The Port Reading Secondary, also known as the Port Reading Branch, is a railway line in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. It runs from a junction with the Lehigh Line in Bound Brook, New Jersey, to Port Reading, New Jersey, on the

Arthur Kill The Arthur Kill (sometimes referred to as the Staten Island Sound) is a tidal strait between Staten Island (also known as Richmond County), New York and Union and Middlesex counties, New Jersey. It is a major navigational channel of the Port of ...

. Originally built by the

Port Reading Railroad The Port Reading Railroad was a railway company in the United States. It was incorporated in 1890 and completed its main line in 1892. It was controlled throughout its corporate life by the Reading Company. The Port Reading Railroad's line was c ...

and part of the

Reading Company The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and commercial rail transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states that operated from 1924 until its 1976 acquisition by Conrail. Commonly called ...

system, today the line belongs to

Conrail Shared Assets Operations Conrail Shared Assets Operations (CSAO) is the commonly used name for modern-day Conrail ( reporting mark CRCX), an American railroad company. It operates three networks, the North Jersey, South Jersey/Philadelphia, and Detroit Shared Assets Area ...

(CSAO).

Route

The line diverges from the Lehigh Line (formerly the main line of the

Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, w ...

) at CP Bound Brook in Bound Brook, New Jersey. From there it proceeds east to Port Reading, New Jersey, on the

. The line connects with the

Chemical Coast Secondary The Chemical Coast is a section of Union and Middlesex counties in New Jersey located along the shores of the Arthur Kill, across from Staten Island, New York. The name is taken from the Conrail Shared Assets Operations, Conrail Chemical Coast Li ...

in Port Reading, just short of the yard there.

History

The

was founded in 1890 by the

Philadelphia and Reading Railroad The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and commercial rail transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states that operated from 1924 until its 1976 acquisition by Conrail. Commonly called ...

to build a line east from the existing

New York Branch The New York Branch or the Bound Brook Route was a railway line in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It was operated by the Reading Company and owned by two of its subsidiaries, the North Pennsylvania Railroad and the Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad. ...

to a point on the Atlantic coast, where it would establish a new port. The line, long, opened in September 1892. The western end connected with the New York Branch at Port Reading Junction in

Manville, New Jersey Manville is a borough in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States. The borough is located in the heart of the Raritan Valley region and is a part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's populatio ...

, on the west side of the

Raritan River Raritan River is a major river of New Jersey. Its Drainage basin, watershed drains much of the mountainous area of the central part of the state, emptying into the Raritan Bay on the Atlantic Ocean. History Geologists assert that the lower Rar ...

. The Philadelphia and Reading, and later the

, controlled the Port Reading Railroad and the company was never merged into the corporate parent. On the Reading's final bankruptcy in 1976 the line was conveyed to

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busin ...

. Conrail rationalized the trackage around Bound Brook, making a new connection between the former Lehigh Valley main line and the Port Reading line near Bound Brook station, and abandoning the line west of there. When Conrail was split between

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

and the

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31 ...

in 1999, the Port Reading Secondary remained with Conrail as part of

Notes

References

* * * {{cite book , title=Final system plan for restructuring railroads in the Northeast and Midwest region pursuant to the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 , year=1975 , author=United States Railway Association , author-link=United States Railway Association , location=Washington, DC , url=http://multimodalways.org/docs/govts/federal/executive/Agencies/DOT/USRA/FSP/FSP%20VI.pdf , oclc=2889148 , volume=1 , ref={{Harvid, USRA, 1975 Railway lines opened in 1892 Rail infrastructure in New Jersey Conrail lines Reading Company lines