Bound Brook

I recently visited Bound Brook for the first time recently. Very cool place! Still has the look and feel of old-school town and station. I'm guessing the NJT is the former CNJ, and the adjacent freight tracks are former LV. Could somebody give me quick rundown of what's there and a little history? Thanks!

You are right about the the LV and CNJ, the CNJ use to have 4 tracks through there and the place with the best view for feight is the old station which you go up to, to get to the other side. There is also the Port Reading Secondary that you can see coming off the line and running behind and adjacent to the Lehigh line.

Bound Brook was served by three railroads. The Central of New Jersey, Lehigh Valley, and the Reading coming up from Philly. The Reading; after the station; continued on what's today the Port Reading Secondary. The CNJ continued east and is what NJT runs on until Roselle Park where it's abandoned (NJT trains are routed up the "Aldene Connection" onto the old LV). The LV paralleled the CNJ for a bit after Bound Brook before splitting off heading in a Southeast direction before turning back towards the Northeast and passing back over the CNJ at Roselle Park.

Today, CSX and NS run on the CSAO Lehigh Line with CSX splitting off a few miles to the West of Bound Brook running down the "Trenton Line" (Ex. Reading) to Philly. While NS trains continue on the Lehigh Line to Allentown. NJT uses the CNJ line as far West as High Bridge, NJ.

The restaurant in the Bound Brook station building is VERY good - and the bar faces the tracks - you can get your drink on while watching some trains.....

highly recommonded And the food isn't bad either!

I have heard many good things about Mama Rosina's in the old train station, I need to have dinner there one evening. They also have outdoor dining next to the NJT westbound platforms. I'm sure it works quite well for them until a trash train gets held up at CP-Bound Brook

Also, there's plenty of freight action there. It's my favorite place to watch freight, and it's practically right in my back yard. All the times i've been there I think I can count on a single hand of times i've seen little or no traffic (with the exception of NJT).

While we were there we saw a string of trackwork equipment and a bunch of trucks all with Conrail markings. I did not realize the corporate identity survived that visibly. Either that or we were in a time warp!

Idiot Railfan wrote:While we were there we saw a string of trackwork equipment and a bunch of trucks all with Conrail markings. I did not realize the corporate identity survived that visibly. Either that or we were in a time warp!

Where did you think Conrail went. We just celebrated our 34th year.

Jtgshu wrote:The restaurant in the Bound Brook station building is VERY good - and the bar faces the tracks - you can get your drink on while watching some trains.....

highly recommonded And the food isn't bad either!

The food is great both times I was there the sandwiches were great and the beer on tap is not bad either. However last time someone had a problem with getting a ketchup bottle that worked .

Kaback9 wrote:

Jtgshu wrote:The restaurant in the Bound Brook station building is VERY good - and the bar faces the tracks - you can get your drink on while watching some trains.....

highly recommonded And the food isn't bad either!

The food is great both times I was there the sandwiches were great and the beer on tap is not bad either. However last time someone had a problem with getting a ketchup bottle that worked .

The food is great, but sometimes its apparently little difficult to get it out in an timely fashion....or to the right table...

"thats not even close dude..."

And empty ketchup bottles is a big pet peeve of mine...and don't tease me by giving me another ketchup bottle with like a 1/2oz more Ketchup than the one that ive been making fart for 5 minutes...........

Still highly recommonded by me though!

Jtgshu wrote:The food is great, but sometimes its apparently little difficult to get it out in an timely fashion....

You mean like in the train's dwell time at the station?

Alrighty, I finally had dinner at Mama Rosina's on Friday. I am absolutely impressed with their food and service! I ordered the Penne Vodka, and it was out in 10min. Came with a nice salad too! The outdoor dining is pretty cool, although i did hear a few patrons complain about the noise from the NJT trains going by. Seriously, you're eating in a historic train station, what do you expect to hear???

<rant>
Now, I'm going to go on a little rant about the foamer kids at Bound Brook. I'm sure it's been covered here many times before, but it's worth repeating, again. You kids wonder why Bound Brook Police, County Sheriff, or NJT Police shows up and kicks you out?? Well, for starters, STAY ON THE PLATFORM! Second, do not walk across the tracks to go look at the port reading secondary! It's trespassing! Also, since you now have an active restaurant with outdoor dining, some of these patrons are going to notice, and they're going to say to their server "Hey, I see kids playing on the train tracks! Someone should stop them!". Before you know it, management is going to call the police and you know the rest of the story!

