South Ave. East made crossing, Cranford, NJ

[Teutobergerwald]

While traveling to Westfield, NJ on Saturday, my route took me west via South Ave. East in Cranford, NJ. South Ave. East has an unprotected grade crossing with weedy trackage that crosses it diagonally, and there is busy trackage, with signals visible from the road, parallel to South Ave. East just to the north. What line does the grade crossing trackage belong to, and whats it status? I assume the other trackage I could see is NJ Transit ???? Thanks.

[kilroy]

The tracks crossing South Ave were the former B&O's Staten Island RR. Trackage was operated for a while by the Rahway Valley (RVRR) and Delaware and Oswego (NYS&W). M&E ran over it a few times to move cars from Bayway but now there is nothing on the line.

The plan had been to service the Staten Island intermodal yard and trash facility over these tracks but the Union County Freeholders insisted there be local service (that didn't exist) on the line so Conrail said we'll build ourselves a new interchange off of the Chemical Coast Line.

I believe there is much more about the whole sordid story in the Rahway Valley thread in the NJ forum.

Yes, the other tracks parallel to South Ave is NJT's Raritan Valley Line.

[BigDell]

Kilroy, I was wondering if there was a good summarization of that whole drama... I"m going to look in that other forum as you suggested. That was one weird episode I remember the test trains going through, years ago, and some cars parked in Cranford by the M&E... but I heard there was a lot more going on... Anyway, thanks for the info.

[ccutler]

It included a huge corruption scandal that was in the newspapers. A prominent M&E exec apparently got caught bribing NJ Transit officials for rail rehab projects, including this one. People were incarcerated. It was a long time ago and I don't think it reflects at all on current M&E execs or operations.