Raritan Center Questions

[rr503]

Hey all,

Few questions:

Can anyone give a general overview of traffic/ops on the RR? Major customers, switch times, etc?

Secondly, and 100% unrelated, I found this brochure on their website, and I was wondering if anything came of its plan.
http://www.raritancentralrr.com/pdf/rar ... aritan.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks as always!!

[ccutler]

You would hear from railfans if rail container movements were moving south through South Amboy to Raritan Center. The connecting track is still out of service to my knowledge. I also suspect that such a short haul would work only when the port's truck gates are gummed up. otherwise it would be faster, cheaper, and more reliable to ship the containers via truck for such a short haul. I would guess Conrail would not favor switching intermodal well cars, consuming dockside and yard capacity, just to move the well cars 20 miles to the Raritan Central facility.

Running barges loaded with containers from the ports to Raritan Central might be more feasible, and that is already done for several regional ports.

IIRC, Raritan Central had also tried to convince Conrail to switch their interchange to using the connecting track through South Amboy, instead of using the NE Corridor, to avoid commuter traffic. I'm not sure how important such a switchover would be. Maybe NJ Transit charges high fees to access the NE Corridor line? I don't know.

[ExCon90]

ccutler is correct that it would be cheaper by truck. The lift costs alone, being unrelated to the line-haul rail distance, would probably defeat such a short-haul rail move. In addition, if there was a conflict at Port Newark over allocation of track time for lift-on/lift-off of interior vs. Port Raritan traffic, the latter would get short shrift; each truck could go when loaded.

[rr503]

Yeah I can see that being an absolute disaster. Just was wondering if it was still something being pushed.

Anyone have info on current ops?