One of my muscle car buddies just posted some pictures he took of the Paulins Kill Viaduct, which he visited over the weekend. Unfortunately I can’t seem to link his pictures, but here’s a website dedicated to it - very interesting:
DJ< did you know they MAY be reopening the viaduct for train travel? MANY people live in western NJ/Eastern PA and commute to the city daily and that shows a need for train travel, hence the reopening (NJ Transit I think). You can also check www.WeirdNJ.com for more pictures and stories. I plan to travel up there during Christmas, and hope to go see it and Shades of Death Road (what a great name for a road!!).
**Spanky…**thanks for the great link. Sad and thought provoking.
Food for thought. One of these days we are going to wake up and wonder why we ever let the rail infrastrucure in this country languish to the extent it has. The American love affair with the automobile has reached its zenith, and now the clock is ticking. The per mile total cost of car ownership is starting to make car owners take notice of things we didn’t think about a decade ago. And the automobile manufacturers…in the veritable tank with no incentives left in the bag to keep the sales increasing (or flat for that matter).
Too many cars and trucks jammed on a deteriorating local road and interstate highway system. A zillion bridges deemed marginal or unsafe. The rising price of fuel. An airline industry in meltdown and over-capacity with reductions in service in some markets, abandonment of others, and the cancellation of new plane orders while the airline fleets age.
Outside of a handful of metropolitan areas, commuter rail is a joke, barely hanging on financially. And where there is metropolitan service, there is inadequate parking and deteriorating hardware. Inter city trains may be on the verge of a resurgence, but it is slow in coming. Interstate? That seems dead still. Trucks are flat out inefficient for heavy and long haul.
I look at freight and passenger rail transport in Japan and Europe and have to wonder when our turnaround back toward rail will come in earnest. It’s only a matter of time.
And then I wonder how all of the “sold off” rail right of ways and torn up track will be replaced, and at what cost. Same with the railroad bridges like the one at Paulins Kill.
Jack
We would be fools to think that if all rail movement stopped today that we would not be in serious trouble!! I agree it is a shame and you could say the same about a lot of other American industries, you just can’t move railroads overseas thank goodness!!
I think that you’ll see more of the right of ways being restored to rail use as time goes on. The Paulins Kill has never been sold, I think it’s state owned, that’s why the interest is there to reopen that line by NJ Transit. And NJ Transit fares is reasonable. The fact is that interstate (AMTRAK) rail travel right now is expensive and time consuming. A trip to New Jersey costs $250-400, just for couch and up to 19 hours, best case being 17 & change. For $150, I’d for go the time issue and ride, but I can fly for the same amount and save 15 hours, then why go by train?
Call me crazy, but I believe that we are on the cusp of another “golden age” of passenger rail travel. BUT if only rail becomes more competitive with air travel. Buses are loud and uncomfortable, trains at least, there is room to roam and eat and relax.