Fixing Your Branch Line: Atlantic City

does your commuter rail system have one line that one line that just stands out from the rest of the system for one reason or another whether it be due to short length low ridership odd placement or just straight up different well i'm here to point out this line go over its history explain why it's so odd and what can be done to fix it all of this and more in this episode of fixing your branch line hello everyone and welcome to another episode of fixing your branch line a series where i casually call out a branch line for being somewhat different go over to stream flaws and suggest what can be done to fix it since the last episode's honorable mention was a line that was shared by both metro north and new jersey transit this episode will be continuing where the last one left off by reviewing the next closest railroad to the previous one njt established for the same reasons as metro north this agency was created a few years earlier in 1979 to not only take over x comrade commuter lines but also the local bus services in the state with the agency officially taking overall operations in 1983 once again as a single entity taking over all remaining mirror rail routes in the state this road can be split up into two divisions the hoboken division consisting of former ireland coanda lines and the newark division consisting of everything else so since this series covers branch lines that just blatantly stand out as indicated by literally the first example used in the intro is none other than the atlantic city line as shown by the system map this line is the only route that is straight up isolated from the rest of the system no commuter rail connections to it whatsoever well technically njt operates the riverline light rail that connects it with the northeast corridor line but that doesn't count since it's a light rail art and complete isolation as the only newark division line to not actually stop at newark this route has the lowest ridership in the entire system has the fewest amount of stops on the branch with the furthest distances between stops as most of its branch single tracked uses some of the oldest equipment with the shortest consists and is the only line to serve southern new jersey including the famous atlantic city but despite all of this the atlantic city line has won the most interesting and overlooked histories of any line in the njt system so let's dive right in our story starts at the branch's namesake terminus of the atlantic city the coney island of new jersey and the las vegas city east oddly enough plans to develop the land into the resorting casino-filled city hugging the atlantic ocean didn't the rise until 1850 with town itself being incorporated four years later and conveniently the same year its first rail line served it the camden and atlantic railroad as a matter of fact this line proved to be so popular that a narrow gauge route was built parallel to the existing one by the philadelphia and atlantic city railway this rail will later be acquired by redding and the original camden in atlantic will be acquired by pennsylvania along with multiple smaller railroads in the southern new jersey region with these lines secretly being operated by a pensie subsidiary called the west jersey and seashore railroad thus expanding the fierce rivalry between the pennsylvania and the redding past the city limits of philadelphia and into new jersey later added into the race for atlantic city would be the central road of new jersey whose famous blue comet train provided direct service from the greater new york region into atlantic city however the financial losses of the other south jersey branch lines caused pennsylvania reading to consolidate their operations in the region in 1933 thus forming the pennsylvania reading seashore lines which resulted in a unique mixture of pension reading steam engines coaches and diesels with contents ranging from two to twelve cars long atlantic city had an eight track union station in atlantic avenue along with a bunch of sporadic yards according to the railguide app thus having plenty of capacity for the vast amount of pasture trains entering the city through one of three alignments one of which including a fully electrified route with overhead trolley wires and third rail however an often overlooked aspect of this line's history is its connection to philadelphia although there were some express runs that ran from atlantic city to philadelphia broad street via frankfurt junction most trains to america's playground originated at camden where passengers were transferred to either short ferry ride or the bridge line subway on the delaware river bridge later known as the benjamin franklin bridge with the ladder option being available at broadway street instead of the next stop at camden terminal yet this bridge also carried cars over the river which introduced a new form of competition against the rails thus showcasing the beginning of the end for the line's popularity what's worse is that the line had two primary factors that led to its demise the first being the popularity of the car in america and the second being the more exquisite destinations offered by the locational freedom of the car trains on the prsl were shortened to a single rdc as the main line on the original camden and atlantic was downgraded to commuter service offered by nj dot then a subway expansion would change the commuter line forever as a port authority transit corporation or patco purchased former prsl trackage from camden to lindenwood in 1969 thus severing the heavy rail route from camden and forced the line to truncate and lindenwood for a transfer to patco this transfer proved to be so unpopular with passengers that the atlantic city line became one of the only nj commuter rail lines to cease operations in 1981 right around the formation of new jersey transit's rel division but not all was lost for the city on the atlantic however almost immediately after its closure there were numerous discussions to bring rail service back to the