Various railroad photos from Wharton to Cape May over the past year
I've been working on the railroads
- Thread starter Jon Holcombe
- Start date
Looks a lot like the Muskee Creek Trestle on the old Maurice River Branch. It's a cool area. There's another one on Little Mill Creek as well. The tracks were kept in place to get to an old sand shipper near Dorchester (Whitehead maybe?). If I remember right those rails haven't seen a train since the late 70's or early 80's. One of the old chapters ran a Budd car out to Mauricetown station years ago before it was moved to the side of Rt. 47.
The pines were all like that back then. What you see today is because of not letting them burn.
I had been thinking for some time that the barrens look and smell (to my completely untrained eye and nose) generally unhealthy. Lots of rot, overgrown brush, and moss. Pan's photos show the wrecked train in what looks like a pine tree nursery. I wonder if that's why there are so many chiggers. I lived in Absecon in 1962-64 and although my friends and I ran in the woods all the time, I do not ever remember getting bitten by a chigger.
Last edited:
Another one that shows the tree height change over the years. This is 1978 and 2008.
The train wreck photos were taken in 1971 near the Carranza Memorial. My avatar photo above my name was taken in 1976. That's me towering over the dwarf forest in the Plains like Paul Bunyan. Attached is another one of me in the Plains in 1990. The trees are taller but I still stand over the forest. But the last time I was down there was 3 1/2 years ago and the trees were much taller. Yes there used to be regular fires down there. I remember a huge fire and going down* shortly afterwards and being amazed at how green everything looked, how quickly the woods regenerated. I think I might have some more old photos of the Barrens on slides that I haven't scanned yet, including that train wreck, and yes those wrecked cars are long gone. I posted old PB photos on here, scattered around, a couple of years ago. And we were just talking about the tick problem on the other thread, Jon...
* I say "going down" because I lived in Manhattan.
Attachments
Teegate's photos above show how radical the change has been. The Plains used to be such a special place for me - the vast wide open spaciousness looking out over the low forest to the horizon in all directions, but 3 1/2 years ago it looked more like an ordinary eastern forest.
I knew of one by Pine Crest, and there was a box car door there the last time I went, but I never heard of one near Carranza. I also saw what appeared to be rail car pieces here.
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.746523846867966&lng=-74.70171946685792&z=15&type=nj1995&gpx=
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.746523846867966&lng=-74.70171946685792&z=15&type=nj1995&gpx=
I knew of one by Pine Crest, and there was a box car door there the last time I went, but I never heard of one near Carranza. I also saw what appeared to be rail car pieces here.
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.746523846867966&lng=-74.70171946685792&z=15&type=nj1995&gpx=
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.746523846867966&lng=-74.70171946685792&z=15&type=nj1995&gpx=
I'm not sure what I'm looking on on that map. How far away was that from Carranza Mem.? It wasn't the same train wreck. The wreck I saw didn't seem that old and it was freight cars while the Blue Comet was many years earlier and a passenger train. I looked through my old Ektachrome and Anscochrome color slides and found a few more of the Barrens that I could scan if there was any interest in seeing them here, but no more of that wreck, tho I think I originally did have more, but many of my old slides have disappeared over the years. Maybe I could enhance the scan of the one in the woods and see if it can be better identified. I don't even know what it is now. Is it the engine? Maybe you people can id it better than I can. I'm partially color blind and it blends in with the foliage to my eyes and I don't remember what it was. I'll try to enhance that one. I can't find anything on the internet about a freight train derailment near the Carranza Memorial.
Last edited: