The future of Cranbury Station

They have begun to demolish the old Chamberlin & Barclay mill at Cranbury Station. This was rail-served at the end of the Highstown Industrial until early 2020 when Chamberlin went under. Now that this property appears to be under development, what is the chance that the property retains its railroad siding / use? Could this property be valuable for the D&RRR as a staging area or yard?

C&D does not own any property near there nor do they provide service on the Hightstown IT. Furthermore, the line has been severed between the Prospect Plains and Applegarth road crossings, meaning trains cannot travel past prospect plains.

I don’t know that this property will become a new business that can make use of rail, especially with all those distribution centers going up in that area, but never say never.

If they're tearing down an industrial site that had rail service, highly unlikely the structure they replace it with will be another industry that has rail service, if an industry at all.

Likely it will become a warehouse/distribution center, or a housing development.

Probably going to become more condos.

With some google-fu, the former Chamberlin & Barclay property at 2 Hightstown-Cranbury Station Rd sold in 2020 to a subsidiary of Haddad brands. So it will most likely be distribution of shoes and clothing items.

The quotes below are from the township meeting minutes.

The applicant is seeking to construct a warehouse on the property. The warehouse will be 250,000 sq. ft. The site is located at the corner of Station Road and Hightstown-Cranbury Station Road. It is 17 acres. This is the former Chamberlain and Barclay facility. The warehouse will be importing their own goods and will not have multiple trucks coming in and out. The product will be children’s clothing and will be an auxiliary facility. The warehouse will typically run five (5) days a week 7 AM – 4:30 PM.

Mr. Kaiser advised the developer that the train depot is an important structure and is the reason why it is called Cranbury Station.

Ms. Leheny advised that it is not required to apply to the Historic Preservation Commission due to not being a part of the Historic District and/or a historic site.

Ms. Spann suggested the developer could possibly use the train depot as a training spot for their employees.

Mr. Feranda suggested the architecture could have a railroad station or a depot feel. That could bring back the feeling of a train station.

The developer advised he is willing to move the train station depot. When the property was bought there was a tenant in the depot.

Nomis, this is incredibly helpful information. I attempted to scour the Cranbury agendas but to no avail. Thank you sir, and here's to hoping that the Haddad Brands building at least has provision for rail service.

I don't think the distribution center will be using rail then, unless they got intermodal containers/trailers from the port (assuming their merchandise is made overseas and shipped here) shipped directly to the center, which is unlikely.

FWIW, Haddad Brands moved into a building in Dayton in the last 10 years and ripped out the rail siding... oh well, hope for something at the end of the line just past the turnpike, where there is another siding leading into a warehouse.

That was Home Depot distribution at one point I think. I doubt they’ll get trains there again though. Mainly cause Home Depot has another center served by Raritan Central in Keasby and they provide FAR better service than Conrail is willing to.

JohnFromJersey wrote: ↑Tue Feb 28, 2023 5:14 pm I don't think the distribution center will be using rail then, unless they got intermodal containers/trailers from the port (assuming their merchandise is made overseas and shipped here) shipped directly to the center, which is unlikely.

Containers and trailers from the port can't be unloaded from a railcar at a warehouse unless they have the proper large and expensive equipment used to load/unload those trailers and containers. Chances are they will get containers from a ship at the port and truck them to the facility. Merchandise will then be trucked to the retailer.

There do exist “railcars” that are basically intermodal trailers that slide onto train wheels. These eliminate cranes or container movers at the destination.

Thing is though, you’d still need a trailer mover at the destination, and possibly a forklift to move the bogies off the track.

Travel time on rail will also be at least 24 hours longer, give it take, due to how the Oak Island-Browns transfer is set up and the fact that 31 would have to bring the train down the day after, vs maybe an hour maximum to the port. One upside of using rail here? Not having to deal with apocalyptic truck congestion at Maher Terminals/Port Newark plus whatever fees they charge to go in there. But even so…

This place doesn’t sound like it will be getting that much truck traffic anyways, and if your only dealing with trucks every so often then rail is almost always unviable.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 11:29 am That was Home Depot distribution at one point I think. I doubt they’ll get trains there again though. Mainly cause Home Depot has another center served by Raritan Central in Keasby and they provide FAR better service than Conrail is willing to.

False.
We served Home Depot 5 days a week with a dedicated local WPSA33. They would do 8 boxcars and 5 flats a night. On weekends when they were busy and extra would give them two flat car drills.

Conrail loves that they moved because they still get to handle the cars for car count money from the owners and they could cut a job and a locomotive from Browns saving the owners money at the same time.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 10:41 pm There do exist “railcars” that are basically intermodal trailers that slide onto train wheels. These eliminate cranes or container movers at the destination.

Thing is though, you’d still need a trailer mover at the destination, and possibly a forklift to move the bogies off the track.

Travel time on rail will also be at least 24 hours longer, give it take, due to how the Oak Island-Browns transfer is set up and the fact that 31 would have to bring the train down the day after, vs maybe an hour maximum to the port. One upside of using rail here? Not having to deal with apocalyptic truck congestion at Maher Terminals/Port Newark plus whatever fees they charge to go in there. But even so…

This place doesn’t sound like it will be getting that much truck traffic anyways, and if your only dealing with trucks every so often then rail is almost always unviable.

You are referring to Roadrailers. That was a Triple Crown service using equipment that they owned the patent to and will not be releasing it. They ran Roadrailer trains operated by Conrail then NS to the Port until shortly after split date. There were issues with non-union workers building and breaking down the trains. A few of the port companies started suing Triple Crown for an unfair advantage. Those companies then started to block NS from doing business at the ports. I watched a worker get extracted from the roadrailer equipment when I was working a PN job. I think that was the straw that broke the camels back. After that, I never saw a roadrailer again.

Your hatred of Maher Terminal suggests that you're a disgruntled former employee. Maher has the fastest turn around time for trucks, containers and our intermodal trains at Port Newark/Elizabeth. You want to see congestion, I suggest you look at PNCT.

CR7876 is 100% correct about Home Depot. I remember switching them quite often. The only ones complaining about our service were the workers who had to unload the cars saying that we're making them work to hard with all those deliveries.

I was talking about Railrunner. They are almost exactly the same as Roadrailers but they only move intermodal. I do remember hearing that Roadrailers were a PITA to work with at the terminals, and that truckers weren’t fond of them because they were quite heavy. I would like to see the Railrunner used in some capacity in the future.

https://railrunner.com

Aren’t both of them really bad congestion-wise? I’ve driven through there a few times while out railfanning and depending on the day there’ll be hundreds of trucks trying to get in to either place at the same time. That’s the congestion I was referring to. Sometimes it’s so bad that the traffic line extends all the way to the I-95 exit for Elizabeth Seaport.

Why did Conrail stop going to Hope Depot in Cranbury? Had no idea they got switched out that often back in the day. Then again Conrail was a lot better at that time.

Pretty sure CR7876 is talking about the Home Depot Warehouse in Dayton off Herrod Road. We'd go push pull from Brown's with a double shift for Home Depot. Pack a big lunch and a good book to read.
I wish I had saved the maps I made of the lines served out of Brown's from the 90's. So much business back then.