The Southern Secondary is a rail 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 ...

, operated by

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) from South Amboy to Red Bank, and the Delaware and Raritan River Railroad (DRR), a subsidiary of Chesapeake and Delaware, LLC, between Red Bank and Lakewood. The entire active portion of the line is owned by

NJ Transit New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit, and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey, along with portions of New York State and Pennsylvania. It operates bu ...

. The active portion of the line runs from

South Amboy South Amboy is a suburban city in Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located on Raritan Bay. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city's population was 9,411.Lakewood Lakewood may refer to: Places Australia * Lakewood, Western Australia, an abandoned town in Western Australia Canada * Lakewood, Edmonton, Alberta * Lakewood Suburban Centre, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Philippines * Lakewood, Zamboanga del S ...

. The line is owned by

, but the southern portion (

Red Bank, NJ Red Bank is a borough in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. Incorporated in 1908, the community is on the Navesink River, the area's original transportation route to the ocean and other ports. Red Bank is in the New York Metropolitan A ...

Lakewood Lakewood may refer to: Places Australia * Lakewood, Western Australia, an abandoned town in Western Australia Canada * Lakewood, Edmonton, Alberta * Lakewood Suburban Centre, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Philippines * Lakewood, Zamboanga del S ...

), is not shared with passenger trains. Beyond

, the tracks are owned by CSAO as far as Lakehurst, but are inactive between

and Lakehurst.

History

Raritan & Delaware Bay and NJ Southern

The line started as part of the

Raritan and Delaware Bay Railroad New Jersey Southern RR and connections The New Jersey Southern Railroad was a railroad that started in 1854. It would continue under this name until the 1870s as a separate company and the lines that it had constructed or run continued to be run i ...

, and soon passed through the ownership of the

New Jersey Southern Railroad New Jersey Southern RR and connections The New Jersey Southern Railroad was a railroad that started in 1854. It would continue under this name until the 1870s as a separate company and the lines that it had constructed or run continued to be run i ...

to the hands of the

Central Railroad of New Jersey The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...

, which took ownership of the line in 1879.

CNJ Southern Division (1879-1976)

From 1879, the line was owned by the

(CNJ), which used it as their Southern Division, which, at its greatest extent, ran from Red Bank to the shores of the

Delaware Bay Delaware Bay is the estuary outlet of the Delaware River on the northeast seaboard of the United States. It is approximately in area, the bay's freshwater mixes for many miles with the saltwater of the Atlantic Ocean. The bay is bordered inlan ...

at Bivalve and Bayside. The line hosted the CNJ's famous passenger train the

Blue Comet The ''Blue Comet'' was a named passenger train operated by Central Railroad of New Jersey from 1929 to 1941 between the New York metropolitan area and Atlantic City. Designed by Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) president R.B. White in 19 ...

from 1929 to 1941. The line prospered into the 1940s when, like all American rail lines and the railroads that owned them, it entered a period of decline. In 1957, the last scheduled passenger service ended on the line, leaving it as a freight-only line. Despite the sand traffic that frequented the line, the number of general freights (not including sand and local freights to serve the industries along the line) dwindled to two, JS-1 and SJ-2 as the northeastern rail scene became more grim. In 1976,

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 ...

took over all operations, and in 1978, it severed the line between Woodmansie and Winslow Junction, ending its use as a through route linking South and North Jersey. Within the next decade, operations would be cut back again to Lakehurst.

Conrail Shared Assets Operations (1999-present)

From June, 1 1999, the line has been operated by CSAO, and despite the recovering railroad state in this time frame, the line's customer base continued to dwindle, and in 2010, the line was cut back further to

. The line also included the Toms River Industrial Track ( Lakehurst to Toms River), but it was placed out of service after all of the customers discontinued rail service. Effective July 1, 2022, CSAO interchanges with the Delaware and Raritan River Railroad at Red Bank. Despite the change in common carrier service, CSAO retains trackage rights over the entire route.

Delaware and Raritan River Railroad (2022-present)

The Delaware and Raritan River Railroad assumed common carrier operations between Red Bank and Lakewood as of July 1, 2022. The DRR is responsible for serving all customers on this section of the route. As part of the STB filing, DRR stated its intentions to restore service to Lakehurst, as well as the Toms River Industrial Track. The filing also included plans to restore the Freehold Secondary between Freehold and Farmingdale.

Current operations

The WPSA-31 transfers cars from Browns Yard to Red Bank, where the cars are interchanged with DRR. Once in Red Bank, DRR local RB-01 runs to Lakewood and back, servicing customers along the way. The last five customers on the line are: *Brick Recycling, Howell, receives cars to load with scrap. *Marjam Supply Company, Howell, receives drywall loads. (Uses brick recycling siding) *Laird & Company, Eatontown, receives ethanol/ethyl alcohol loads. (Uses brick recycling siding) *Extech Building Materials, Howell, receives building materials. *Woodhaven Lumber, Lakewood, receives lumber.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Archive.orgNjtransit.comOctrainguy.rrpicturearchives.netRrpicturearchives.netRailseast.comWebspace.webring.com
NJ Transit Rail Operations Rail infrastructure in New Jersey