• CNJ Southern Secondary Woodmansie - Winslow

  • Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New Jersey
Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New Jersey

Moderator: David

  by Bracdude181
 
Very interesting finds JohnFromJersey. Had no idea that the state was so interested in this line. I believe any sort of passenger rail potential was already discussed on the MOM topic, but I’m not sure if we would ever see NJT go all the way down to Atlantic City from Central NJ. As it stands they don’t really want to keep the Atlantic City Line operating as they are tired of the low ridership, but that’s another story.

As for the freight:

I think the two day travel time reduction is because of the Trenton Sub. As it is now that line is set up weird. It’s single track so trains stopping to work yards/customers block the main and any trains behind them get stuck as well. Especially between Langhorne PA and Manville NJ. Some customers like the big distribution center in West Trenton get worked by every single train that goes through there! Even the oil train stops to work that place sometimes, and it can often take hours!! By the time all this is done at least one train is gonna have to tie down in Manville or somewhere else because the crews shift is up, and sometimes it can be a day or so before the re-crew arrives.

Not sure how this would speed things up for NS as I don’t know much about what they do outside the Conrail Lehigh Line, but North Jersey to South Jersey is less direct for them.

The desire for a more direct route to Bridgeton is interesting…

Also yes, most South Jersey trains originate and terminate in Camden. Mostly locals with a few transfers.

NJSLs track was in worse shape because it was used longer and they kept derailing at one spot towards the end, but it wasn’t all that much to fix it. $152 million to fix the whole thing is insane though. At that price you may as well rip everything up and start over from scratch!

Fort Dix gets a lot of green crates into their base via flatbed truck. No idea what’s in them or where they come from, but maybe they could come in by boxcar?

I too have studied the intermodal potential of the Southern. Most intermodal traffic around here is tricked into Lakewood from the CSX yard in Philadelphia. The only real way you’d get that into the Ocean County area in a viable way would be to use this:

https://railrunner.com/

Most of the other intermodal stuff in Central NJ comes in by truck by I-95, often from Oak Island. This arrangement has caused huge traffic congestion in Newark and in the Cranbury-Dayton area. Most of the customers there who tried boxcar shipping recently only did so as a test run and do not continue doing it after a few weeks.

Not sure how South Jersey is intermodal wise.
  by R&DB
 
Philly to West Trenton is all at least double and i places triple track. The single is West Trenton to Manville.
  by Bracdude181
 
The Trenton Subdivision is single track with sidings all the way to Philadelphia. The other two tracks are for Septa and CSX does not use them.
  by R&DB
 
Thanks for the correction. As to the Delaire Bridge OOS, Just Noth of Trenton on the NEC there is a Wye to the NW. Follow that line and you reach the River Line. Not a great route, but in an emergency pretty much anything goes.

Edit: Concerning using the Southern to get to Pavonia, take a good look at Winslow JCT's track configuration. Add to the cost of re-building the Southern a lead to the Beezley's Point Secondary West.
  by Bracdude181
 
The only remains of any lead is the one the Blue Comet used to come off the Southern. Not sure how they’d get a second lead in there.
  by R&DB
 
Bracdude181 wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 10:26 pm The only remains of any lead is the one the Blue Comet used to come off the Southern. Not sure how they’d get a second lead in there.
That lead goes East, not Weast toward Pavonia. There is very little freight East of Winslow and SRNJ has that. The only need for the Southern to Winslow route is as an emergency in case of Delaire OOS.

The only other reason I can ee to re=build the route is if the government drives the price of fuel so high that no one can afford to drive and may resort to trains. Then it would be a NJT deal.
  by JohnFromJersey
 
Merry Christmas everyone!

The line probably won't get reactivated unless the government wants it to, particularly the federal government. I'd expect that if they wanted the base to receive rail again, they would also want it to be able to connect to South Jersey/Philly too instead of just North. The report and this PowerPoint do show that they are indeed interested in doing that at some point, but nothing will happen until government money comes in. That makes me wonder if the grant(s) from earlier this year were related to a future Woodmansie-Winslow Connection

@R&DB I could see the price of fuel getting that high, in at least NJ. For example, in California's price of gas has always been at minimum 4-5 dollars a gallon. That being said, it seems like plenty of people are still willing to pay that price and drive around. I also don't know what Woodmansie-Winslow would serve passenger-wise, since there's really not many population density centers south of the proposed Lakehurst/Toms River terminus of MOM, and if you get far south enough you run into the Atlantic City Line. However, a connection between the two would be nice, I'd imagine.

Unless AC suddenly turns around in the near future and/or they ever do that ACL line connection to the airport down there (which is much more pleasant to go through than the ones in North Jersey, NYC), I don't see much of a reason for to NJT to go south of Woodmansie.

@Bracdude181
Not sure if anyone uses railrunner around here, and I've heard some railroad guys complain about them. I'm sure it's an option though, but I think at least the more common-use container cars can be used, albeit with a single stack.
  by JohnFromJersey
 
Not sure. I've followed the ROW a couple times before via Google Maps and I could never see anything that was encroaching the ROW beyond where the OOS portions begin in Winslow and Woodmansie.

It appears the main reason this portion of the Southern remains inactivated is due to the state and its policies. Why even bother railbanking the ROW for "future use" if the state won't let anyone use it?
Last edited by nomis on Tue Feb 01, 2022 5:12 pm, edited 1 time in total. Reason: removed immediate quote
  by JohnFromJersey
 
The worst ROW encroachment is on a rather large farm I believe in Elm, on the corner of Fleming Pike and Union Rd. Even by Chatsworth/Woodmansie, even in the downtown, the ROW is pretty unimpeded.

Here's a pic of the Elm encroachment. Past here, it's a bit hard to follow the ROW, but it's pretty clear besides the trees and whatnot covering it. https://imgur.com/a/C0cEiqx
  by Ken W2KB
 
JohnFromJersey wrote: Tue Feb 01, 2022 4:08 pm The worst ROW encroachment is on a rather large farm I believe in Elm, on the corner of Fleming Pike and Union Rd. Even by Chatsworth/Woodmansie, even in the downtown, the ROW is pretty unimpeded.

Here's a pic of the Elm encroachment. Past here, it's a bit hard to follow the ROW, but it's pretty clear besides the trees and whatnot covering it. https://imgur.com/a/C0cEiqx
If it is ever decided to reactivate, the encroachments are not an impediment. The State or its designated railroad operator can simply at will remove any encroachments to rebuild the rail infrastructure.
  by WashingtonPark
 
JohnFromJersey wrote: Tue Feb 01, 2022 4:08 pm The worst ROW encroachment is on a rather large farm I believe in Elm, on the corner of Fleming Pike and Union Rd. Even by Chatsworth/Woodmansie, even in the downtown, the ROW is pretty unimpeded.

Here's a pic of the Elm encroachment. Past here, it's a bit hard to follow the ROW, but it's pretty clear besides the trees and whatnot covering it. https://imgur.com/a/C0cEiqx
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6870819 ... 312!8i6656