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  • Woodbine Industrial Update - April 11, 2006!

  • Discussion relating to the PRSL
Discussion relating to the PRSL

Moderator: JJMDiMunno

 #236362  by JJMDiMunno
 
Hello everyone,
On April 11th, other business took me down into Cape May County from my local of Camden County. While down there, I decided that a Woodbine construction update was in order and long overdue, and so I stopped by the junction to check things out. Not expecting to see anything else done since January, I was surprised at what I saw.

We'll start out with a view of the industrial leads and their connection to the Cape May Branch. This was finished as of my last update. We see the Cape May Branch on the far left, and the two industrial leads in the middle and to the right. The center rail is on the original ROW of the Woodbine Secondary, abandoned around 1970:

http://www.sjrail.com/DailyPhotos/Woodb ... strial.jpg


Moving down to Friedrickstadt Road, we see more of an overview of the junction. This is still facing north. Once again, the Cape May Branch can be seen on the far left, with the leads in the middle and curving off to the right by that power pole:

http://www.sjrail.com/DailyPhotos/Woodb ... rial_2.jpg


Continuing down the ROW for the old Woodbine Secondary lead, we come to the end of the currently laid track. The roadbed continues for some distance beyond here to Heine Avenue:

http://www.sjrail.com/DailyPhotos/Woodbine/RailEnd.jpg


Taking a little bit of a walk, we come to Heine Avenue. Facing south-east, we can see where this industrial track will eventually go. This is the ROW for the original Woodbine Secondary from the days of the PRSL:

http://www.sjrail.com/DailyPhotos/Woodb ... ed_End.jpg


Crossing Heine Avenue and looking back to the north-west, we can see more of an overview of the currently ballasted ROW:

http://www.sjrail.com/DailyPhotos/Woodbine/Heine.jpg


Taking a walk up Heine Avenue and back to Friedrickstadt, we can see that more of the Modern Gas spur has also been completed. This spur curves off sharply from the Woodbine Secondary lead just past the switch for the Cape May Branch. While the crossing over Heine has not been completed here either, maybe a hundred feet of rail has been laid on the east side of the junction of Heine and Friedrickstadt:

http://www.sjrail.com/DailyPhotos/Woodb ... rn_Gas.jpg


And just for fun, I found that the PRSL mechanical switch machine is still on the ground by the Cape May Branch switch there at Woodbine. It can be seen in a close view here:

http://www.sjrail.com/DailyPhotos/Woodb ... achine.jpg


Hope this gave everyone a decent update on what's happening at Woodbine...take care everyone.

Mike DiMunno
www.SJRail.com: All about South Jersey Railroads!

 #236379  by chuchubob
 
Great shots, Mike. Thanks for the update.

Bob

 #236420  by Steam man
 
Nice work Mike! :wink:

 #236466  by Don Lee
 
Excellent update on the Woodbine Jct. work.

FYI, Mike, the last photo is actually a circuit controller. This was connected to the hand operated switch at Woodbine Jct. When the switch was thrown to the reverse position, this controller would drop the track circuit and cause signals north and south of Woodbine Jct. to change indications from Clear to Caution.

If the switch was reversed without a train present, the indication change would alert an engineer that the Woodbine Jct. switch was open. A train operating in either direction between these signals would cause the same indication change.

 #236520  by Don Lee
 
My first contribution and I've already screwed up. The only signal that this circuit controller affected was R537 located south of Tuckahoe. The signals that acted as Distant Switch Signals were only in advance of a facing point switch, not in both directions. Sorry for the error.

 #236664  by JJMDiMunno
 
Don Lee wrote:My first contribution and I've already screwed up. The only signal that this circuit controller affected was R537 located south of Tuckahoe. The signals that acted as Distant Switch Signals were only in advance of a facing point switch, not in both directions. Sorry for the error.
Quite alright Don...look at me, I called it a switch machine...

Good info.

Mike DiMunno
 #237278  by JimBoylan
 
JJMDiMunno wrote:The center rail is on the original ROW of the Woodbine Secondary, abandoned around 1970
Since you use this name to refer to the connection between the Atlantic City RR and the West Jersey and Seashore RR, what was the contemporaneous name for the remainder of the WJ&S from Woodbine to Woodbine Jct.?
A historical note, this was not a P-RSL connection, it was in use much earlier for PRR South Jersey express trains that used the Reading between Winslow Jct. and Woodbine Jct. After the start of P-RSL, it was used in an opposite manner, the ex-PRR Railway Post office local train to Cold Spring Harbor or Cape May via Millville used this connection to get to the old Reading between Woodbine Jct. and Wildwood (Andrews Ave.).

 #237366  by Don Lee
 
The PRSL called this trackage the Woodbine Secondary Track. It extended in the southward direction from Woodbine 1839 feet north of MP 56.8 to Woodbine Jct. 3960 feet south of MP 60.0. In the 60's, WY391 was scheduled to work in Woodbine on Wednesdays only.

