Beesley's Point Future

The bridge over the canal into Cape May has been broken and OOS for years and there is zero talk of repairing it.

*ignore my previous edit of this post I thought we were talking about the Ocean City bridge*

NJSL does not have the money to fix it, and neither does NJT seem interested in an operation to fix it.
The problem with a lot of South Jersey coastal towns is they just don't have much of a year-round residential presence. At least in Monmouth and Ocean counties, people live in and visit those towns year-round. Atlantic City overshadowing these areas too doesn't help either.

@Dcell At least for the moment it seems. I know CMSL spent quite some time and money at some point (2009?) to get the canal bridge working and to my knowledge the bridge was operational prior to the line being taken out of service following the 2012 vandalism in Woodbine. So if it’s just been sitting there since then what would take to get it operational provided there’s no damage?

Nine years of rust and zero maintenance.Hard to overcome. The perps wre caught, but NJSL didn't get their stuff back. They don;t make enough $ from car storage to buy new tie=plates and spike and pay for the installation.Hence very little chance of service to Cape May any time soon.

@R&DB and all the ties the vandals destroyed with a pickaxe to get the plates out. Sure it’s only a mile and a quarter that was destroyed, but for what’s been done and how long that particular stretch has been sitting, it’s gonna be an expensive rebuild for sure.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:45 pm @Dcell At least for the moment it seems. I know CMSL spent quite some time and money at some point (2009?) to get the canal bridge working and to my knowledge the bridge was operational prior to the line being taken out of service following the 2012 vandalism in Woodbine. So if it’s just been sitting there since then what would take to get it operational provided there’s no damage?

Was told by the people doing the bike ride that estimations to fix the bridge are over one million dollars. It was struck and it is damaged. I'm sure CMSL could fix the track enough to do 5MPH to get the equipment to Route 9 and then run passenger service to the canal bridge, but how many people would ride that and how much money would it lose?

Around 2010 or so there was an article on CMSLs service between Rio Grande and Cape May. The trains seemed fairly popular and ran 4 days a week during summer.

Here’s the article. Guess I was wrong about the 4 days of operation, but everything else is here.

Interestingly there was lots of campgrounders using the train at the time...

Another issue, is that CMSL being a for profit entity cannot use volunteer labor. Both NJ and Federal laws require that minimum wage be paid, taxes, withholding, etc. Operations such as the Susquehanna and Black River groups are volunteers, but are non-profit corporations, and thus not an issue for the owning railroad for profit entity.

Not sure what legal or monetary process would be needed for CMSL to have a for-profit and not-for-profit division, if they already don't do so, but even with free labor to fix a bridge for not-for-profit operations, you would need that free labor to be skilled. And they'd still need a boatload of money. NJ does not give out grants for stuff like that, to my knowledge, unless CMSL was able to try and convince the powers that be that this Cape May line could be a contender for future NJT rail or something.

To rebuild the whole Cape May Branch to even Class 1 will definitely be an expensive undertaking. (Truthfully Class 2 would be better for what they wanna do) Mainly because of the Woodbine vandalism and just how many ties need replacement, and that’s not even going into crossing repairs or rail repairs or god forbid work on any bridge whatsoever.

Personally I think CMSL should open the line in sections. Start from Tuckahoe to let’s say Cape May Court House. Do whatever’s needed, and pick up some freight customers. There’s a few people on that line that could get cars.

I don’t think NJT wants to run to Cape May. As it is they don’t even want the Atlantic City Line and that line runs year round. Cape May would only be for summer tourism trains and the occasional special event/excursion run.

I wonder what Tony Macrie's grand plan is with these new trackage rights. What is he cobbling together? Most of the Salem County quarries barge their materials via Port of Salem and I don't see a thru rail service into NY State happening.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 10:47 pm To rebuild the whole Cape May Branch to even Class 1 will definitely be an expensive undertaking. (Truthfully Class 2 would be better for what they wanna do) Mainly because of the Woodbine vandalism and just how many ties need replacement, and that’s not even going into crossing repairs or rail repairs or god forbid work on any bridge whatsoever.

Personally I think CMSL should open the line in sections. Start from Tuckahoe to let’s say Cape May Court House. Do whatever’s needed, and pick up some freight customers. There’s a few people on that line that could get cars.

I don’t think NJT wants to run to Cape May. As it is they don’t even want the Atlantic City Line and that line runs year round. Cape May would only be for summer tourism trains and the occasional special event/excursion run.

If Tony can run freight trains in Cape May, he might as well apply for a grant to do so to repair the tracks. Not sure what industry they have in that part of Jersey.

It becoming an NJT line would only work for three or four months out of the year. Would certainly be a weird business model/arrangement but I'd imagine it would bring in a lot of people and money for Cape May and CMSL if they were involved (operate NJT trains past a certain point with CMSL crews?). Would be cool but more business-oriented people with an actual say in these affairs probably know it would run in the red

Dcell wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 11:24 pm I wonder what Tony Macrie's grand plan is with these new trackage rights. What is he cobbling together? Most of the Salem County quarries barge their materials via Port of Salem and I don't see a thru rail service into NY State happening.

Probably excursions and/or rail car storage. Too bad the bridge into Ocean City on the new trackage is long gone. I'm still set on my view that the arrangement is to give the tracks an operator to preserve them, so they don't become too dilapidated or get seized by local towns and turned into rail trails, like a lot of ROW that would be useful for NJT or CR today but are no longer able to be quickly restored, if restored at all.

JohnFromJersey wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 9:51 pm Not sure what legal or monetary process would be needed for CMSL to have a for-profit and not-for-profit division, if they already don't do so, but even with free labor to fix a bridge for not-for-profit operations, you would need that free labor to be skilled. And they'd still need a boatload of money. NJ does not give out grants for stuff like that, to my knowledge, unless CMSL was able to try and convince the powers that be that this Cape May line could be a contender for future NJT rail or something.

The non-profit would have to be completely independent and if requested, pay a reasonable amount to CMSL for use of the railroad. NJDOT rail grants are limited to freight only improvements, passenger or tourist service is not eligible for grants. If there is shown a bona fide non-speculative freight value to the improvements, and a grant is received, that does not preclude passenger operations in addition to freight.

NJDOT doesn’t do grants for passenger rail? Odd.

Well if that’s the case then couldn’t CMSL get a grant to rehab the line for freight service but do passenger runs later on as a long term goal?