CNJ Southern Secondary Woodmansie - Winslow

They would probably fit. Those two trains are single stacks due to clearance restrictions in Baltimore. There are two viable detour routes in case of service disruptions at Philly. Go via NS to Abrams, Run around and go Towards Morrisville for the connection to SEPTA at Woodbourne and back to the Trenton Sub, This was the route Q191/Q190 took before they lowered the Trenton Line at CP-Nice. Or Abrams to Reading to Allentown to Manville and back to Conrail. I understand you would be having to pay NS and probably only run a couple trains a day. My opinion is the cost factor to rebuild all this track for the amount of traffic we're talking about is not worth it. It probably would take more than one, maybe two crews to go from Philly to Newark, via Camden/Winslow/Lakehurst/South Amboy

I would think the planning scenarios of a Woodmansie-Winslow reactivation would be a possible contingency in case there is a catastrophic failure of the Delair bridge.

Mod Note: If I have a chance while sitting at a computer, I will try to pull out these Woodmansie-Winslow posts into their own thread.

@nomis IMO I would prefer we continue the discussion here, but if we must do so elsewhere than so be it.

Anyways...

Woodmansie to Winslow wouldn’t work as a reroute for CSX/NS should that bridge ever fail, as they have to go over it to access Winslow. For getting trains into South Jersey should that happen, however, Woodmansie to Winslow would good for it provided we get Farmingdale to Freehold. Only thing is, again, it’s a fairly long detour to go that way from Oak Island. It could work provided all the subject trackage is Class 2, but as CR7876 mentioned it’s possible that it could take more than one crew per train. Considering that a lot of railroads are having trouble hiring right now, that could be a problem...

The only reason to rebuild the Woodmansie - Winslow corridor that I see would be an Enormous need for construction sand in the Philly / Balto areas. Clayton's Woodland Plant is the only possible large rail shipper between Lakehurst and Winslow. But Clayton's sand is more likely to go North.
There are no large shippers in So Jersey that need to get product to the NYC area and Vice versa. No need for another route. Anything that does need to go between these areas can go via Trenton Sub and Pavonia.
There is just NO cargo between So Jersey and the NYC areas that are so time sensitive that they require a shorter / faster route.

nomis wrote: ↑Mon Dec 20, 2021 10:14 am I would think the planning scenarios of a Woodmansie-Winslow reactivation would be a possible contingency in case there is a catastrophic failure of the Delair bridge.

This was discussed in general some 10 years ago here. I can't find the thread now.
To connect north and south Jersey in case Delair goes OOS, just requires reactivating about 1000 feet or so of an ex-PRR industrial branch (Enterprise Branch, I believe) along Route 1 in Trenton (just east of Trenton station on the ex PRR (now Amtrak mainline). Here is a view looking south from State St - a section of rail was lifted about 100 ft or so south of this crossing 10 or 15 years ago. https://goo.gl/maps/njjYiU8P2eHDTYCr6
Putting it back in would enable a train westbound on the NEC ("North East Corridor", ex PRR main) to get on this branch north (timetable east) side of Trenton). Here is the wye: https://goo.gl/maps/cDjgKC5Tf7fQDJxj7 . About~1000 ft or so south of State St the branch crosses over the NEC where it is now the active NJT River Line (which currently hosts freight at night), with the freight coming up from Pavonia Yard. Or the train could come in from Morrisville PA, and go through Trenton to get on the Enterprise branch at the wye.
So then you are done., with almost zero cost.
JS
I do not think there is currently any freight on the River Line north of Bordentown, or and I don't know if it is legally cleared to run on that section if desired right now, but I don't think it would be a big deal to extend freight at night another ~5 miles on the River Line up Trenton if they had too. I could be wrong of course.

BTW, I think the "Enterprise branch" is the original trackage through Trenton, running along the D&R canal, from New Brunswick to Camden, before the modern "straight speedway" from about Deans (north of Monmouth Jct) to Trenton was built in the 1860s and before there was a bridge over the Delaware at Trenton.

That industrial track has a name but I don’t remember it. It was in the Conrail 1997 timetable somewhere.

That certainly could work, but I’m unsure of the height/weight clearances on the NJT River Line. Additionally, freight is only allowed on the River Line during a six hour period in the middle of the night. FRA prohibits light rail and freight trains to run at same time while in the same track.

As far as I know only two or three trains would be affected by this should the Delair Branch go down. CA-07, CA-15, and whatever brings cars to and from Frankford Junction.

It's now called the Port Running Track. Frankfort yard has a job that runs to Morrisville via the NEC and back for cars.
Sometimes when CSX skips their Woodburne work they send the Frankfort Cars to Camden via CA07, but they would be fine.

