Who owns the River Line?

[SPUI]

From what I can tell, south of Delair, the tracks are not connected to Conrail's line, and so I'm assuming that's NJT-owned. Same for the bit at the north end. However, is the rest still Conrail-owned, or was it sold to NJT?

[JLo]

I thought NJT bought the line from Conrail with a condition of the purchase being that NJT upgrade and grant CSS access. IIRC, that was one of many reasons the cost of the DLRT service was so high.

[SPUI]

I found the answer in the STB site (here) - NJT was trying to buy it but instead entered into an agreement with CSX, and CSX still owns it. I'm not sure about the track south of Delair Junction, where CSX uses the tracks to the west of the River Line (see http://nycsubway.org/nyc/riverline/riverline-trackmap.html).

[chuchubob]

NJT (or NJDOT) purchased the line from Conrail Shared Assets.

South of Hatch Interlocking in Delair, the River LINE track(s) and the CSAO tracks are, indeed, separate. Freight trains can operte between Camden and the Delair bridge without regard to the River LINE.

[SPUI]

NJT (or NJDOT) purchased the line from Conrail Shared Assets.

When did they do this? The STB docs seem to make it clear that this didn't happen; did they change their minds again?

[chuchubob]

Conrail (Shared Assets) LLC sold the former Camden & Amboy trackage between Camden and Trenton to New Jersey Transit on June 1, 1999, for $67.5 million.

[SPUI]

NJ Transit confirms it.

Code: Select all

Hello,

As part of the Southern NJ Light Rail project NJT bought the Bordentown Secondary Track (what we now call the River LINE) from Conrail.

Thank you for your interest.

Stephanie Davis
NJ TRANSIT Customer Service


[Irish Chieftain]

Now we (and I*) know where a huge chunk of the capital funds went. And of course I'm convinced further that a modern FRA DMU setup could have defrayed this, and thus prevented the erosion of some of NJT's "political capital" (pardon the cliché)...

*That being the reason for my retraction of an earlier post.

[Douglas John Bowen]

Our apologies; NJ-ARP didn't realize many people were unaware that New Jersey Transit purchased the River Line. We think it was a good move, and worth any "political capital" supposedly spent. And we'll note (again) that in 1999, there was no realistic DMU equipment alternative available to those advancing passenger rail interests for the River Line. It didn't exist.

Such purchase was being considered as part of a larger package of routes, and prior to the push to establish the River Line in any capacity (DMU or DLRT). Conrail first made its sale offer of the "Camden Cluster" on Jan. 25, 1996. NJT and NJDOT weighed several routes, including the (now) River Line and the Mt. Holly route, as well as trackage south (east) of Woodbury.

Even if such were not the case, we're not convinced that an all-FRA compliant railroad (heavy rail) operation would be free of freight rail interference, as many seem to believe, if the state of New Jersey did not own the right-of-way.

We recall the arrival of both CSX and Norfolk Southern on the Garden State scene in the late 1990s with some clear memories of battle positions taken by the Class Is, positions not particularly amenable to those pesky passenger rail operations.

Thanks to chuchubob for getting this information out before we did.

[SPUI]

How about the tracks south of Delair Junction, where Conrail and NJT use separate tracks? Does NJT own all the tracks there, or only the NJT tracks?

[chuchubob]

NJT owns the two River LINE tracks and Conrail Shared Assets owns all the rest.