A NEW RAILROAD BETWEEN PHILADELPHIA AND NEW YORK.
A SKETCH OF THE NEW RAILROAD
Pennsylvania Capitalists Interested.
Within a week past, parties interested in railroad management have heard indistinct rumors of the completion of a line, destined not only materially to affect the traveling public of Philadelphia and New York, but to work a revolution and probably inaugurate a railroad war in New Jersey.A SKETCH OF THE NEW RAILROAD
Pennsylvania Capitalists Interested.
Under a legislative act of March 2d, 1832, and its supplements, the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company has claimed the exclusive right of the carrying business between the two great cities of New York and Philadelphia, the grant of the State of New Jersey being in substance “that it shall not be lawful at any time during the continuance of the charter to construct any other railroad without the consent of the companies which shall be intended or used for the transportation of passengers or merchandise between the cities of New York and Philadelphia, or to compete in business with the Camden and Amboy Railroad.” The original charter of the company was approved February 4th, 1830. Other provisions have been embodied during the last score of years, but their purpose is not essentially different from that of the paragraph above given.
Parties have ventured, however, in a quiet manner, to obtain a charter for a rival road, and to proceed with its construction. The prospects now are that the opposing route will be open for travel within forty days of the present time, and that under a low rate of fare (about $2 between New York and Philadelphia) it will use every exertion to overcome the legal and physical obstacles of the existing lines. A long course of litigation will probably ensue.
THE NEW ROUTE.
The new line is known as the “Raritan and Delaware Bay Railroad.” We will not, in this article, recapitulate all the circumstances under which the charter was obtained. The capital, it is understood, was fixed at $2,000,000, in shares of $100 each. Bonds to the amount of over one million dollars have already been disposed of, at sixty or seventy cents on the dollar, on Wall Street, Third Street, and in London. General powers were given to construct a railroad from some point on the shore of the Raritan Bay to the lower peninsula of New Jersey, intersecting the Camden and Atlantic Railroad.
A reference to the map will show the position of Port Monmouth, the northern terminus of the line, on Raritan bay, twenty-three miles distant from New York. The Port is eight miles nearer to the city than Amboy, and is within sight of Sandy Hook Lighthouse. Leaving the terminus, the road passes southward through Monmouth county. At Eatontown (ten miles below Raritan Bay), a branch leaves the main line and runs for five miles to Long Branch. The main line now diverges gradually to the southward, and crossing Ocean and Burlington counties, reaches the Camden and Atlantic Railroad in Camden county, about twenty miles from Philadelphia. Here a connection will probably by formed, and the road of the last named Company used to this city. The distances will be about as follows:–
...................................................Miles
Kaighn’s Point to Jackson...................21
Jackson to Atsion.............................. 6
Atsion to Butler House.......................12
Butler House to Hilliard’s......................7
Hilliard’s to Manchester......................13
Manchester to Bergen Iron Works..........5
Bergen Iron Works to Squankum............5
Squankum to Farmingdale.....................5
Farmingdale to Eatontown....................5
Eatontown to Red Bank........................3
Red Bank to Port Monmouth..................5
Port Monmouth to New York................23
Total.............................................110
THE FINANCIAL POWER.
The road, which is now in the hands of the contractors, S.W. and W.A. Torrey, Beaver street, New York, has been built at very little cost compared with the Pennsylvania works. The holders of its securities are not publicly known, but it is conjectured, and with probability, that many of the parties in interest are closely connected with several of our leading lines terminating in Philadelphia. It is rumored that the immense freight from the West is to be sent from Philadelphia to Port Monmouth and New York by the new route, instead of over existing roads. From some cause the Pennsylvania Central has not heretofore attained a system of perfection in the transfer of passengers to New York. There is no evidence that the Central Company, as a corporation, has entered into the new scheme. It is said, however, that many of the master spirits have entire control of the new route, and the result will be to make a railroad route between Philadelphia and New York, in competition with the Camden and Amboy Company. The effect of this upon the trade of our own city is a question which may be solved at the leisure which will come to our business men. It would be at least novel to see the freight and passenger cars from Washington, Baltimore, Pittsburg and the great West taken upon steamers at the foot of Washington street wharf, ferried over the Delaware, again placed upon the iron rail and ultimately landed on the shores of Raritan Bay, almost within sight of the steeples of New York, and that, too, when the municipality and citizens have invested many millions in the Pennsylvania Railroad for the purpose of making a terminus at the Delaware River.