You are correct that this connection pre-dates the PRSL. The WJ&S obtained trackage rights so that they could operated Philadelphia to Ocean City, Wildwood and Cape May. All of their trains operated to Woodbine Jct. where they returned to home rails.

I don't know exactly when these trackage rights began, but the Bridge Branch to Philadelphia was completed in 1896. I have heard, but I can't verify, that the WJ&S paid for the second main track between Winslow and Woodbine Jct.

Hope this helps.

 #237447  by JimBoylan
 
Don Lee wrote:I don't know exactly when these trackage rights began, but the Bridge Branch to Philadelphia was completed in 1896.
I hadn't thought of that idea, that the connection was for Broad St. Station, Philadelphia trains, maybe just until the cutoff between Haddonfield and Westville was completed! Did the PRR run any through trains from Exchange Place or New York City to points South of Atlantic City via the Reading part way?

 #237460  by Don Lee
 
That's a good question. The only New York to South Jersey train on the PRR that I am aware of is the Nellie Bly, which, of course, was an Atlantic City train. I have never heard anyone speak of any regular service from NY to anywhere other than AC. I suspect that anyone riding from NY to a shore point other than AC would have had to change trains at Haddonfield.

The purpose of the Westville Cutoff was to bypass Pavonia with coal trains destined to a still born ocean terminal I think near Cape May. The Reading route via Winslow and Tuckahoe for passenger trains was certainly faster than via Millville. I don't believe that there was any thought given to an eventual diversion over the cutoff. If the PRR intended to stay on their own rails from Phila to OC, WD, CM, they could have turned south at Jersey and operated thru Pavonia. At that time the Bordentown Branch was very active and there were numerous Camden to Trenton trains. I think the faster route was more advantageous to the PRR than staying on home rails.

 #241674  by Don Lee
 
According to the West Jersey Chapter's book on the Atlantic City Railroad, the WJ&S signed a trackage rights agreement with the ACRR to operated from Winslow to Woodbine Jct. on January 25, 1906. As a result the WJ&S paid for the construction of a second main track over the entire distance. Tuckahoe tower was built as part of this project.

 #242856  by chuchubob
 
another Woodbine siding construction update: fortuitously, members of the West Jersey Chapter chose last Saturday for an informal railfan meeting at Tuckahoe to check out CMSL and the local museum. Shortly after five of us arrived, an inspection trip for potential freight customers was leaving, and they let us tag along.

http://www.transitspot.com/gallery2/v/u ... -29+22.jpg

http://www.transitspot.com/gallery2/v/u ... -29+23.jpg

http://www.transitspot.com/gallery2/v/u ... -29+24.jpg

http://www.transitspot.com/gallery2/v/u ... -29+26.jpg

http://www.transitspot.com/gallery2/v/u ... -29+32.jpg

http://www.transitspot.com/gallery2/v/u ... -29+35.jpg

http://www.transitspot.com/gallery2/v/u ... -29+40.jpg

Bob
 #249301  by wjwatson
 
I do not know how it was done, but I do know that many, many years ago -- 1912-1916 -- rail connections from Cape May County were extensive enough to create a very unusual commute for a local man.

Elmer Smith commuted weekly, by rail, from his home in South Seaville to his job as city engineer in Hartford, Connecticut.

He could walk to the train in South Seaville and could apparently also walk to his office at the other end. He'd go to Hartford Sunday evening and come back to South Seaville on Fridays.

Discovered this odd journey back in the late 1970s or 1980s. Smith had died and folks weren't too particular when they cleaned out his house. Some of his papers ended up dumped at the landfill in South Seaville, which back then was still very much a rural country dump where you took your own stuff. I spotted old registers and notebooks under a pile of old clothing, and found a meticulous journal from Smith setting down the costs of his daily life and other details, like the rail commute. Kind of flabbergasted me. I kept the journals for some time but have lost track of them now.

I also don't know exactly how things unfolded, but I believe the line still in existence down there was run through in 1862 and the "other" line through the county, from Millville through Belleplain, Woodbine, then turning south through South Seaville, was built through the South Seaville area around 1864. The house I lived in while in South Seaville dates to that boom, 1864, caused by the railroad going through.

Interesting website. Glad I discovered it. I grew up in South Dennis listening to the PRSL Budd cars blow past the house at 6:30 every morning, and I can barely remember steam-powered excursions down to Wildwood in the 1950s, one of which set fire to the fields behind my house.

 #263623  by PRSL1972
 
Mike cant get the pics to come up. a-train

 #263827  by glennk419
 
PRSL1972 wrote:Mike cant get the pics to come up. a-train
It was reported on another forum a couple weeks ago that the sjrail.com site was down for the foreseeable future. All of Mike's pix were on that site.