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RE: (erielack) Carlton Hill Branch Rails-To-Trails Quandary
> There's an interesting article on the Railway Age site about the little tempest in a teapot going on in Rutherford, NJ regarding
the
> planned conversion of the long-unused Carlton Hill Branch into a recreational use trail.
>
> http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/doug-bowen/railroad-property-rights-routinely-ignored.html?channel=50
>
> The two bordering towns of Rutherford and East Rutherford had received some historical preservation and greenspace grant funding,
> and have for several years sought to purchase the right of way from NS for conversion to a trail. The NS did negotiate with the
towns
> for a while, but eventually decided that it was not going to sell. So, an enterprising citizen took it on himself to purchase some
> woodchips and carve out a 3 or 4 foot path through the overgrown trees and brush along the former Erie Main Line (it is a "him"; I
> myself once saw a fellow rolling a wheelbarrel from a chip pile along Jackson Avenue, while driving by; the paper says that his
name is
> "Phil"). NS recently responded by putting up some NO TRESPASSING signs, and the local press responded somewhat cynically. There
> was even a small 40-person "rally" of concerned Rutherfordians.
That is an exceptionally well-written article.
I'm not sure what plans NS has (if any) for the Carlton Hill Spur, but it *IS* their property (how would YOU like it if you had a
weedy section at the back of your yard, and folks in the neighborhood decided to cut down your weeds and make the back of YOUR yard
a walking trail?). NS has a history of such "railbanking" - while most of these railbanked lines may never get used, some very well
might (recent examples of lines "coming to life" include the NYS&W over Sparta Mountain, and oh, the DL&W Cut-Off!). If NS is still
paying property taxes on this property, no one has a right to tell them what to do.
> Can't help but raise an eyebrow to the NS spokesman's comment that "if it serves our business interest, we're going to look for
ways
> to make [the line] part of our very active train network". There is a fairly modern light industrial park near the Passaic
River, but I can't
> imagine any of its tenants needing rail-sized shipments. I'm not sure if the Delsaco food processing plant, which was the last
customer
> on the line, is still being used; I would think that it and the adjacent former Forbes Trucking site (which used to get tank cars
for
> transloading, and is now an environmental remediation site) would be worth more as a condo development, which is what the old
> Royce Chemical factory became (Google Earth overhead shot shows trucks on the docks, but not sure how old this view is; sez
> copyright 2012). I suspect that NS is stalling so as to keep the eventual sales price to the boros as high as possible.
Hmm... not sure? But it IS their prerogative to do so if they wanted to.
The same arguments all apply to the lower Boonton Line, currently out of service as well, and the east end of the Newark Branch
(also still owned by NS but not used anymore)
> Oh, PS, some people in Rutherford now call this project "Rutherford's High Line". Ugh, oh please, this was certainly once a
pleasant
> suburban stretch of the Erie Main, but a Manhattan West Side Freight Line it is NOT. No third rail and bi-power motors, no geared
> steam locos, no "cowboys" on horseback leading the switching crews, no E-8's on mail trains (except for Atlantic Express #8, I
guess; 7
> went up the Bergen County Line), no tunnels thru warehouses and concrete right of way. New York Central envy, I suppose.
Heh heh - it could just be co-opting a successful rail-to-park project to try to give their effort more credibility?
It just says a lot about industry in NJ - the EL still had many local customers back in the mid-1970s, but that industry has
withered away and moved - either down South or to China. <sad>
- Paul
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