Walk, Don't Run, especially with tripods! I'm sure this makes the engineer of the train nervous and will also report you. Talk, don't yell! There is now a restaurant that's going to have patrons that are sensitive to the atmosphere and yelling is only going to attract attention to yourself! Leave the switches in the yard alone! Again, it's trespassing and it's not something you should be touching! It also makes you look suspicious to others. Lastly, Respect the property! The Bound Brook Train Station is in bad enough shape due to deferred maintenance and vandals, let's not make the station any worse.

If these simple rules would be followed, you won't have a problem watching the trains at Bound Brook. It's one of the busiest stretches of freight tracks in the state, let's not ruin it for everyone else!
</rant>

Mike77E9 wrote:<rant>
Now, I'm going to go on a little rant about the foamer kids at Bound Brook. I'm sure it's been covered here many times before, but it's worth repeating, again. You kids wonder why Bound Brook Police, County Sheriff, or NJT Police shows up and kicks you out?? Well, for starters, STAY ON THE PLATFORM! Second, do not walk across the tracks to go look at the port reading secondary! It's trespassing! Also, since you now have an active restaurant with outdoor dining, some of these patrons are going to notice, and they're going to say to their server "Hey, I see kids playing on the train tracks! Someone should stop them!". Before you know it, management is going to call the police and you know the rest of the story!

Walk, Don't Run, especially with tripods! I'm sure this makes the engineer of the train nervous and will also report you. Talk, don't yell! There is now a restaurant that's going to have patrons that are sensitive to the atmosphere and yelling is only going to attract attention to yourself! Leave the switches in the yard alone! Again, it's trespassing and it's not something you should be touching! It also makes you look suspicious to others. Lastly, Respect the property! The Bound Brook Train Station is in bad enough shape due to deferred maintenance and vandals, let's not make the station any worse.

If these simple rules would be followed, you won't have a problem watching the trains at Bound Brook. It's one of the busiest stretches of freight tracks in the state, let's not ruin it for everyone else!
</rant>

I've never encountered this group of kids that I hear about so much, and I'm pretty happy I haven't!

TAMR213 wrote:I've never encountered this group of kids that I hear about so much, and I'm pretty happy I haven't!

Erik, I don't encounter them often. But I would say 1 out of 4 trips I'll find a few kids doing what i've previously posted. It's not enough to discourage me from walking across the river, but it is somewhat annoying every now and then.

Mike77E9 wrote:Alrighty, I finally had dinner at Mama Rosina's on Friday. I am absolutely impressed with their food and service! I ordered the Penne Vodka, and it was out in 10min. Came with a nice salad too! The outdoor dining is pretty cool, although i did hear a few patrons complain about the noise from the NJT trains going by. Seriously, you're eating in a historic train station, what do you expect to hear???

<rant>
Now, I'm going to go on a little rant about the foamer kids at Bound Brook. I'm sure it's been covered here many times before, but it's worth repeating, again. You kids wonder why Bound Brook Police, County Sheriff, or NJT Police shows up and kicks you out?? Well, for starters, STAY ON THE PLATFORM! Second, do not walk across the tracks to go look at the port reading secondary! It's trespassing! Also, since you now have an active restaurant with outdoor dining, some of these patrons are going to notice, and they're going to say to their server "Hey, I see kids playing on the train tracks! Someone should stop them!". Before you know it, management is going to call the police and you know the rest of the story!

Walk, Don't Run, especially with tripods! I'm sure this makes the engineer of the train nervous and will also report you. Talk, don't yell! There is now a restaurant that's going to have patrons that are sensitive to the atmosphere and yelling is only going to attract attention to yourself! Leave the switches in the yard alone! Again, it's trespassing and it's not something you should be touching! It also makes you look suspicious to others. Lastly, Respect the property! The Bound Brook Train Station is in bad enough shape due to deferred maintenance and vandals, let's not make the station any worse.

If these simple rules would be followed, you won't have a problem watching the trains at Bound Brook. It's one of the busiest stretches of freight tracks in the state, let's not ruin it for everyone else!
</rant>

I was waiting for this to come up, glad I didn't have to be the one to!

Every fact mentioned there is true, you have been warned!

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