Gentlemen:
The correct pre-1953 designator for that particular state highway is S40 as it was a “Spur” road from the regular (and previously numbered) State Route 40, the latter highway being first planned in 1927. The initial construction phases for S40 began in 1930 from the Burlington-Ocean County boundary line to County Route 532 and also from County Route 532 to U.S. Route 9. The sections from Four-Mile Circle to Lebanon Road and from Lebanon Road to the county line underwent construction in 1936, completing the roadway on the mainland. To gain access to LBI, the New Jersey State Highway Department had already assumed control of the viaduct and Thoroughfare lift bridge, stretching from the west side of the Intracoastal Waterway to Long Beach Boulevard, during 1926. The state proceeded to widen the trestling and moveable bridge, first built in 1911, from the original 18 feet to 30 feet to improve traffic safety and flow. The completion of State Route S40 doomed the Pennsylvania Railroad/Tuckerton Railroad presence on LBI to a fiscally inglorious end, although the actual finis for the rail service came when a nor’easter in the fall of 1935 destroyed the trestling. During the normally very busy summer season, the railroad carried less than 1600 passengers in 1935, generating a mere trifle in net revenue and not nearly enough receipts to warrant reconstructing the destroyed trestling and swingspan drawbridge.
Best regards,
Jerseyman