famed atlantic city especially now that the rising casino gambling was bringing in a new wave of tourism to the area thankfully amtrak proposed a brand new and frequent service to revitalize stations on the original camden atlantic line with test runs starting a good two years before nj.cs commuter service however this line will diverge soon after lindenwood and divert onto the taylor bridge and into philadelphia 30th street station where it will continue to run to various destinations on the northeast corridor including richmond springfield and harrisburg with this intercity service also came a local new jersey transit commuter service which stopped at multiple brand new high-level platform stations including atco edmonton a harbor city and abascon both services commenced in 1989 was determined as having an impressive five-track station built as part of the atlantic city convention center with most of njt service just being shuttled between london board and atlantic city and only a few trains running into philly but amtrak moved their local stop to a brand new station named cherry hill in 1994 and the expansive but unpopular atlantic city express ceased operations only a year later in 1995. even though the inner city service left southern jersey the local njt route stayed as all njt trains were extended into philly's 30th street station to fill in the gap left by amtrak although a very questionable part about this restored service in njt takeover is that the present-day acl service is listed on the original 1984 njt map as a connecting service even though the njt hcl service did not start until 1989 an nj dot service to atlantic city ceased in 1981. maybe this represented proposed service i'm not really sure but speaking of maps sometime in the early 2000s all the njt routes would get symbols associated with them as the atlantic city line gained a blue lighthouse signifying the location of atlantic city being on the shoreline and possibly for the apsicon lighthouse in the same city realizing how disconnected the atlantic city line is from the rest of the system njt opened the penn sulkin transit center in 2013 where it could transfer to the riverline light rail for service to trenton and camden over the years power on this branch became a bit more diverse for njt including exclusively single level comic coaches with gp40s along with the occasional gp40 fh2s pl 42 acs alp 45s p40s and even alp-44s kind of the last of these two were for the atlantic city express service or aces a weekend solely express service running from 2009 to 2012 from new york penn station to atlantic city by reversing at philly and only stopped at newark and thus required electric power while under the wires and was a rare instance of an electric engine in diesel territory although the slide is one of a few examples of a north american rail line to be reactivated and mostly refurbished for commuter rail there are still multiple problems with the route itself first off might as well point out that the timetable indicates there being one train every two hours which isn't too bad in the grand scheme of things but their on-time performance may be affected by the next aspect the tracks almost the entire line is single tracked with a few passing sightings which already limits the capacity for any pasture train in addition to the occasional freight and this isn't helped by every station except for apsicon and cherry hill being built on top of where as the second track used to be once again there are a few ultimate determinators which showcase that the entire line used to be double tracked which isn't surprising based on its popularity back in the day speaking of ultimate determinators there is one swing bridge that leads right into the station but its low elevation results in a weird massive great crossing with a connecting highway road right in between the station and the bay but for the rest of the line it uses the original pence route while the parallel reading route was converted for miscellaneous purposes clearly showcasing that dependency is the superior railroad so one would think that all this branch needs is a second track in the moves and platforms doesn't seem too bad but then we get to lindenwald new jersey the place where patco meets with the atlantic city line alright doesn't seem too bad at first looks like there's some room to add a second track alright the bridge is a bit limiting but there's probably some room to add a new bridge for a second track to the right okay maybe we can negotiate that island platform to the right to have njt service 2 or use some of the parking lot space there to add a new tracking platform oh my gosh they trenched the track at haddam field there can't be a second track without drastically reconstructing the station which will cost millions of dollars this one metro station single-handedly created an almost irreversible bottleneck for all heavy rail traffic on the route and what's worse is that right after the station going north the atlantic city line splits off and start its re-routed journey towards philly and the next few patco stations are elevated why couldn't this one be elevated too there would at least be a chance of having some room for a second track to be installed but this causes serious routing problems which now involves serious reconsideration of the rail lines in the area if a direct fully double tracked main line from philadelphia to atlantic city is obtainable so this patco's subway route forces the acl to divert past cherry hill and pensacon and on to the delaware bridge a reroute that adds about an extra 10 miles to the trip and interfering with the already busy northeast corridor as one can see patco has the more direct route from south jersey in the film at the expense of the former prsl route while the existing njt service has to go all the way around frankfurt junction at restricted speed in order to arrive at philly much later than pack cup but at least have some connections to other rail lines both alignments have their benefits and flaws but one