I think if you look at this situation the chain of events makes sense If you remove the wild ideas that have been floated and look the facts. This is my take.
The line was cleared and the grant was proposed when gas prices were high and a NJ/NY rail tunnel was to be built. Clayton looking at his useless tracks that he pays taxes on, generating no profit said "hey, I have a customer who wants rail delivery (lets say a cement plant?) and I want to bid on these big construction projects like a rail tunnel AND hey, the state will pay %90, why not try". If the tracks are reopened again for ($150K) why not try, and if big projects and more customers want sand via rail then great. It's better to "look Into" rehabbing the line now, and maybe pulling the trigger on the project now to for 150K, then having to spend 1.5 million 10 years, 20 years,or 50 years from now down the old rusty rail road.
so the grant gets approved and the next step is seeing what king of real traffic is out there and how much will it cost. Clayton and NJSL calls Conrail, NJT wants it's chance to complain and add some ridiculous Coast Line charge, and all parties finally talk and negotiate and a cost analysis is made, or I believe still being made. This analysis will decide if the tracks will be redone now.
Clayton probably has a customer, it's not 200 cars a week of sand, BUT it's not 5 either. The rumor floated on the forum is 5-10 cars daily. That may not be enough for the trains to start rolling but that is enough to keep this alive for a few more months, as that is a very big customer for Browns yard and will rock the world of operations in central jersey for freight railroading.
NJSL yeah, besides being there to move sand would want to do what he does, run santa trains and car storage. Why shouldn't he and I hope he does.
Conrail has 4 reasons as I see it to have done the bridges via their grant.1, they have a base with a spur in lakehurst to serve if they need service. yes it's very inactive but toxic dirt trains and passenger coaches for training purposes have all been delivered to that base in the last 10 or 12 years. 2, use the turnaround track in Lakehurst if needed. 3, to interchange with NJSL, .. maybe. 4, if they need to resume service to Lakehurst for any reason that would cost them a lot of money, but as of last week, nope, the state has paid for 90 percent so easy easy easy.
If we don't see any trains it's because it's not cost effective to do so, or Clayton believes it's too risky to might have to hand 1.5 mill back to the state if that is how these grants work. Also I don't believe there is any ill intentions on any party, It comes down to money.