Bayside NJ

[johnnyb]

Last Sunday Ro & I wandered back roads out to several NJ Delaware Bay shore points.
At what the DeLorme map says was Bayside (a different note says Caviar) there were a ton of worn pilings indicating a large building out over the water. Old aerial pix on the web show the Southern RR of NJ/Jersey Central tracks going out to this point. A Michael Hogan photo on Google Earth shows old RR tracks at this point - we didn't see them when we were there.
What in the world was the Jersey Central doing, running trains out to the bay at this point, and when?
johnny b

 

[46er]

Once called the caviar capital of the world. There was a large caviar processing factory there, which is where the tracks led to, freight line. Used to be Delaware Bay was a sturgeon hot spot. A search should turn up more info.

Now the shorebirds go after the horeshoe crab eggs instead

Edit: Here's a link;

http://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2012/06/editorial_column_new_jersey_wa.html

 

[amf]

There were actually two "towns". If you noticed as you left the fast land and headed into the marsh the road forked. One goes to Caviar and one to Bayside. I think Caviar was on the left hand fork, but I could be wrong. Anyway, there used to be a guest house and boat rentals in Bayside up into the 1950's that was owned by Goose Goslin, of baseball hall of fame. I was down there once when a carload of elderly ladies pulled up to ask where the hotel was. Apparently they had stayed there with their parents when they were in their teens. There had been a small monument to Goose, but I suspect it has succumbed to time and tide. On the other road there had been an elevated viewing tower, but that succumbed to vandals.

Speaking of caviar, I was at Seabreeze over the weekend and wondered if the millions of horseshoe crab eggs might make an acceptable substitute for caviar. Suffice it to say that they don't.

 

[Jerseyman]

johnnyb:

I do not make a habit of responding to old threads, but I obviously missed this one from last year, so I am answering your questions now.

Charles K. Landis is responsible for constructing the Vineland Railway from Atsion to Bayside, completing the line in December 1871. Landis planned a ferry and car float connection between Bayside and the Smyrna & Delaware Bay Railroad at Bombay Hook. When Jay Gould acquired the Vineland Railway in 1872, he and his New Jersey Southern board members drew up plans for a large development called “Bay City” on the marshland adjacent to Delaware Bay, although I think it would have been better to call it “Greenhead City” or “Mosquito City” for the insects that would have carried any erstwhile resident away! In August 1872, the railroad had erected a pavilion and bath house at Bayside. Gould contracted with the new American Dredging Company to dredge out Stow Creek, construct a new pier, and car float bridges to complete the pipe dream that Landis entertained about operating car floats and ferries across the bay. The new Bayside pier stood slightly north of the old terminus, requiring a about ½-mile of new trackage. In August 1873, without the Bombay Hook intermodal facility completed, Bayside and the New Jersey Southern had its moment in the sun, when peach growers all over Delaware shipped their product via the NJS at Bayside. Similar shipments continued through most peach seasons of the 1870s. The Central Railroad of New Jersey acquired the New Jersey Southern in 1878 and continued service out of Bayside. In June 1889, the railroad completed new car float facilities at Bayside, while the Smyrna & Delaware Bay Railroad built similar facilities at Bombay Hook during the summer of that same year. No sooner had the new yard and float bridges entered service when a hurricane in early September completed destroyed them, ending car float operations on Delaware Bay. The CNJ demolished the facilities at Bayside in the late 1890s. Bayside continued to receive train service and after car float operations ended, the CNJ used its track to Bayside for shipping shad, sturgeon, and caviar. The United States Post Office opened a postal facility named Caviar in 1892, but the CNJ continued calling its station Bayside. During fishing season, from March to June, the railroad carried five freight cars of fish and caviar daily from Bayside, but the community remained isolated and deserted during the remainder of the year. Sturgeon fishing collapsed in Delaware Bay in 1900 due to overfishing. AT this time, Bayside comprised a number of shanties, a seasonal boarding house, a general store and a post office. By August 1901, the CNJ no longer operated passenger service to Bayside and freight service was curtailed to just three days a week. The railroad’s wharf, packing houses and the adjacent fishing shanties all suffered destruction in a fire during November 1914. The area never fully recovered after this conflagration. The CNJ formally abandoned the line from Greenwich to Bayside in February 1936, three years after a storm had destroyed the reconstructed CNJ dock at Bayside. The railroad cinder roadbed served as the main access route for the trucks that took what little traffic remained from the railroad beginning in the 1920s.