As noted, the nighttime window for freight on the River Line is short. And it also runs through the middle of several towns, like Burlington, so locals would not be happy about long trains. But in my non-expert opinion, to get a few trains a week in and out of Pavonia Yard to replace Delair bridge, on a temporary basis, it would suffice

Also, I checked some historical details. From Bordentown to Trenton (now part of the River Line) and then north along the canal to Kingston and then north to Millstone Junction (where NJT Jersey Ave station is) was apparently built by the Camden & Amboy in the late 1830's and were the first tracks thru Trenton. At the same time, NJRR built south from Jersey City through Newark and New Brunswick to meet them at Millstone Jct . Not Monmouth Jct. The last major piece of what is now the NEC came in the 1860's, when the straight section from what is now Major Rd in SOuth Brunswick NJ (south of Millstone Jct, between Deans and Monmouth Jct) to Trenton replaced the original section along the canal through the edge of Princeton. I remember maybe 30 or 40 years ago the old section (as the Enterprise Br ?) was still in service as far north as just south of Franklin Corner/Baker's Basin Rd , where that giant new Wawa is now.
C&A built their first line (from South Amboy to Camden, through Bordentown) in the early 1830's.

Just a side note on the previous discussion regarding CSX oil trains.

Don't think hazardous material cargo is ever going to be permitted through the Pine Barren s A.K.A Pineland's National Reserve. The area is deemed too environmentally sensitive especially for a fast moving (ground water transportable) hazard like bulk oil. The people living within the Pinelands Commission jurisdiction have a near impossible task just to get permission to pave their driveways.

Regular non-haz freight might not face as much resistance, but due to the age/grade of the track south of Woodmansie, any serious freight use would require complete rebuild of the roadbed, ties, and replacement rail literally from the ground up. Cost would be mind boggling because, if approved, even the construction would be highly regulated.

Just my 2 cents.

NY&LB wrote: ↑Mon Dec 20, 2021 5:25 am

by R&DB » Sun Dec 19, 2021 12:05 pm
The peak traffic was probably around 1930. There were no Interstates, very few US or state highways, so not much truck or bus traffic. Railways still ruled . The Southern at that time had at least:
Passenger:
Jersey City - Atlantic City (Blue Comet) 2 round trips / day
Jersey City - Atlantic City Local at least 2 round trips / day
jersey City - Barnegat 2 round trips / day
Specials Jersey City - Lakehurst as needed

From September 29, 1930 TT:
Only ONE JC-AC local depart JC at 3:32 AM arrive AC at 10:15 AM; no local AC - JC but a local Winslow JCT to JC local departing at 9:50 AM arriving at 1:45 PM
The TWO Blue Comet trains took 2 hours and 47/48 minutes from JC to AC
AC service ended on September 28, 1941
There were SIX weekday JC to Lakehurst trains
JC to Barnegat shows only ONE through train (already counted in the SIX JC - Lakehurst trains above) and THREE "motor coach" connections in Lakewood
Fast forward to Feb 29, 1944
THREE weekday JC to Lakehurst trains
ONE of which goes through the Barnegat
My next reference point is a August 1959 Official Guide which shows "fright service only" below Red Bank
The Trail of the Blue Comet shows up to FIVE "specials" from Lakewood to JC in 1930.

Thanks for the corrections. My info was second and third hand. But your info doesn't change the count very much. I do know pax traffic to Lakehurst lasted until 1953. Freight traffic ended between Lakehurst and Winslow soon after Conrail started. Lakehurst to Woodmansie resumed after Clayton purchased their line from the State.

There were "specials" to/from Lakehurst NAS for dirigible arrivals and departures through the 1920s and 30s until the Hindenberg disaster. Lakehurst NAS also had regular rail freight traffic, military and supplies.

And don't forget Lakewood was an upscale vacation playground in the 1890s-1920s. What is now Ocean County Park on the east side of town was a Rockefeller estate and Georgian Court University was the property of George Gould, son of railroad tycoon Jay Gould.

According to wikipedia, Lakehurst was also a winter resort with international reach at the turn of the last century. Who woulda thought - -
. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakehurst,_New_Jersey

@CJPat The Pinelands Commission would be one of a few government organizations any railroad would need approval from to reopen the line. That’s another thing that would make opening the line for anything difficult, and that’s without talking about the cost to open the line. Would be a huge undertaking for sure, regardless of who does it.

As of right now CSX only has one oil train left that goes through Philly, and it only runs as needed. There was a few more when the rumors of CSX using the line initially popped up. More trains would need to go that way for CSX to justify opening the line.

NS has more ways of getting into North Jersey should anything happen, but the problem is NS mostly runs double stack intermodal now, and most of their other routes don’t have the clearance…

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 6:19 pm @CJPat The Pinelands Commission would be one of a few government organizations any railroad would need approval from to reopen the line. That’s another thing that would make opening the line for anything difficult, and that’s without talking about the cost to open the line. Would be a huge undertaking for sure, regardless of who does it.

