RR line from Camden to Toms River?

It was my understanding that the PRR was pushing for abandoning the line during the War Years leading up to 1946 but was not permitted (Government mandated that they keep the line operational). In the winter of 1946 (beginning or end of the year?), in the dark hours of the night, the bridge "caught fire" and was completely destroyed/unsalvageable giving the PRR the justification that would allow abandonment.

Was the fire coincidental, accidental, or otherwise? Many felt it was awfully convenient considering how hard the PRR was trying to get rid of it.

If it wasn't for the fire in '46, I sincerely doubt that line would have lasted much longer regardless. In my perspective, I sincerely doubt NJT would ever had the chance to even consider that line of road.

With the emergence of the automobile as an affordable convenience to the masses, rail services to resorts that did business for only 3-4 months a year began drying up very fast. It is amazing that Ocean City service lasted as long as it did. Atlantic City is rough go. As a City, it has business all year round, but it isn't a significant source of employment.

Part time use thru the year doesn't pay the bills once the tax issues started getting applied and cars took away the passenger traffic.

For the most part, Cities used to be the huge economic hub of the area (Newark, Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, etc). They required the transportation services to move product. The cities got decimated as it became too expensive to continue operating factories and the companies did not feel they could compete anymore there and Employers left. NYC survived because it replaced Manufacturing by becoming a World Finance Center.

Fire occurred early December 1946 (coincidentally a few days later the Matawan trestle on the NY & LB caught fire). Only 300 ft of the trestle actually was destroyed, but nonetheless was impassable. Part of the west end was used as a fishing pier until it too burned in the 1960’s. A portion of the eastern section remains as a fishing pier in Seaside Heights.

https://www.fireengineering.com/leaders ... d-traffic/

CJPat wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 11:58 am It was my understanding that the PRR was pushing for abandoning the line during the War Years leading up to 1946 but was not permitted (Government mandated that they keep the line operational). In the winter of 1946 (beginning or end of the year?), in the dark hours of the night, the bridge "caught fire" and was completely destroyed/unsalvageable giving the PRR the justification that would allow abandonment.

Was the fire coincidental, accidental, or otherwise? Many felt it was awfully convenient considering how hard the PRR was trying to get rid of it.

If it wasn't for the fire in '46, I sincerely doubt that line would have lasted much longer regardless. In my perspective, I sincerely doubt NJT would ever had the chance to even consider that line of road.

With the emergence of the automobile as an affordable convenience to the masses, rail services to resorts that did business for only 3-4 months a year began drying up very fast. It is amazing that Ocean City service lasted as long as it did. Atlantic City is rough go. As a City, it has business all year round, but it isn't a significant source of employment.

Part time use thru the year doesn't pay the bills once the tax issues started getting applied and cars took away the passenger traffic.

For the most part, Cities used to be the huge economic hub of the area (Newark, Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, etc). They required the transportation services to move product. The cities got decimated as it became too expensive to continue operating factories and the companies did not feel they could compete anymore there and Employers left. NYC survived because it replaced Manufacturing by becoming a World Finance Center.

If it didn't burn down, I could see most of the ROW being somewhat preserved at least instead of disappearing very fast like in our timeline.

Toms River would still be a pretty significant source of commuting. Not to mention it passed by Fort Dix, a huge source of jobs in Ocean County/the greater Philly area. Plenty of businesses on the shore survive on the very short 3-4 months of the year, and NJT could probably rent the line in off-seasons to car storage. I don't think the more southern sects of the Coastline (anything south of Long Branch, which doesn't have direct NYC connection) see a whole lot of ridership outside of the summers.

The Ocean City bridge incident was unfortunate since the issue was relatively an easy fix from what I've heard, but NJT just wanted out completely. I believe most of the ROW still remains.

Believe it or not, the United States is producing more stuff now than it did in the past; it's just that much of it is automated, and almost all of it occurs in the Midwest where labor and land are cheaper. It's also now dominated by larger factories instead of the much smaller ones that used to operate around here. It also does not employ nearly as many people as it once did due to the stated reasons. Not to mention there was quite a bit of social unrest in the late 60's that scared both employer and employee alike away from the cities.

@JohnFromJersey, I just can't see it. Burn or not burn, the PRR wasn't generating enough business (even with higher ridership and more frequent freight deliveries during the summer) and wanted rid of the line. If the bridge hadn't burned, the line would have gone the same route as the CNJ Barnegat Branch and the Tuckerton RR.

Remember, we are discussing a failed spur. It failed 75 years ago and not because of the bridge. The bridge was just a convenient legal excuse for abandonment. I don't know when the PRR stopped passenger traffic, although there is a picture out there of a doodlebug in front of the South Toms River Station several years after the Barnegat Bay bridge was gone (midway down the Rt 9 connector from the GSP to the actual US Rt 9). After Passenger traffic was discontinued I think they still ran small freight and US mail to that station until the Garden State parkway was built severing the line in /around 1953.

Freight continued to be delivered to the small factory/plant just west of the Parkway and then the PRR abandoned everything back to Pemberton. That line was never of any use for Ft Dix. The line never got within a mile of the Ft Dix Boundary as it passed through the south side of Browns Mills and thru South Pemberton (and at those locations, the only thing nearby in Dix was weapons ranges and bivouac sites, not the operating Post). So at best, I think you would need to change trains further west in Birmingham.

When labor was a lot cheaper and infrastructure was not taxed, you could afford to provide transportation services to part time communities and their part time businesses. Sure there was always a small commerce going during the off season, but nowhere in the volumes needed to cover the costs of track maintenance (this was a big reason why the bridge was problematice spanning a mile across a bay and subject to storm surges), engine & car maintenance, structure & signal maintenance, personnel and, later, taxes, not to mention generate a profit for the shareholders (nothing wrong with that).

We saw more and more railroads going bankrupt because they could not generate enough income to keep all the government mandated lines open. It only got worse with cars removing passenger traffic and trucks and planes removing freight and finally the US Gov't removing the Federal Mail contracts.