The holiday season is often the time I find the opportunity to head up into North Jersey and that has become increasingly relevant as alternative opportunities for interesting signaling have largely disappeared elsewhere. One major focus of the North Jersey rail scene is the Pattenburg Tunnel, a mile long bore where the former Lehigh Valley railroad crosses the drainage divide between the Delaware and Raritan rivers. I had previously visited the tunnel back in 2003 at a time when I was more frequently traveling the NJ Route 31 / US 206 corridor to reach outdoor activities in the Delaware Water Gap region. The trip would also provide me with the chance to connect with family in Hopewell and check out the Black River and Western tourist railroad in Ringoes. The full set of photos can be found here ( mirror ).
Hopewell was located on the former Reading RR New York Branch that ran between Jenkintown and Port Reading Junction near Bound Brook and competed with the dominant Pennsylvania Railroad in the New York to Washington market with the alliance with the Baltimore and Ohio was factored in. Communities past the end of electric territory in West Trenton such as Hopewell could take diesel hauled or RDC trains to either Philly or Newark as a legacy of the old Reading Crusaader until the service was terminated in 1981. Since then Reading era stations like Hopewell's have stood idle, being converted into private houses, offices or community event space.
Despite the pandemic the Black River and Western was operating its holiday trains from it base at Ringoes, although not on December 26th as the need for Santa engagement drops precipitously after Christmas.
Operating on the former PRR Flemmington Branch, the BR&W owns others tourist properties in the region such as the Belvidere and Delaware River Railway in Phillipsburg. Power on hand in the Ringoes Yard was PRR SW1 #9206 and Reading painted SW9 #438.
The Pattenburg Tunnel was constructed in 1927 by the Lehigh Valley Railroad to replace an earlier bore a few hundred feet to the north. Since the LVRR was late to the New York market, extending its line from Easton in the 1870's, the CNJ had locked down the pass through the Musconetcong Mountain at High Bridge forcing the LVRR was forced to tunnel through. In one of the final projects of the Conrail era, the 4800 foot bore was single tracked in the late 1990's to support double stack intermodal trains and the entire tunnel was contained within the limits of a new interlocking, CP-64.
The original 1875 tunnel, long with the right of way leading to it, is still intact and is used by ATV enthusiasts as the flooded conditions make the old tunnel less suited to foot traffic.
Noticing that the east end switch had reversed since my arrival, I lingered a bit and was rewarded when NS C44-9W #9889 appeared at the head of a train of autoracks with C40-10W #7512 behind.
The autoracks then came to a halt indicating that the train was stopped at CP-62 for a westbound movement. (The 1999 doublestack project had split a 5 mile long siding into two, 2-mile long sidings.) Eventually this arrived in the form of an MoW train with SDs40-2 #3381 and #3335. It was just a few seconds too late to get the Clear signal through CP-64 and had to come to a complete stop.
At that point it was getting dark and cold so I departed Pattenburg for the surprisingly long ride back to South Jersey due to the lack of good North-South transportation options in the northwestern quadrant of the state. Next time tune back for photos from the 20th iteration of my SEPTA Mid-Winter trip.
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