As of right now CSX only has one oil train left that goes through Philly, and it only runs as needed. There was a few more when the rumors of CSX using the line initially popped up. More trains would need to go that way for CSX to justify opening the line.

NS has more ways of getting into North Jersey should anything happen, but the problem is NS mostly runs double stack intermodal now, and most of their other routes don’t have the clearance…

Where else have you heard these rumors? The only viable rumors regarding Woodmansie-Winslow I've heard were from NJTPA's PowerPoint, however, they did not mention CSX specifically nor oil trains.

Speaking of that PowerPoint, it mentioned a 2008 Tier II Screening Report and a 2014 Freight Rail
Strategic Plan. Does anyone know where I could find a PDF or something of it if it's public? I'd like to see what those reports said about Winslow-Woodmansie

I don’t know about the 2008 environmental draft, but here’s the freight plan.

https://www.state.nj.us/transportation/ ... f/FRSP.pdf

Just a heads up: This one is a long read.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:51 pm I don’t know about the 2008 environmental draft, but here’s the freight plan.

https://www.state.nj.us/transportation/ ... f/FRSP.pdf

Just a heads up: This one is a long read.

Just skimming through it right now. Thanks for the link, it's very informative

Interesting points:

From PDF page 188/report page A-33 onwards:
1. You can see that they want to investigate re-opening the line for not only freight, but also passenger rail. I'd imagine that would involve MOM/some sort of MOM successor. However, those plans don't involve Woodmansie-Winslow? Not sure what purpose that would serve, unless they also had a rail connection to Atlantic City International Airport.
2. They estimated that if this line was around, there would be a per carload savings of $50-100
3. A two day reduction time between Oak Island Yard and South Jersey. I'm not sure how that would work when a) as discussed here it seems like it should take longer, b) it's been said Oak Island-Camden/South Jersey is only 10 carloads a year, and c) isn't South Jersey already served by Camden instead? Maybe Woodmansie-Winslow would be better since it would be direct access to the ports of Newark
4. We have an exact number: $130M to fix the whole thing in 2014, which would be $152,630,947.55 in today's money. I'm not sure if that number is for upgrading/rebuilding the entire Southern or just the 30 or so miles from Winslow-Woodmansie. If it's the latter, that means a whopping $5M per mile; however it's most likely the former, since if you're going to build one part of the line to Class 2, might as well do it to the whole thing
5. Going off of 4, I'm not sure what Woomansie-Lakehurst, Clayton/NJSL's track, looked like before restoration, but I'd imagine that it was pretty similar to the state of Woodmansie-Winslow at the time. If I'm recalling correctly, it wasn't horribly expensive to redo the 13 miles.

From PDF page 190/report page A-35 onwards:
They discuss how Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst is isolated from the rail network. Not exactly sure what they would receive if they still had rail service (I believe this has been discussed on the main Southern thread multiple times a while back), but the study says that the base could be in jeopardy of closing at some point since other bases that have rail service are less likely to be axed, and every so often you hear about Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst being threatened with closure. No base = thousands of jobs lost, Base with trains = base has a less likely chance of being closed + that means extra jobs related to the base

From PDF page 199/report page A-44 onwards:
A brief mention of the need to develop more intermodal yards, with an emphasis on Central and South Jersey. This most likely would utilize the Southern, however, it was not mentioned in this part. I doubt they will build any new intermodal facilities in Jersey, however, both the recent NJTPA and this report state that intermodal traffic in NJ has grown and continues to grow significantly. One contender for an intermodal facility, if one is ever built in Central/South Jersey, could be the old Ciba-Giegy spot. However, I am looking into this intermodal thing deeper than the report went into.

From PDF page 240/report page A-85 onwards:
1. The Woodmansie-Winslow reactivation would be used to free up 25 miles of rail between Woodbury and Vineland for the planned Glassboro-Camden Line. This section currently has no customers, but I believe it is still used for thoroughfare freight trains going elsewhere.
2. Woodmansie-Winslow reconnection would be a more direct route to Bridgeton and avoid street running in certain places
3. It was stated that reconnecting Woodmansie-Winslow would help secure freight service in South Jersey for present and future customers

From PDF page 252/report page A-97:
A brief discussion of the MOM plans. I was surprised to see that each of the proposed routes wasn't that long, with the shortest being 26 miles and the longest being 38. For some reason, I thought any MOM proposals were pushing 50 miles at least.

Overall, it seems like they have very much considered the potential for a Woodmansie-Winslow reactivation. Will it ever happen? Who knows. Unless NJ Transit gets involved, it probably won't.