Trucks, Trains and Union County

Arlo Guthrie romanticized the freight train in his song “The City of New Orleans” painting the idyllic picture of 2 conductors and 25 sacks of mail rumbling past farms, fields and the grave yard of the rusted automobile.

Well, North Avenue, Route 28, doesn’t have any farms, fields or junk yards; what it has are homes, apartments and a proliferation of retail businesses as well as office buildings, this goes for South Avenue as well, at least through Union County. But it also has the Raritan Valley Rail Line, currently a commuter line transporting thousands, daily to their workplaces in New York City and other business hubs along the way.

Commuters are dropped off or park their cars at train station lots in Westfield and Cranford among other towns in the early morning hours and in the evening whole car loads of spouses with young children can be seen waiting in the family vehicle for their loved one to disembark for the return to their homes in the burbs, an expensive life style but worth it none the less.

The truth be told most central Union County residents paid little attention to the brouhaha going on to the east of them when the county Freeholder Board started the process of reactivating freight lines adjacent to the back yards of the residents in nearby Roselle, Kenilworth, Roselle Park, Springfield and Summit. One of the intents of the train was to help reduce the number of trucks traversing the major arteries of Union County, which would include Route 28 aka. North Ave. and South Ave as well. Certainly welcome relief for those living and doing business on those thoroughfares.

But the newest twist according to the Star Ledger 6/12, appears to be the development of “train to truck” depots in the county’s suburban areas, perhaps nearby Cranford and Roselle, to handle the expected increase of containers coming into Port Elizabeth/Port Newark. These containers would be hauled around the area to their destinations obviously by trucks which it would appear would increase the truck traffic and not lessen it on North and South Aves.

And what of the opening of the Chemical Cost Line by the NJDOT to marine cargo from Staten Island including garbage from Fresh Kills Landfill it would seem that that freight is being pushed west along with chemical products from the Bayway Refinery, would it be inconceivable for the long discussed use of the Raritan Valley Line for this type of freight to become a reality sooner rather than later.

Shouldn’t the residents along the line be informed of this activity before tanker cars go rolling through downtown, Cranford, Westfield, or Plainfield on their way to PA.? The impact of even a minor freight accident on this major commuter line near, for instance the Westfield or Fanwood Station is bone chilling.

Union County residents pay dearly for this life of little league, backyard barbeques, and excellent educational opportunities for their children and shouldn’t they also be able to enjoy a relatively safe existence complete with peace and tranquility?

One would certainly think that that would be the case since we hold the dubious distinction of being in the top ten, nationally, of county’s with the highest county taxes. But alas, this picture of the American dream could end up being just that, a picture. It seems that we will have to pay the price for not paying attention to what was going on in neighboring communities because though they are getting an unwelcome train we here on the Route 28 corridor will be getting the whole shebang if we are not careful and than the family in the car waiting at the station can count the freight and tanker cars as they go whizzing by.

YO!......Look Out for the Locomotive

Judging by an article this week in the Star Ledger it appears as though the UC Board of Chosen Freeholders is working to get what has been referred to as the UC Garbage Train back on track.

County Manager George Devaney released some snippets from a report prepared by the county’s Department of Economic Development at the request of state Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri. Before the state sent another dime Kolluri wanted a full review of the costs and benefits of restoring service on the two train lines: the Staten Island RR, from Cranford to Linden and the Rahway Valley Line, from Cranford to Summit.

Work was stopped on the controversial reactivations over one year ago when financing was halted much to the delight of many residents who reside in close proximity to the tracks and others who do the daily drive on the heavily traversed roads which would be impacted by grade level crossings.

According to a new analysis by the county of the 14 mile stretch of track there would be created at least 500 jobs and more than $10million generated. But, what is particularly interesting is that the report also states that 1,000 jobs could be created and that the county itself could end up receiving an estimated $200,000 a year. Well which is it?

The history of the project has indeed been confusing all along, starting with former Freeholder Nick Scutari’s letter to residents stating that the train would not be reactivated when indeed a contract had already been signed 5 months prior for track maintenance. The freeholders did some back pedaling at the time telling residents we feel your pain and stated that they had to sign a contract so that they could maintain control of the situation to protect the interests of the residents and not let it fall into other more powerful and heavier hands like the federal government.

The questions remain over what is to be transported and how frequently residents would have the 9:02 passing by their bedroom windows just feet away, who are they to believe.

On first blush the train sounds like a “sweet” idea, relieving our roads of traffic by encouraging industry along the lines to move materials and goods by rail, taking over 30,000 or more trucks off Union County’s roads per year, but is it really?

Two recent rail accidents come to mind. The first of course is the Graniteville train disaster in January 2005 where 10 people died and at least 250 were treated for chlorine exposure while 5,400 residents within a mile of the crash site were forced to evacuate their homes for nearly 2 weeks.

The second just recently, Feb ’07, nearby in South Plainfield, NJ where two locomotive engines and a box car crashed 150 feet through the cinder block wall of a pigment manufacturing plant before coming to rest. The locomotives were pulling a train of 82 tanker cars loaded with ethanol fortunately none of the cars ruptured and thankfully no one was injured as it was during non working hours.

Both accidents involved rail sidings and switching situations in light manufacturing areas in proximity to residential settings. These are the kinds of scenarios that the towns residents are concerned about as they realize that the county misrepresented the situation already and now has no guarantee what the trains will be hauling in 9, 10 or even 11 years as the contract with the rail line was very limited in duration and quite open ended in scope.

I first heard of the UC project when appointed to the UC Transportation Advisory Board (TAB) in 2000 representing Garwood. We would be unaffected as would other towns on the Raritan Valley line that runs along North Avenue; after all, those trains are of the commuter variety so few of the powers that be cared.

However that could change in a minute as there was talk, even at that time, of adding a third track to provide light freight service along the Route 28 corridor, including investigation of how track use is combined overseas. We know that these ideas just don’t disappear once proposed as someone usually figures out how to make a buck and the public’s safety be damned.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to learn just who owns stock in what RR’s here in NJ.