Possibly two Riders Switch(es)?

[Kevinhooa]

Morning all. I've spent a decent amount of time over at the Riders Switch location, both on the road that shoots straight to the former Hampton location, and along the tracks themselves just SW of the Batsto Trestle. I know there has been quite a bit written about the cranberry operation here, and how IIRC Andrew J. Rider had quite an operation here for a bit.

So yesterday I made a quick trip down to the Springer Branch and Deep Run trestles with my dog since the water is so low it would be a great time to get some side photos while standing in the creeks, and to see what's been hiding below the water all of these years. I've only ever walked the tracks past this location before, but this time I came in from the road that leads from Atsion to Hampton. I was surprised to see that this location where the road meets up with the tracks, has a couple similarities with the Riders Switch location a little less than a mile North. Notably the road gets to the tracks, and then swings SW before sharing a wide ROW where everything is level with the tracks themselves. This road seems to come right from some of the old bogs as well. There's a bit of extra cinder and ballast material here too, although that might not have anything to do with there being a siding here. Was there ever another siding here for cranberries? I know this might be a tough question without having some sort of old paperwork from the CNJ, but figured it was worth a shot.

Attached is a screen-shot of the satellite photo with the yellow roads highlighted around the tracks and trestles.

Let me know what you guys think. And hopefully we get some rain before the end of the week. I can't remember the last time I've seen the water this low in the pines before.

 

[Oriental]

Very interesting. For years I have been hoping to do a similar investigation of that area. I think I once read that Rider's Switch was built on the site of an earlier station called Hampton that was discontinued. I always questioned this because some maps seem to show Hampton on the other side of the Batsto proper (which is to say to the east of it). Never heard any mention of a siding between Rider's Switch and Atsion.

 

[SuperChooch]

Interesting. I hadn't been to the other location you pointed out, but I was just at Riders Switch yesterday, my son loves walking to the trestle. . Was there actually a station at "Hampton Station"? I've never found anything that resembled the ruins of a station in that area.

 

[smoke_jumper]

I was out there Monday as well. I was going there but at the last minute decided to head down high crossing road just to see how dry it is.

 

[ecampbell]

This is reasonable assumption. Here is a screen shot of the area, Deep Run especially, from the 1931 historical aerials,

 

[Kevinhooa]

Yeah, interesting area for sure. If I remember right, the old base for the mile post that used to be at Hampton is down the NW embankment near the edge of the swamp if anyone is interested. I have heard of the station that used to be at Hampton, but I have no idea of what kind of structure it was, whether it was just a shelter, full frame building, or really just a platform next to a freight house. The notes I have say it was taken out of service sometime around the late 20's, and at that time it was listed as Riders instead of Hampton for obvious reasons. I'd imagine it was more of a freight stop than anything else at that point. I'm sure the book The Trail of the Blue Comet prob has some info, but that's out of my reach unless I sell something of sizable value to cover it. One day.... lol. Does anyone know of a local library that would have a copy? Possibly Stockton? I know they have a lot of great rare books over there in the their collection.

I guess if we could gather some numbers and info, we could probably figure out if one siding would have ever been enough. Number of crates of cranberries gathered on average during the season, how big the crates were, and the average side of a 40' wooden boxcar during that time. If there's a snipet of info somewhere about the length of the siding, and how often the local freight picked up and dropped of cars, I guess we could try to figure out what would have been sufficient. Rather technical for just spitballing I guess! I have seen the many hand-drawn track charts that I think Eddie Fell drew of the PRSL infrastructure for personal reference while working on the railroad. I'm assuming other guys probably did the same thing to keep track of how much you could send down a siding before dumping a car on the ground and ending up explaining yourself on the carpet the next day!