Port Reading Railroad

thumb|267px|"'The Port Reading Railroad Depicted on a Railroad Map Dated 1923 - Segment From Manville to Port Reading"'The Port Reading Railroad was a railroad chartered in 1890 and opened in 1892 by the Reading Railroad.

Origins

The Port Reading Railroad started at a junction in Bound Brook, New Jersey with the Lehigh Valley Railroad and Jersey Central Railroad and headed eastward across northern Middlesex County, New Jersey to a terminus port called Port Reading, which was situated on the Arthur Kill near Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Port Reading was constructed specifically to serve the needs of the Reading Railroad.

Via the Port Reading Railroad and the affiliated Port Reading shipping terminal (which was also built by the Reading Railroad) along the Authur Kill waterway, trains from the Reading Railroad's Trenton line (originally the Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad) were capable of providing through service to/from the New York ports to points south and west, via a connection along the Raritan River from Manville, New Jersey to Bound Brook that was built between the Reading Railroad's Trenton line and the newly built Port Reading Railroad. Remnants of this connection, such as decaying trestles and track, can still be seen along the CSX/NS mainline through this area. The structures closest to the river are the former Reading Railroad connection.

20th-century decline

The Port Reading Railroad and its parent the Reading Railroad, as was the case for many American railroads of the time period, saw a general drop off in business as the 20th Century progressed, and the railroads fell into disrepair and eventually went bankrupt. Secondary lines such as the Port Reading Railroad were hit especially hard during this period of decline, as the parent railroads neglected their branch lines as business declined.

By the time Conrail took over most railroading in the northeastern United States in 1976, the renamed Port Reading Secondary (terminology used by Contrail to describe branch lines) was little more than a little used line that serviced local industries. This status continued throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s as Conrail saw little need for the redundant Port Reading Secondary beyond providing local freight services.

CSX and rebirth

CSX took over 42% of the Conrail system in 1998 via a complicated stock buyout in which they split the assets of the Conrail system with Norfolk Southern. CSX wound up with the Port Reading Secondary as a result of the buyout.

In contrast to earlier decades, the 1990s was a decade in which railroads started to see some incremental increases in freight traffic as increases in freight demand and congested highways caused more shippers to move their freight via rail. To respond to the challenge of serving the increased demands of the New York/New Jersey region, CSX invested millions of dollars to upgrade the Port Reading Secondary to handle high-clearance long distance trains, including double-stack trains from western ports.

The Port Reading Secondary now offers an additional route to CSX's rail facilities in the New York/New Jersey region, via the Chemical Coast line that runs along heavily industrialized eastern New Jersey, near the Arthur Kill waterway that separates New Jersey from Staten Island, New York. Rail traffic has increased substantially on the Port Reading Secondary in recent years as a result of the upgrades, and the line appears to have a bright future. Railroad signals currently exist at the crossing on Homestead Ave. in Avenel, but not at Omar Avenue, where such signals would interfere with exiting trucks.

The best place to view activity on the Port Reading Secondary is in Bound Brook, New Jersey, where it branches off from the CSX/Norfolk Southern mainline.