Delaware and Raritan River Railroad-General Discussion

@Dcell, as am I. Every time I go by a completed section I am impressed at how straight and level (from side to side) the new track is. Not a railroader, these tracks remind me of old-timey pics of main-line Lackawanna or Pennsy tracks, when speed and passenger comfort were a "thing".

I agree. I must admit that the finished product looks very nice.

Out of curiosity has anyone seen foundations be made for crossing protection?

Note: Sailing out from the mists of a decade of lurking once more to drop this post.

As before, I’ve been keeping an eye on the D&RR rehabilitation of the Freehold Secondary and Southern Secondary, but it’s been hard to keep track of progress on the whole line due to the naturally sporadic and random nature of people giving info as they get it. So I took a few hours again and documented as much as I could and put them into an album with context given for each picture, as a follow up to my previous album documentating the progress that had been made as of February 11th, 2023.

The album consists of about 20 photos along the entire length of the line, starting from Freehold and moving east towards Farmingdale. The following is a chronicle of all progress as of August 6th, 2023. Hope this helps some people get a better idea of how things stand as of now along the line.

https://imgur.com/gallery/6Y2duSw

CharlieL wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2023 1:05 pm Glad they had a wide enough ROW to be dual-tracked.

Historically speaking, the F&J WAS supposed to be double-tracked at one point... makes sense that the ROW would be wide enough to do that

If they were considering double tracking it that has me wondering how much traffic it saw back then…

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2023 2:53 pm I agree. I must admit that the finished product looks very nice.

Out of curiosity has anyone seen foundations be made for crossing protection?

Didn’t see any while doing my photo chronicle on the 6th.

It saw a lot. Remember, early1900s, most people used wagon and team. there were NO paved roads in the area. Everything came in by rail, lots of coal. Any travel of any distance was by rail. The early 1900s Sanborn maps of Freehold show a turntable and one-stall engine house on the Pennsy (F&J). The American Hotel in town did quite a lot of business with travelers.

Bracdude181 wrote:If they were considering double tracking it that has me wondering how much traffic it saw back then…

A lot, the Jersey shore used to be a huge destination and with out the vast roads rail was the way to go. Freehold had a bit of online industry. The builders siding actually used to go to a cannery (iirc). Monmouth County also had some of the finest agriculture in the nation and it rode the rails to market..

Like how they used to do over by Rex Lumber right? I hear the siding there would be once in a while for farmers to load up cars with.

Kaback9 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2023 7:08 pm A lot, the Jersey shore used to be a huge destination and with out the vast roads rail was the way to go. Freehold had a bit of online industry. The builders siding actually used to go to a cannery (iirc). Monmouth County also had some of the finest agriculture in the nation and it rode the rails to market..

There was a very large glass plant in Freehold, that received quite a lot of sands from our beloved Pine Barrens sand pits. When plastic took over, it destroyed the glass manufacturers. Hindsight shows that glass is much better for the environment...

NJ was once a large manufacturing powerhouse (as seen by all the Superfunds here, especially in North Jersey), since there was a fair amount of room here back then, and it wasn't too far from the offices of Philadelphia and NYC.

Another thing to note is, the Jersey Shore also had a huge seafood market. The Toms River Industrial Track that ran down to Tuckerton, was used to haul seafood like shrimp and whatnot to the Philadelphia and NYC markets, and beyond.

Starting in the 1950's, a combination of factors, mostly massive housing developments springing up around the Barnegat Bay that resulted in excess pollution and fertilizer going into the waterways and killing aquatic life, killed off what remained of NJ's lucrative seafood market that was so large, they needed trains to haul its product.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2023 7:11 pm Like how they used to do over by Rex Lumber right? I hear the siding there would be once in a while for farmers to load up cars with.

There are hardly any farmers around here anymore, and if there are, they do not do enough product to justify shipping by rail. Perishables are almost always shipped by truck these days.

The aforementioned siding use was way back in the day, and from what I hear it continued into the Penn Central days. Albeit not long into those days.

Penn Central had a horrific reputation when it came to timely shipping things by rail, and time is of the essence when you are shipping things like agricultural goods. Farmers in Maine used to ship their product (mostly potatoes) by rail until Penn Central 'lost' an entire train of their goods, and by the time it was discovered and shipped to the right destination, it was all rotten.

Maine farmers have only started to trust the railroad for shipping their goods again fairly recently. And even then, the harvest isn't always enough to ship it by rail.

As I hear it the service is why they stopped using the siding. Farmers loaded up some cars but they sat for so long that all the food went bad.

JohnFromJersey wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2023 8:08 pm Another thing to note is, the Jersey Shore also had a huge seafood market. The Toms River Industrial Track that ran down to Tuckerton, was used to haul seafood like shrimp and whatnot to the Philadelphia and NYC markets, and beyond.

There are hardly any farmers around here anymore, and if there are, they do not do enough product to justify shipping by rail. Perishables are almost always shipped by truck these days.

Not shrimp. They're from down south. Oysters and clams and seafood of that nature were the big commodities. My family was in food distribution. Whiting or white fish were a big fishery along the shore with Jersey bass. I think salmon were out there too. The white fish and salmon are gone and I think the bass are loaded with toxins. FWIWT, most of the seafood were rail shipped from south Jersey region and along the Raritan bay.

CR7876 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2023 1:27 pm

Bracdude181 wrote:So are they not gonna use the bridge that’s there? I will say that bridge is questionable. I can see them replacing the tracks though. Last train on that portion was in 2008 with NS 3026 and 8 cars and at that time it was bad enough that they had to absolutely crawl over that stretch.

Do you have a fear of bridges? You seem to have a problem with just about every single one of them.

Good to know he's not a bridge inspector.