Train Chasing on the Western End of the old

Raritan River Mainline

 

 

April 18, 2005 – Tom and Jack

 

Goal: Catch the local Conrail (today its NS/CSX CSAO, as they jointly own the track) switching Silverline, the last active customer on the Western end of the old Raritan River main line.  Once this customer stops receiving freight, the entire line gets abandoned from East Brunswick, Ryders Lane, the Bridge over the NJ Turnpike, Milltown, and the Lawrence Brook trestle on into North Brunswick.  Since there are no more active customers in New Brunswick, the entire Western line will get abandoned.

 

Plan: Start at Browns Yard, catch the SA-02 leaving at 11AM, and chase it to Silverline if we can.

 

Map of Plan

 

The day started out great, blue skies and cool temps.  Jack and I met early for breakfast in the East Brunswick IHOP, ate and talked, drank lots of coffee, and finally headed to Browns Yard at 10AM.

 

Just click on the links below to follow our journey as we chased SA-02 from Browns Yard to Silverline.

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Runyon Water Shed Trestle

(thinking we had some time, we explored this little know and ancient trestle buried in the woods)

 

Leaving Browns Yard

Shots of SA-02 leaving Browns Yard

 

Passing the Gillespie Branch

 

 

Switching Boxcars at Jernee Mill Rd

First Customer of the day gets box cars of bricks

 

Crossing the South River Draw Bridge

A nice “then and now” shot

 

Passing the Milltown Freight Station

Another great couple of shots combined with a few then and now shots

 

SilverlineThe last active customer on the old Raritan River Mainline

Mission accomplished!  Plenty of activity at the end of the line.

 

Where did the other cars get dropped off?

We lost track of a few cars, but found them here!

 

 

 

 

 

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Other Fine Sites Dedicated to the Raritan River Railroad

 

www.RaritanRiverRailroad.com

 

http://www.geocities.com/transit383/rrhist.html

 

http://jcrhs.org/raritanriver.html

 

 

Here is an entire forum dedicated to discussions of the RRRR!

 

www.railroad-line.com/forum/forum.asp?forum_id=2