Southern Secondary
The Southern Secondary is a rail line in New Jersey, operated by Conrail Shared Assets Operations (CSAO) and owned by NJ Transit. The active portion of the line runs from South Amboy to the current end of track at Lakewood. The line is owned by NJ Transit, but the southern portion (Red Bank, NJ to Lakewood), is not shared with passenger trains. Beyond Lakewood, the tracks are owned by CSAO as far as Lakehurst, but are inactive between Lakewood and Lakehurst.
History
Raritan & Delaware Bay and NJ Southern
The line started as part of the Raritan and Delaware Bay Railroad, and soon passed through the ownership of the New Jersey Southern Railroad to the hands of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, which took ownership of the line in 1879.
CNJ Southern Division (1879-1976)
From 1879, the line was owned by the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ), which used it as their Southern Division, which, at its greatest extent, ran from Red Bank to the shores of the Delaware Bay at Bivalve and Bayside. The line hosted the CNJ's famous passenger train the Blue Comet 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 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 Lakewood. 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.
Current operations
The WPSA-31, the weekly freight that serves the customers, runs down the line every Thursday. The last four customers on the line are:
- Woodhaven Lumber - the largest customer on the line, they receive cars every week.
- Extech Building Materials - Extech receives boxcars of Building Materials, but not every week. They didn’t receive cars in 2018, but started receiving cars again in 2019.
- Brick Recycling - Receives gondola cars for loading with scrap metal.
- Bel-Ray Co, Inc. - Receives tank cars of ethanol/ethyl alcohol. The tank cars are spotted on the Brick Recycling siding.
The return job, the WPSA-38, switches out with the SA-31 crew to bring the empties from Woodhaven back to Browns Yard in Sayreville, as well as to drill Brick Recycling and Bel-Ray, Co. along the way.
