchange between the Reading and the PRR in the NY Ave. area, with the PRR Enterprise branch adjacent to the Reading E Trenton branch.)

[pumpers]

Here's a link to a picture of the Reading RR station in Trenton at N Warren St: https://books.google.com/books?id=J-BEA ... ng&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
JS

[wborys]

Man, this is fascinating stuff, especially for some one who spent the last 40 years
living in Mercer County. Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong century...

[CJPat]

You are now living in the period they experts are calling the resurgence.

As a kid growing up in the late 60's and 70's, I am told that was considered the downfall of the Railroad era. The highpoint occurred during the 1940s & 1950s.

[pumpers]

Maybe it would have been great to live 100 years ago (lack of modern medicine and central heat, etc. noted). However, it could be that we are all just nostalgic for the past and things of our youth, and if we had been alive 100 years ago, we would have been complaining about the demise of the horse and buggy, and the wood stove and the outhouse. I'd still like to give it a try, however.
JS
There was a pretty good Woody Allen movie "Midnight in Paris" a few years ago, about a guy who actually could go back in time to his "golden era", just to find that the people there were complaining about their modern times and wanting to go back to an earlier golden era of their own.

[ExCon90]

Another reflection on going back 100 years is that people who worked for a living in those days had their nose to the grindstone 5 1/2 days a week and had only Saturday afternoon and Sunday to do any riding (and a week's vacation--if any--was a lot). I think it would have been frustrating to live (for example) in a state like New York or Pennsylvania with all kinds of rail attractions and only having a day and a half to get somewhere, ride part of something, and get back. For anyone not having an independent income a trip from the Northeast to the West Coast was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, if it was even possible. I like George Drury's idea, mentioned in one of his columns, that heaven is a place where you can ride any train of your choice, at any period in history, whenever you want.

[bluedash2]

You are now living in the period they experts are calling the resurgence.

As a kid growing up in the late 60's and 70's, I am told that was considered the downfall of the Railroad era. The highpoint occurred during the 1940s & 1950s.

But it will never be what it once was. More trains, less tracks, less major railroads and a scorched landscape.....

[wborys]

Hah, gentlemen, good point on life 100 years ago.
Let me re-state, I'd love to do a 'midnight in Paris'
visit to soak up the sights and sounds of steam engines
criss-crossing the state, (maybe help put out some
track-side fires) and then come back to my
Ben-and-Jerry ice cream infused world...

[pumpers]

Now that the multimodalways site is back up, here is a good Conrail map showing the abandonment dates of the former Reading RR Trenton Branch, the former Reading RR East Trenton branch, the former Trenton Princeton Traction (later Reading), and the former PRR Enterprise branch, all in that same area . All abandoned August- October 1982. Note the stub from the junction of the Trenton Branch and East Trenton branch that ran to the Reading passenger station on WIllow St is not even on the map - it must have gone out long before Conrail.
http://www.multimodalways.org/docs/rail ... 4-1983.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Also interesting to note is that the Ewing-Lawrenceville section of the trolley line did not make it into Conrail, and is listed as "Reading Estate". I am guessing all the customers were gone before C-day but don't know for sure. I also see the connector from the PRR TRenton Cutoff (Morrisville line,now NS) to the Reading Trenton line (now CSX) at near CP Wood wasn't put in yet.
JS