The Freehold Secondary Mystery

1976 is about right. Pine Creek got a few things from the office, including the big safe, before the building came down.

Passenger service on the CNJ Southern ended in 1953. One northbound train from Barnegat, and one from Lakehurst, along with a mid-day to and from Lakehurst, with evening trains returning, were all that was left. Passenger service on the Freehold Branch ended at the same time.

The end of the Doodlebug on the PRR was the end of passenger service on that route. Not sure if the F'dale station was in use for the PRR train in 1963. The Doodlebug took Catholic School kids from Red Bank and Long Branch to Trenton. What a cool school bus!

From a different thread, someone posted about http://www.historicaerials.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and how it has some good content. I checked it out, and I was quite surprised. Most of the pictures are of pretty good quality! It was really interesting to see the area covered in railroads.

Blackseal Jim wrote:I've seen the M.O.M. line listed as part of NJT 's future planning , but that's it. And now with the Transportation fund dried up , who knows when work will resume on the Southern Div. So as a kid I remember watching the sand freights from my Grandparents porch on Academy St in Farmingdale . When did the lengthy trains I hear about stop running through Freehold to Farmingdale??? I'm 47 and never seen anything run between the two towns.
Jim H

The MOM line has been in planning since before I was even around. There are some old articles from the 90's, where it seemed to have gained a lot of momentum, but it was quickly stopped by the vicious local opposition. The Freehold-Matawan route was slated to be one of the initial lines, but the citizens, particularly from Marlboro, made sure it never happened. Eventually that line was ripped up and turned into a bike path. We won't hear anything about it for a few more years, when the lease is up. The lease may or may not be renewed. Perhaps if they didn't rip up the tracks between Farmingdale and Sea Girt, something might've occurred years ago.

With the transportation fund dry, we probably won't see much activity for another long period of time, unfortunately.

By the way, was the route through Farmingdale still multi-tracked when sand trains went through? Or had they switched to a single track by then?

Jim, the long trains through Freehold to the connection at Farmingdale and the Southern Division ended with the slowdown in the Vietnam war, but there were sporadic trips of shorter trains to Earle right up until April 1, '76 and the start of Conrail. After that there was no need for the trip through Freehold as the former CNJ line was used for freight. I would think the reason for the ammunition trains using the Freehold to Farmingdale route had to do with the hazard potential, not a good fit on the Coast Line to Red Bank route and populated areas. During Vietnam they were frequent through Freehold, went very slow through town, were all gray boxcars, and were very very long. I watched them many times sitting on Main street near the bus station.

So the only rail line Earle uses is the one going to the Sandy Hook pier?

Quite interesting Rick , thanks for the time line. I actually found a old PRR timetable from my Grandfather's collection and it lists a speed limit for freights through Freehold at 10 mph , so I could imagine what a mess it made. Even a 3 car train destroys traffic here today. As far as Earle is served , they access the Southern at Collingwood and have quite a extensive railroad that eventually ends on the pier. Lots of spurs in the woods where boxcars of ammunition are stored in bunkers. I don't think the CNJ branch/Henry Hudson trail will ever see a train again. The area surrounding the trail has become densely populated with large homes and the trail is extremely popular with people , including me and my family.
Jim H

How many trains a week does the Freehold Secondary see, and how long are they? And at what times do they come at?

getting back to the old 1931 Farmingdale map I posted 2 pages ago, it is strange that the CNJ main was double track, but narrowed down to one track for the crossing with the PRR, and then went back up to 2 tracks again. Or was what looked like double track just some sidings that happened to be there by coincidence, and the main was single track?
Was the CNJ southern division single or double track back in the day in that region?

The southern division line was a single line, for the most part, when it was put down in 1861. It did have some siding and runarounds sections along the way, like in Lakewood, Lakehurst and Chatsworth. Farmingdale had the Freehold & Squankum Marl RR. co., back then too, that also added more rail lines, along side the main line.

JohnFromJersey wrote:How many trains a week does the Freehold Secondary see, and how long are they? And at what times do they come at?

The Freehold Secondary typically sees two trains a week, Monday and Wednesday. The trains are usually 1 to 10 cars long, but 5-7 cars seems about average. They sort of run at random, but I would say the average time would be roughly 3-4 PM. Last night, the train had CSX 4429 with a SPLAT, three hoppers, a centerbeam, and a box car going back to Browns.

TOMSTV1 wrote:The southern division line was a single line, for the most part, when it was put down in 1861. It did have some siding and runarounds sections along the way, like in Lakewood, Lakehurst and Chatsworth. Farmingdale had the Freehold & Squankum Marl RR. co., back then too, that also added more rail lines, along side the main line.

There was a very long siding along McDowell's asphalt plant between Asbury Road and the Collingwood Auction property north of Farmingdale, making it appear to be double-tracked. At Synergistics, right across the tracks from the auction, there were once (only a few years ago) three tracks that held six covered hoppers each. Add to that the existing sidings to Brick recycling (formerly the 84 Lumber store) and Earle, and what used to encircle McDowell's asphalt plant, and the siding that now serves the brick company at Asbury Road.

I remember long sand trains of old beat up L&NE hoppers, both open and covered, CNJ getting the last days out of them. Broken couplers and other running gear woes thinned them out. They were so heavily loaded that the springs in the trucks were squashed flat. There were some cool lashups of power, such as an RS3 leading an SD35.

Sometimes you'd discover a Conrail loco, shut down and quiet, hiding on the old PRR at F'dale, on the section of track between Gold Lumber and the old diamond crossing. A tunnel of trees, it was almost like a garage.

Wow, there was a lot of siding in the Farmingdale area then. When did they rip up the long siding(s)? I never knew that the place across from Collingwood Auction (is that place currently Belfer Norbert Lighting World?) used the siding there in recent years.

Very interesting to hear how pitiful the shape of some of CNJ's freight cars were in towards the end.

Every Thursday, you'll see a train shut down and quite in Farmingdale, except it's on the mainline and only for an hour, until they get the all-clear to proceed. Usually the engineer grabs a bite in town during the wait. Might've been the same case when Gold's was open, they were waiting for the all-clear to proceed, and the engineer decided to grab something to eat.

When you go over the Rt 33/34 bridge eastbound, you can see the remains of the three tracks and the overhead piping maze. I'm not sure if they received the cars on a regular basis, or if they were more or less permanent and used for material storage. I never noticed what the company name is now. I think of it as Synergistics.

When was the last time a train came down the OOS Freehold-Farmingdale route? And how common were trains on it?

A post above says trains ran between Freehold and Farmingdale up until the start of Conrail on April 1, 1976.

I was a kid, around 1960 or so, when the family went out "for a ride" like we all used to do. We saw a Pennsy freight train in Manasquan and Dad chased the train, at its very low speed, all the way at each crossing between there and Freehold. dad knew every crossing through Howell Twp., and we waited patiently for the train. No camera, of course. The crew got a kick out of seeing this kid waving his hands off at them at each grade crossing.

I remember the train as having either an S-1, or an SW-something, for power, one boxcar, and a caboose.

I lived in Spring Lake Heights, a block away from the NY&LB and Brighton Avenue, where Lewis Lumber Company was right at railside. The lumber yard burned down, and the property was later used as a offload terminal for jetty rocks going to the beach. Pennsy unit flatcar trains of rocks came from Kingston NJ. Fun to walk over and watch the trains coming and going, working between passenger trains on the NY&LB.