direct route cannot seem to exist with the other in its place so how can this inconvenience be resolved well it's a bit complicated before we dive into the confusing routing of the philadelphia rail network let's bring up one little point of interest that was mentioned in the last two episodes now i mentioned how the proposed trans-regional express map indicated light rail conversions or other improvements on the iwlr metro north and njt but if you look closely at this proposed map you can see that the atlantic city line doesn't exist [Music] this means that t-rex either wants to one abandon passenger service on the line in its entirety or two continue service as it is with no stated enhancements i would hope the latter is true since the report brings up the acl a few times but doesn't say any plans for it likewise there haven't been any direct plans to improve the line whatsoever since the penn station transfer station are installing ptc which caused the whole line to be suspended for eight months straight as well as a possible njt station at woodcrest for a better transfer to patco although there is one project which has always been discussed for this route and others in the region the camden philadelphia rail tunnel this monumental proposal was brought up as early as the late 1800s when the delaware bridge was constructed between north philly and pensacon as an inconvenient but cheaper option when compared to a direct tunnel to the center of the city many have speculated that a more direct tunnel would have saved the south jersey passenger railroads since almost all of them terminated at campton and transferred the ferries going to philadelphia such successive tunneling has been evident for pennsy commuter rail service in both new jersey and long island and the penn station since it's much quicker to take one train right into the city instead of getting off at the shoreline and onto a slower ferry into the city itself but back in south jersey some politicians have acknowledged that there is currently one commuter road line in the region that you see about 10 and have proposed a similar solution as the existing trent of the camden service by essentially having a second river line from camden and glassboro since it's essentially a dmu on existing freight tracks with a few small stations the project is relatively cheap and has made good progress over the years but glassboro isn't far enough to avenge commuter rail service further into the state and it doesn't go into philadelphia itself that and it spars a glassboro which kind of caps any future expansion so with all that said what is my official diagnosis for the njt atlantic city line now before i get into this please be advised that my main diagnosis may be a bit controversial and is likely to start numerous debates in the comments i can't simply say insert second track here and push back most of the stations called a oh no because that still doesn't address the single tracked bottleneck at haddenfield or better access to the city from camden alright then here we go i propose the best way to have direct service at camden for the lowest possible cost while keeping most of the existing stations on the line is to convert yes i know it sounds dumb yes i know many modifications are necessary for the tunnels and curves near camden yes i know there are other routing options that are available yes i know the concept of converting almost an entire metro system to heavy rail has many challenges yes i can hear some of you making a reaction video to this episode explaining why i'm wrong please don't roast me out and i would never be able to financially recover from such a video speaking of alan let's bring up one of his earlier episodes of armchair urbanist which just so happens to cover this very region in his video allen suggests a more conventional rail tunnel which despite its highly expensive costs would connect to at least two existing heavy rail right-of-ways while it's good to know that two heavy rail routes can be connected to a tunnel the atlantic city line would either have two a used a more direct reading right away from winslow junction and bypass the nearby adco lindenwood and cherry hill or b use the existing pensie right-of-way to transfer onto the river line while bypassing the pensacon transfer station thus going much further north to go all the way south basically the most direct double-tracked route from camden to the rest of south jersey is the double-tracked patco speed line which itself was built on the original camden atlantic alignment furthermore there is another direct rail connection between philly and camden which existed since the 1930s and that is none other than the ben franklin bridge which is also currently operated by patco now yes a few adjustments would have to be made for some of the curves and the tunnels would have to be raised but this link could easily connect with the existing acceptor reading lines going into jefferson station and as for the few remaining stations in the city give them to the broadliners loop or something like that but that's besides the point yes there would be some cost for converting almost all apache into a heavy rail line for the acl but utilizing the existing ben franklin bridge may be cheaper than constructing a brand new rail tunnel in the same area this would also bypass the njt cherry hill station but that station was built in 1994 on a bypass that the prsl almost never used for philly service so it wouldn't be too much of a loss in my opinion no offense to anyone who uses cherry hill on the other hand the opposite form of rail transport on the route could work as well that is converting the acl into a metro route operated by patco this would make the patchco atlantic city speedline twice the length of the nyca train and possibly one of the longest metrolines in the world at just over 60 miles long quadrupling its current length and considering service between camden and atlantic city was fully electrified at one point at least when running via new field using the third rail