Port Reading Secondary

The Port Reading Secondary, also known as the Port Reading Branch, is a railway line in New Jersey. It runs 16.0 miles (25.7 km) from a junction with the Lehigh Line in Bound Brook, New Jersey, to Port Reading, New Jersey, on the Arthur Kill. Originally built by the Port Reading Railroad and part of the Reading Company system, today the line belongs to Conrail Shared Assets Operations (CSAO).

Port Reading Secondary
Overview
Owner	Conrail Shared Assets Operations
History
Opened	September 1892 (1892-09)
Technical
Line length	16.0 mi (25.7 km)
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Operating speed	30 miles per hour (48 km/h)
Route map Legend Raritan Valley Line Trenton Subdivision NS Lehigh Line Port Reading Junction Raritan River 0.0 CP Bound Brook Bound Brook Raritan Valley Line CR Lehigh Line 1.6 Bakelite 7.0 to Camp Kilmer Perth Amboy Branch Perth Amboy Branch Northeast Corridor 12.8 Woodbridge Branch North Jersey Coast Line 15.9 Chemical Coast Secondary 16.0 Port Reading This diagram: view talk edit

Route

The line diverges from the Lehigh Line (formerly the main line of the Lehigh Valley Railroad) at CP Bound Brook in Bound Brook, New Jersey. From there it proceeds east to Port Reading, New Jersey, on the Arthur Kill. The line connects with the Chemical Coast Secondary in Port Reading, just short of the yard there.^[1]

History

The Port Reading Railroad was founded in 1890 by the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad to build a line east from the existing New York Branch to a point on the Atlantic coast, where it would establish a new port.^[2] The line, 19.645 miles (31.616 km) long, opened in September 1892. The western end connected with the New York Branch at Port Reading Junction in Manville, New Jersey, on the west side of the Raritan River.^[3]

The Philadelphia and Reading, and later the Reading Company, controlled the Port Reading Railroad and the company was never merged into the corporate parent.^[4] On the Reading's final bankruptcy in 1976 the line was conveyed to Conrail.^[5] Conrail rationalized the trackage around Bound Brook, making a new connection between the former Lehigh Valley main line and the Port Reading line near Bound Brook station, and abandoning the line west of there. When Conrail was split between CSX and the Norfolk Southern Railway in 1999, the Port Reading Secondary remained with Conrail as part of Conrail Shared Assets Operations.^[6]

Notes

1. "Conrail Timetable Number 10" (PDF). Conrail Shared Assets Operations. July 1, 2013. pp. 64–65. Retrieved June 25, 2022.
2. Troeger & McEwen (2002), p. 117.
3. ICC (1931), p. 705.
4. USRA (1975), p. 227.
5. USRA (1975), p. 281.
6. "CSX CORPORATION AND CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC., NORFOLK SOUTHERN CORPORATION AND NORFOLK SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY--CONTROL AND OPERATING LEASES/AGREEMENTS--CONRAIL INC. AND CONSOLIDATED RAIL CORPORATION". Surface Transportation Board. July 23, 1998. Archived from the original on April 25, 2006. Retrieved June 26, 2022.

References

• Interstate Commerce Commission (1931). "Interstate Commerce Commission Reports: Decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission of the United States. Valuation reports". U.S. Government Printing Office.
• Troeger, Virginia B.; McEwen, Robert James (2002). Woodbridge: New Jersey's Oldest Township. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-2394-1.
• United States Railway Association (1975). Final system plan for restructuring railroads in the Northeast and Midwest region pursuant to the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 (PDF). Vol. 1. Washington, DC. OCLC 2889148.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)