CR on the Southern Secondary

Passed Hamilton Street (Tintin Falls) 5:03 PM

The railroad crossing on Lakewood Farmingdale Road did not activate for SA31 tonight. The crew had to flag the crossing and flares were dropped on the road. Also, someone flew across the Route 88 crossing just as the train began crossing the road. Came very close to being hit by the train.

SA38. Arrival at woodhaven 10:01 PM

SA38. Eastbound at James Street as of 11:16 PM

The railroad crossing in front of the Air Force base in Lakehurst has some construction markings on it. Rails and the road surface have pink markings and one tie has an orange marking. Not sure what these markings mean. I'd say either there's some underground wires or pipes that have to be removed, or the crossing is going to be upgraded and the line put back in service. Kinda hoping it's the latter lol.

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but if the rails in the road are painted pink and the ties on the outside of the road are painted orange, it could very well mean they are planning to cut out the railroad crossing entirely.

The original siding back in the 1930's went across Cnty 547 ad turned compass north to parallel 547 just inside the fence (you can just make out the minor embankment) and then turned into and headed up next to Hangar One (The Hindenburg crashed and burned relatively in front of Hangar One). I think they had some sort of passenger stop there, either strictly for the military or to handle Zepplin traffic? I believe the tracks also continued north along 547 a little further before turning into the base (probably for delivering standard supplies). What is odd is you can view Lakehurst NAS on Bing Maps and it still shows the rails inside the fence line.

The current rail was installed around 2000 so an environmental Remediation contractor, IT Group, could deliver gondolas for receiving plutonium contaminated dirt that was excavated from the old BOMARC site on Cnty Rt 539 (between Ft Dix and Lakehurst). The original plan was to have dump trucks tote the soil to downtown Lakehurst for rail loading at the old Fertilizer siding. The Twsp of Manchester (which surrounds Lakehurst) forbid the remediation contractor from driving trucks thru any streets in Manchester with the contamination (even though they would have been sealed up in containers) for fear of an accidental spill. The US Gov't countered by constructing a dirt road across the NAS (past the airfield) over to the small stub siding they had installed along with the contractor gate. This way, the soil never rode on Manchester owned streets.

I don't remember hearing if the town of Lakehurst ever had a problem with the original plan. Numerous rail cars were loaded and shipped, but once the excavation was complete, the only other cars to be seen on the siding inside of Lakehurst was a couple of passenger cars (NJT Comet 1s?). I never heard what that was about.

@CJPat Wow. That's some pretty interesting information. I did know that the siding was used to pull out some sort of hazardous materials but I never knew that plutonium was pulled out of there. I didn't mention this but the other crossing on this section of track is untouched. No construction markings whatsoever despite all the road work currently going on there. I have heard that they may reactive this siding in the future for some more contaminants to be removed but nothing seems to have come of that so far. Hopefully we will see some sort of train through Lakehurst soon depending on what happens with the portion of the southern being fixed for sand trains. That line is looking pretty good and it seems like they are almost done with repairs but they still have some work to do.

Here is my video of this past week’s chase. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/m0DGWzT5-IU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Bracdude181 wrote:@CJPat Wow. That's some pretty interesting information. I did know that the siding was used to pull out some sort of hazardous materials but I never knew that plutonium was pulled out of there. I didn't mention this but the other crossing on this section of track is untouched. No construction markings whatsoever despite all the road work currently going on there. I have heard that they may reactive this siding in the future for some more contaminants to be removed but nothing seems to have come of that so far. Hopefully we will see some sort of train through Lakehurst soon depending on what happens with the portion of the southern being fixed for sand trains. That line is looking pretty good and it seems like they are almost done with repairs but they still have some work to do.

I'm not sure if you have heard, but from my sources and a hint of common sense, the sand trains aren't to be anymore. I believe I described it in an earlier comment, but the money for rehabilitating the line to any of the sand pits has ran out, and plus, the sand was supposedly intended for Gateway, which we all know hasn't happened yet. Once perhaps Gateway is fully paid for, there may be the need for the sand but tentatively little work is being done besides perhaps the construction that you mention above. In addition, it was some point speculated that the Southern was supposed to be re-tied, but go anywhere on the line and there is overwhelming evidence that that didn't happen

CJ Pat, the ex-NJT coach was brought down to Lakehurst years ago for NJ-TF1 (New Jersey Task Force 1), one of 28 FEMA Urban Search & Rescue teams in the US. Their training facility is at Lakehurst (if you look closely in this photo, you can see the coach perched upon rubble, simulating a train disaster in the state of NJ).

https://www.njtf1.org/about-us" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(If you are able to, right click on the photo and select "open image in new tab", this seems to enlarge the photo a bit in the new tab)

I can confirm this is Lakehurst as I have seen a closer photo taken on the base by a friend that shows the coach clearly tilted and several feet off of the ground. Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to share this photo, but you get the idea with this aerial view. There is also a simulated building collapse scene (lower left of photo) on their training grounds, allowing them to train with rescue dogs in tight spaces in the event of a major catastrophe within the state.

And don't count the sand trains out, not yet anyway.....

Chris

OK, by the photo, I guess it was only the one passenger car (I couldn't quite remember 1 or 2). Thanks for the info. I didn't realize there was anything but Military at Lakehurst.

Interesting side note - The Lakehurst NAS property started off as a Russian military (Imperial Russia) ordnance testing ground (chemical munitions? or just conventional). If I recall properly, the property changed hands around 1917 to the US Gov't (US Army). Maybe this was a result of Czarist Russia losing control due to the communist revolution? Navy took control in 1921.

Permission to open up at 3:29 PM
Lined and locked normal 3:41 PM

NS 5285 and CSX 4452 have the honors today

Morgan at 15:59

Approaching Maxwell Rd in Eatontown at 4:50 in the pm with 18; one Ohio Central box for Extech, 17 for Woodhaven.

SA31 stopped for a few minutes just as the last car passed through Route 88. Train began moving again shortly after like nothing happened. Although, it did sound like some of the brake shoes were sticking...