on a faster alignment isn't entirely out of the question although this would have cost of its own including a third rail on the double tracked line all the way to atlantic city as well as possibly great separating the route with elevated or underground stations however if you do want the acl to enter philly through a new heavy rail tunnel without converting pacco and keeping all the existing stations intact there is one line that can be utilized said route runs through merchanville and was originally part of a prsl line that ran to toms river and all the way to bay head but has since been turned into a trail as bad as it is for any rail line to be abandoned or repurposed for something other than rail transport a rail trail at least preserves the original right-of-way should rail service return on the line now i did multiple calculations on the viability of restoring this more direct route from cherry hill to camden starting off with this ultimate determinator over route 130. oddly enough the bridge only has enough room for one track but its current location on the bridge's base seems to be right in between where two tracks used to fit furthermore the junction at merchant ville connects with the current acl route heading east towards mount holly but there was never a junction between the acl line going north and the merchandise line going west towards campton likely because all south jersey trains used the more direct hampton atlantic route to the camden ferry instead of using the current l or bridge alignment to philly to determine if such a junction could fit i highlighted the approximate length of one of septa's tightest curves just outside of jefferson and while using the same height dimensions above ground level such a curve is almost possible with just some land having to be acquired near the residential area but even though the slime will be perfect for heavy rail service while keeping all apache intact it still relies on a currently non-existent camden to philly tunnel in order to guarantee a much quicker travel and as far as the rest of the line goes if possible i would just extend the trench at hatton field even if it means reconstructing at least half of the station and losing a few parking spaces while costing millions of dollars to extend the trench arden insert second track here and push back all the stations except apsicon for the rest of the branch i would also suggest elevating the atlantic city station and the bridge that leads into it so this way it doesn't interfere with the highway but this would be a low priority project since the station is fine with its five tracks or just build the connecting road over the highway so this way it doesn't interfere with any rail traffic but overall if you want the most direct service affiliate for the lowest construction costs i would say convert patco to heavy rail from london world to philly via the ben franklin bridge and make infrastructure modifications where necessary and if you want the coveted affiliated camden rail tunnel without converting patco connect the existing line to the merchanville rail trail for the quickest journey to the city and of course in addition to the popularity of the atlantic city line i would absolutely suggest the restoration of other xpr sl commuter service in south jersey using the same infrastructure from canada philly namely the more popular ones such as toms river salem bridgeton cape may and ocean city for these services i prefer heavy rail over light rail due to more compatible infrastructure and for having more capacity when compared to small dmus but it wouldn't leave larger multiple units such as tablet flirts out of the question for these relatively short services if implemented then efficient pass-through rail service could properly serve one of the most underrated regions in the northeast and spurred the development of an entirely new community rail corridor to better connect south jersey not only to philadelphia but to the rest of the state as well for this episode the pick for honorable mention goes to the branch which was owned by the same railroad which had rail service in south jersey but was not part of the pennsylvania riding seashore lines and this railroad's former main line mostly still exists today as the raritan valley branch oh how the mighty have fallen as indicated by the yellow orange crop statue of liberty icon for the branch this line was virtually the main line for the central rail of new jersey also known as the cnj or jersey central founded in 1839 the line was extended several times throughout its history from elizabeth's port all the way to wiltsbury pennsylvania by 1866 with a good amount of branch lanes in between and just enough lines in pennsylvania to take part in moving some sweet sweet and recycle but more on that in the next episode this main line of the relatively small but mighty jersey central saw incredibly diverse power over the years ranging from unique steam engines to rare fairbanks sports diesels with heavy freights and various passenger trains with various concepts sadly the massive four tracked mainline will be reduced to two tracks while in new jersey with other portions in pennsylvania being abandoned in favor of the parallel lehigh valley line as the cj would be absorbed with other struggling northeastern railroads in the common rail 1976. although at this time the cnj was one of the handful of northeastern pasture boroughs to continue commuter runs on their main line as their service of phillipsburg was thankfully acquired by njdot but sadly it would terminate at newark penn station via the aldine connection as the entire four-track main line between cranford and the massive communa paul terminal in jersey city was entirely abandoned which said terminal at least being preserved as a park today the branch continues its predecessor's commuter tradition by running most trains to raritan with some trains extending past here to high bridge and sees much more diverse power than the acl namely with bombardier by levels and more importantly