Reviving passenger service between West Trenton & Bound Brook

[TAMR213]

Part of the former ROW runs through a Rutgers research facility (which contains NJ's only known old growth forest among other things, so good luck with the DEP)

What research facility are you speaking of? The old-growth forest is within the Rutgers Ecological Preserve on Livingston Campus.

While I agree this would be feasible in theory, in real life this would probably never even be an after thought. Between building a completely new line in Hillsborough and Millstone, reconstructing a bridge at East Millstone that hasn't existed since the Mercer & Somerset (and it apparently might not have even been originally completed), "reclaiming" the ROW through Franklin from both the environment and encroachment, along with probably a litany of other issues - just to avoid congestion in the Bound Brook and Manville area - makes this completely unrealistic.

[Chessie GM50]

Part of the former ROW runs through a Rutgers research facility (which contains NJ's only known old growth forest among other things, so good luck with the DEP)

What research facility are you speaking of? The old-growth forest is within the Rutgers Ecological Preserve on Livingston Campus.

While I agree this would be feasible in theory, in real life this would probably never even be an after thought. Between building a completely new line in Hillsborough and Millstone, reconstructing a bridge at East Millstone that hasn't existed since the Mercer & Somerset (and it apparently might not have even been originally completed), "reclaiming" the ROW through Franklin from both the environment and encroachment, along with probably a litany of other issues - just to avoid congestion in the Bound Brook and Manville area - makes this completely unrealistic.

I was referring to the Hutcheson memorial forest area which contains, among research plots and deer exclosures, a few of the oldest known trees in NJ. The ROW runs across the NW corner of the plot, which may make many uncomfortable.

[25Hz]

What would you all want or think service to look like, if it were hypothetically built?

I know there is a plan to re-activate and expand the east end of county yard, so that opens some possibilities, for that reversing to the loop move?

Would service ending at millstone make sense, with some kind of shuttle serving the areas between NEC and the delaware river?

What would this cost vs the needed projects (3rd track, etc) for west trenton-rvl service? Any ideas?

[Adirondacker]

What would you all want or think service to look like, if it were hypothetically built?

Like this but with more stops

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Blue_(train" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

There's wide existing, in use, ROW all the way to Philadelphia. Why would you want to go hacking your way through abandoned ROW to get to the Hopewell?

[TAMR213]

I was referring to the Hutcheson memorial forest area which contains, among research plots and deer exclosures, a few of the oldest known trees in NJ. The ROW runs across the NW corner of the plot, which may make many uncomfortable.

Interesting, I never even knew that existed (which surprises me). Tangent - the Rutgers Ecological Preserve includes many of the same things as the Hutcheson Memorial Forest.

With that being said, that makes this idea even that much more far-fetched.

[25Hz]

Well, thank you all for the input, i look forward to reading more opinions & info on this topic.

[nick11a]

I've thought about this too in the past. Despite how cool it might be, I don't think it is feasible. Additionally, there are new developments which encroach on the right-of-way along where the tracks are removed. It would be very tight and I'd be almost certain that there would be NIMBY opposition.

Plus, Conrail owns the right-of-way west of Jersey Avenue. The coordination between Conrail, CSX and Amtrak would be complicated.

[TAMR213]

Plus, Conrail owns the right-of-way west of Jersey Avenue. The coordination between Conrail, CSX and Amtrak would be complicated.

In addition, according to Wikipedia, Conrail only owns the ROW up to South Middlebush Road:

"Penn Central filed for bankruptcy in 1970, and sold all its railroad assets to the new government-created Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) in 1976. Penn Central only sold the portion of the Millstone Branch up to South Middlebush Road to Conrail while retaining ownership of the portion from South Middlebush Road to East Millstone."

[25Hz]

Oh jeeze. So who owns the rest of the line, haha?

[25Hz]

Not sure where this is supposed to go, but i was looking for RiverLine stuff and found this instead.

http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/001_AlignmentMap_1207.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[25Hz]

http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/CH02_Alter ... idered.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This too.........

[Regardie]

That is very nice but never going to happen. It would be even easier than the MOM proposal as most of it is existing rail infrastructure. Where does the money come from to start this up and where do the new trains go once they hit the RVL? Until there is new North River Tunnels any new service stops at Newark or Hoboken. You might as well start up service on the CNJ to Liberty State Park and hope a ferry company wants to move people across the river.

[Ken W2KB]

That is very nice but never going to happen. It would be even easier than the MOM proposal as most of it is existing rail infrastructure. Where does the money come from to start this up and where do the new trains go once they hit the RVL? Until there is new North River Tunnels any new service stops at Newark or Hoboken. You might as well start up service on the CNJ to Liberty State Park and hope a ferry company wants to move people across the river.

With respect to "where do the trains go?", my recollection from years ago is that there would not be new trains, or at most, a couple of new ones. What would happen is that some existing Raritan terminating/originating trains would travel to/from West Trenton after Bridgewater station. Somerville and Raritan passengers would have fewer trains from which to chose.

[pumpers]

Somerville and Raritan passengers would have fewer trains from which to chose.

Why's that? Because trains that stop there now would bypass those stations for some kind of semi-express, or the equipment would be tied up going to West Trenton so they couldn't get as many runs per day out of it?
In any case, I think the real problem would be CSX (unless business completely collapses). I don't believe they were ever in favor of this, and I hear the line has a lot more traffic (nearly 2X?) now compared to roughly 10 years or so ago. Including 1 or 2 Daily oil already and more coming. They have been trying like crazy to stop sharing with SEPTA further down the line and separating them and SEPTA onto different tracks, so I don't see how they would go for this, even assuming that NJ paid for some sidings...
JS
Perhaps if NJT built their own line on the ROW all the way to West Trenton,beyond what is already there, but from Pennington to West Trenton I don't know if there were ever more than 2 tracks and if the ROW would be wide enough.

[ryanov]

If you read this plan, it's 6 trainsets, one pulled from the RVL. The trains are added service for the RVL (though not at all stations).