And this is why the Jersey Central operated trains to Bayside.

Best regards,
Jerseyman

 

[johnnyb]

Jerseyman: Many, MANY thanks for the detailed history of Bayside/Caviar and the railroads involvement there. It sure puts a historical perspective on today's view of an open marsh, wide bay, mostly hidden railroad tracks at a lonely road and 100's of old pier stumps sticking out of the bay. Ghost towns with barely a trace left today...... I'd no idea there were car floats on the Delaware Bay; they're mighty few and far between today; I remember the fleets of them around NYC when I was a kid there in the 30's.
Again, many thanks.

 

[Aldo desalvo]

johnnyb:

I do not make a habit of responding to old threads, but I obviously missed this one from last year, so I am answering your questions now.

Charles K. Landis is responsible for constructing the Vineland Railway from Atsion to Bayside, completing the line in December 1871. Landis planned a ferry and car float connection between Bayside and the Smyrna & Delaware Bay Railroad at Bombay Hook. When Jay Gould acquired the Vineland Railway in 1872, he and his New Jersey Southern board members drew up plans for a large development called “Bay City” on the marshland adjacent to Delaware Bay, although I think it would have been better to call it “Greenhead City” or “Mosquito City” for the insects that would have carried any erstwhile resident away! In August 1872, the railroad had erected a pavilion and bath house at Bayside. Gould contracted with the new American Dredging Company to dredge out Stow Creek, construct a new pier, and car float bridges to complete the pipe dream that Landis entertained about operating car floats and ferries across the bay. The new Bayside pier stood slightly north of the old terminus, requiring a about ½-mile of new trackage. In August 1873, without the Bombay Hook intermodal facility completed, Bayside and the New Jersey Southern had its moment in the sun, when peach growers all over Delaware shipped their product via the NJS at Bayside. Similar shipments continued through most peach seasons of the 1870s. The Central Railroad of New Jersey acquired the New Jersey Southern in 1878 and continued service out of Bayside. In June 1889, the railroad completed new car float facilities at Bayside, while the Smyrna & Delaware Bay Railroad built similar facilities at Bombay Hook during the summer of that same year. No sooner had the new yard and float bridges entered service when a hurricane in early September completed destroyed them, ending car float operations on Delaware Bay. The CNJ demolished the facilities at Bayside in the late 1890s. Bayside continued to receive train service and after car float operations ended, the CNJ used its track to Bayside for shipping shad, sturgeon, and caviar. The United States Post Office opened a postal facility named Caviar in 1892, but the CNJ continued calling its station Bayside. During fishing season, from March to June, the railroad carried five freight cars of fish and caviar daily from Bayside, but the community remained isolated and deserted during the remainder of the year. Sturgeon fishing collapsed in Delaware Bay in 1900 due to overfishing. AT this time, Bayside comprised a number of shanties, a seasonal boarding house, a general store and a post office. By August 1901, the CNJ no longer operated passenger service to Bayside and freight service was curtailed to just three days a week. The railroad’s wharf, packing houses and the adjacent fishing shanties all suffered destruction in a fire during November 1914. The area never fully recovered after this conflagration. The CNJ formally abandoned the line from Greenwich to Bayside in February 1936, three years after a storm had destroyed the reconstructed CNJ dock at Bayside. The railroad cinder roadbed served as the main access route for the trucks that took what little traffic remained from the railroad beginning in the 1920s.

And this is why the Jersey Central operated trains to Bayside.

Best regards,
Jerseyman

I hope you respond to this.
Please explain the rest of the railway. I am from Bridgeton and there were tracks that were a spur off that line.
What year did the service stop running to Greenwich? Bridgeton? As a kid I can swear I saw trains in Bridgeton on the spur line.
I could be wrong. I also see on an aerial map that there are some bridges or natural bridges on that line. I have tried to to get to it but have been unsuccessful.
I hope you can solve this mystery?????