dual mode alp-45s which allowed for direct newark to hoboken and new york penn station trips starting in the mid-2010s also some points of interest on the slide are union roseau park and of course the world famous bound brook since any publicly accessible place where two class ones meet equals great rail fanning opportunities i must say frequencies for this branch are great one train every 30 minutes for rush hour service and once every hour for off-peak along with service of hybrids once every two hours since it's less densely populated however if there is one main glaringly obvious hindrance for this line it's that almost the entire route is at least one track deficient in which the right-of-way west of veron only has one track when there used to be two and east veronin only has two tracks when there very clearly used to be four in some areas six also don't be fooled by the ultimate determinator on crosslight place in westfield since there's a black setting it was rebuilt into a double track bridge in 1999 and of course zero tracks between cranford and communipaw when there used to be four the bayonne yard becoming an intermodal terminal and a lumber yard in the newark bay bridge being lost to the sea all of what's done in favor for once again the x-lehigh valley route now one can argue that with most freight traffic using the x-lei valley main line there isn't too much of a need to reinstall these extra tracks just for njt and a few local freights that is until 2021 when amtrak released their connexus map with a bunch of proposed pass-through rail services across the nation and by some chance amtrak recognized the cnj's existence by proposing pastor service to allentown on the former cnj mainline it stops at somerville new jersey along with easton and bethlehem now it's nice to see that amtrak is proposing service on many of these former commuter routes but the short length of these routes raises the question of whether these services are better as what they were in the past commuter lines i for one say yes in which even though it's taking decades for commuter services to start to some of these places especially the lock want to cut off the scranton these services will be much more frequent if they're operated by state agencies that operate these computer services with a larger budget when compared to a federally funded service even septa offered 9 trains a day for service to reading when compared to amtrak's 3 in their expansion plan so it's assumed that njt's frequencies would have the same ratio if amtrak really wants to use this line however then i suggest making their routes more than 90 miles long with stations more spaced out by continuing along the former c j and lehigh valley to scranton to connect with the lock wanna cut off and maybe go even further by following the route of the phoebe snow to buffalo through binghamton another good nearest city alignment will be connecting allentown with redding and continuing to harrisburg but the point is any rail line that's under 120 miles should be left to commuter rail agencies like njt for more frequent service especially since njt already stated interest in extending the raritan valley line to allentown and anything over that should really be left for inner city companies like amtrak but in the meantime with this new edition of amtrak service coming soon i think it's pretty obvious what my official diagnosis would be for this branch avenge the removed traps this line has so much potential to expand and connect with other inner city and commuter lines alike and the line must have enough capacity to include such demands basically push back almost all the platforms one track length and fill in the gaps with tracks as for the section between cranford and communipal i would also suggest restoring the four-tracked main line to elizabeth's port and double track to a restored communipaw station or a new alignment to hoboken station this route can either see regular passenger service from the rvl or if demand is too low then use the line for shuttle trades like the cnj and comradel did in the 1970s and the freight railroads would benefit from the cranford section as a few new switches could allow new access to the absolutely massive and vital port newer [Music] thank you all for watching this episode of fixing your branch line somehow this branch turned out to be more intense with research than the previous episode mostly due to the fact that philadelphia railroading is complicated and i had to consider every possible route under a variety of circumstances such as the addition of affiliated hampton rail tunnel i mean just looking at the njt map i knew i had to cover the atlantic city line since it's disconnected from the rest of the system but it wasn't counting on the complex history of the branch and its previous owner let alone the various routing options of philly likewise the honorable mention of the raritan valley line also led to a little explanation of why i feel amtrak should focus on running longer inner city routes and leave anything under 120 miles to commuter agencies this video also included multiple aerial views on both google maps and railguide which helps showcase my various reasons for each statement again i would like to emphasize that the solutions i offer in this video are not the only ways to fix the branch and if you have any idea on how to efficiently route the atlantic city line and other potential south jersey communal lines please let me know in the comments so with all of that said thank you again for watching credit for all the photographs used go to their respective photographers and if you enjoyed this video don't forget to like subscribe for more have a good day [Music] you

Channel: Pensyfan19

Views: 20,329

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Id: AkJQz3-d4NI

Length: 28min 38sec (1718 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 29 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/unsalted-butter]

it'd be great if NJT remembered New Jersey exists south of the Raritan River.