(erielack) Lackawanna Cutoff article

[KSmollin_@_aol.com]

Here is an article from todays Daily Record-of Morris County
I also recently created a list for strictly lackawanna cutoff chatter, since 
sometimes it become a large thread on this group and others
here is the link
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http://www.dailyrecord.com/news/articles/news2-railtraff.htm

05/31/05 - Posted from the Daily Record newsroom
Rail plan sends trash via Morris
Lackwanna Cutoff means garbage freight, some say
By Michael Daigle, Daily Record

Rail lines, even abandoned ones, are like dots: soon enough, they connect.

To a group of Union and Middlesex County residents, that means that the
reconstruction of two old rail lines between Summit and Cranford will
bring hundreds of rail freight cars, some filled with New York City
garbage, rolling along the NJ Transit line through Morristown, Dover and
points west as the need to move goods from the expanding port facilities
along the Port of New York and New Jersey increases.

The Morristown & Erie Railway, headquartered in Morristown, is
redeveloping the Rahway Valley and Staten Island Rail Lines under contract
to Union County.

Bob Sheehan and Stewart Weiss, representatives of the Inman Railroad
Committee, which opposes the plan, laid out this scenario: With the
connection of the tracks between Cranford and Summit complete, it is a
short jump to the NJ Transit commuter line that runs through the center of
Morris County. That line is expected to connect with the Lackawanna
Cutoff, a discontinued rail line from Warren County to Scranton, Pa., that
is the subject of a $350 million rebuilding plan.

It made little sense to Sheehan and Weiss that the Lackawanna Cutoff would
be used only for commuter traffic, as officials have stated, or that the
Morristown & Erie would haul only one train a day between Morris and Union
counties, because the need to expand rail and truck services as the port
facilities expand makes sense to them.

The shipping lanes in the harbor are being dredged to a depth of 50 feet,
which will allow larger ships, and it is estimated that in 20 years, 8.8
million containers will enter the port.

The men, who spoke recently in Morris County at a meeting hosted by the
Morristown Republican Club, said the best possible plan for the new
freight and garbage trains would be a new dedicated freight line along
Route 78 that runs from Newark through Phillipsburg into Pennsylvania.
They said it would be similar to a rail corridor that was developed in
Alameda, Calif., that allows trains to operate without having to pass
across streets.

Peter Palmer, a Somerset County freeholder and chairman of the board of
the North Jersey Regional Transportation Planning Authority, said the
efforts by Sheehan and Weiss are nothing more than an attempt to derail
the Lackawanna Cutoff, a project that "will be of tremendous benefit to
Morris County. It will help relieve the congestion on Route 80."

Palmer called the idea that New York City garbage trains would move west
in large numbers through Morris County a "red herring."

"Garbage is being moved through Manville and West Trenton to Pennsylvania
and points in the South and Southwest," he said.

The Rahway Valley line is being developed for local freight service only,
he said, and as for the Alameda corridor, it was construction in a big
ditch that had no crossing streets to begin with.

Further, Palmer said, a train corridor along Route 78 would be incredibly
expensive and involve the potential construction of a two-mile tunnel
through a mountain between Bedminster and Bernardsville and a possible
five-mile tunnel under the Watchung Reservation in Union County. Route 78
construction in Union County was delayed 20 years because of legal action
filed over the potential damage to the Watching Reservation, he said.

The owners of the Morristown & Erie said the new Rahway Valley connection
will provide a chance to serve customers in both counties -- and their
plans do not include hauling trash.

Gordon Fuller, chief operating officer of the Morristown & Erie, agreed
the port will bring more containers and business to the region. And while
his company expects to benefit from the reopening of the Rahway and Staten
Island lines, it will not be in the form of long trains carrying
containers or New York garbage.

What the Morristown & Erie will service, Fuller said, is existing
customers in the region, and some new customers along the Rahway and
Staten Island lines who indicated they want to use rail rather than trucks
for shipping.

"We have customers who are plastics manufacturers in Union County who
could do business with customers who are plastics users in Morris," he
said.

The bulk of the new rail shipments will be made over existing rail lines
that run south and east out of the port facilities, Fuller said. The
Lehigh Valley line that runs through New Jersey to a huge switching yard
in Bethlehem, Pa., and the Chemical Coast Line that runs south from Newark
through Perth Amboy, will see most of the new traffic, he said.

The Lehigh Valley line is the flattest, smoothest line in the state,
Fuller said. CSX and Norfolk Southern, two large rail companies that
bought pieces of Conrail in 1998, operate on those lines. It makes little
sense for those railroads to haul long trains of freight cars into Morris
County, to Hackettstown in Warren County, then to Phillipsburg, where they
would reconnect with the Lehigh Valley line -- essentially a long detour
- -- when they can get on the Lehigh Valley line in Edison, Fuller said.

Those plans to upgrade the Lehigh and Chemical Coast line already are in
motion.

In 2003, then-Gov. James E. McGreevey kicked off an $80 million plan that
called for a second track on the Lehigh Valley line from Bound Brook east
to the port. That project was given an additional boost this spring by the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which added $141 million for
three more pieces of the puzzle.

Fuller said the addition of the second track, to be reconstructed over an
existing right-of-way, would reduce the delays drivers must endure at
street crossings because trains would be moving in both directions when
the gates were down.

Linda Murphy, who hosted the meeting for the Republican Club, said Monday
that the group was seeking information about the plans because of the
potential impact on the towns along the rail lines. She said it was hard
to separate the fact from opinion at the meetings and she plans to study
the issue more.

The opponents of the projects sent Murphy some post-meeting comments.

- - They questioned Fuller's assertion that the Lackawanna Cutoff was too
steep and winding to allow freight traffic. The opponents cited the Garden
State Model Railroad Club, which said that, when it was completed in 1912,
freight trains were able to sustain speeds of 70 mph.

- - The League of Historical Societies of New Jersey also cited that
statistic in a recent paper on rail preservation. The league noted,
however, that modern trains, heavier and longer than in the past, could
threaten the cut-off's stone overpasses and historic Roseville Tunnel "by
increased weight and double-stacked containers."

- - Opponents also scoffed at the idea that New York City would not send its
garbage through Morris County to Pennsylvania landfills. As proof, they
cited a 2004 decision by the federal Surface Transportation Board that
gave permission to the New York City Economic Development Corp. to
reactivate a 1.3-mile section of the Staten Island Rail Line on Staten
Island, N.Y. to haul garbage from the closed Fresh Kills landfill to a
transfer point along the Chemical Coast rail line that runs south from
Newark through Perth Amboy. It is possible, the opponents said, that by
making rail connections, that trash trains could roll through Morris
County.

New York City, in a December report on the city's trash disposal problem,
said the city must -- because of rising costs and the potential loss by
2007 of Pennsylvania landfill space -- devise plans to handle its trash
differently. Between 2001 and 2003, the report said, Pennsylvania reduced
the amount of imported trash by 2 million tons. By 2007, the state will be
between 4.2 million and 6.2 million tons short of capacity. If
Pennsylvania does not allow the expansion of existing landfills, New York
City would be forced to ship its trash elsewhere, the city plan said.

The city plan calls for more recycling, the development of upstate New
York disposal sites and the creation of an intermodal system to haul the
trash west, possibly to Ohio.

Michael Daigle can be reached at mdaigle_@_gannett.com or (973) 267-7947.

Gary R. Kazin
DL&W Milepost R35.7
Rockaway, New Jersey

http://www.geocities.com/gkazin/index.html


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