LOCAL BUSINESS OF THE NEW ROUTE.
The local business of the new route will be unimportant for the next five years. The ocean counties of New Jersey contain thousands of acres of barren sand and stunted pine. A sirocco could not have blasted the country more effectually. The summer travel on the eastern end, between New York and Long Branch, and on the western end from Philadelphia to the Camden and Atlantic Junction, may yield a small profit. There is not town on the road containing over five hundred residents. A few glass works and two or three iron furnaces and saw mills are scattered through the wilderness. The rail passes within fifteen miles of Barnegat, but “wreckers” are not proverbial for making railroad excursions, and the transportation of pine wood, dried whortleberries, Barnegat clams and decayed shell-fish would not enable the company to declare a dividend of any pecuniary per s’cent.
Squankum is a section that might invite a capitalist. Here are numerous marl beds, the products of which will be required along the line of the road in Burlington and Ocean counties as soon as settlers can be found.
OFFICERS OF THE ROAD.
The working officers of the road are as follows:–
President–F.J. CHETWOOD
Superintendent–W.A. Torrey
Assistant Superintendent–D.S. Seymour
Director–Names could not be ascertained, as every one interested refused to give them.
CONDITION OF THE LINE.
The road from Port Monmouth to Manchester (twenty-eight miles) have been in operation for nearly one year. The rails are laid for fifteen miles further. The grading is completed for an additional eleven miles, leaving one twelve to be prepared. Nearly one thousand men are now at work, the contract requiring the completion by July 1st, 1862. Two new steamers, it is said, will be used between New York and Port Monmouth, the route being through the “Narrows,” and not around the Kills as pursued by the Camden and Amboy boats. The rail is of the “T” pattern, weighing not less than fifty two pounds to the yard. The crossties are of yellow pine. The “chairs” are of wrought iron, the spikes going through both the rail and the chair. The ballast is sand and gravel. There are no bridges on the road, grades are light, with the exception of a three or four mile grade near Butler House, which is in favor of the eastward bound freight. The rolling stock at present consists of fifteen passenger cars and a half dozen locomotives. At New York, the pier at the foot of Murray street has been leased as a depot. At Port Monmouth, a wharf has been constructed which projects into the bay for nearly three-quarters of a mile.
A PEDESTRIAN TRIP.
A pedestrian trip along the unfinished line from Manchester to the Camden and Atlantic Junction is almost equal to an excursion of thirty-five miles into an African desert. The scorching sun pours his rays upon a level tract of country without heavy timber and almost without water. “Scrubby” pines and stunted oaks make desperate exertions to obtain root hold in the dry and treacherous white sand, and fail in that effort. Their companions in misery are melancholy and brassy snakes and half expiring toads. Birds and mosquitoes have retired in disgust. At intervals, are peat bogs, apparently solid to the tread, but in reality quaking and engulphing the unwary victim. While there is no good running water, there are pools of brackish hue and wretched taste. The men working along the line sometimes carry their drink for miles. If the rugged rhinoceros and the oily whales, whose skeleton underlie New Jersey, could revisit the surface in this section, they would willingly retire again into the shades of private life in some marl pit, welcoming themselves to hospitable graves.
At the conclusion of detailed narratives such as this, it is customary to return thanks to railroad officers or others for having furnished information. It is a pleasure to our reporter to announce that he thanks nobody. Parties known to be in interest, to whom application was made, evidently believe the adage that “language was given to man to conceal his thoughts,” and the facts above narrated were only obtained by a personal visit by the principal reporter of THE INQUIRER to every mile of a road, which if it does not suffer too much at the hands of “legal gentlemen, will become a thoroughfare in opposition to the new routes, between New York and Philadelphia, and the profits…will equal those of the famous East India Company which a Parliament of England finally legislated out of existence.
The Philadelphia Inquirer, 26 June 1862, page 8
Best regards,
Jerseyman
