The Port Reading Railroad was a railway company in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It was incorporated in 1890 and completed its main line in 1892. It was controlled throughout its corporate life by the Reading Company. The Port Reading Railroad's line was conveyed to Conrail in 1976, and is today the Port Reading Secondary.

Origins

The Port Reading Railroad started at the Port Reading Junction in Manville, New Jersey (near Bound Brook) with the

Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, ...

and

Central Railroad of New Jersey The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...

and headed eastward across northern Middlesex County, New Jersey to a terminus port called Port Reading, which was situated on the Arthur Kill in Woodbridge Township near

Perth Amboy, New Jersey Perth Amboy is a city in Middlesex County, New Jersey. Perth Amboy is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 55,436. Perth Amboy has a Hispanic majority population. In the 2010 census, th ...

. Port Reading was constructed specifically to serve the needs of the

Philadelphia and Reading Railway The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and commercial rail transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states that operated from 1924 until its 1976 acquisition by Conrail. Commonly called ...

. Via the Port Reading Railroad and the affiliated Port Reading shipping terminal (which was also built by the

) along the Arthur Kill waterway, trains from the Reading Co's Trenton line (originally the

Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad The National Railway or National Air Line Railroad was a planned railroad between New York City and Washington, D.C. in the United States around 1870. Part of it was eventually built from New York to Philadelphia by the Delaware and Bound Brook R ...

) were capable of providing through service to/from the New York ports to points south and west, via a connection along the

Raritan River Raritan River is a major river of New Jersey. Its watershed drains much of the mountainous area of the central part of the state, emptying into the Raritan Bay on the Atlantic Ocean. History Geologists assert that the lower Raritan provided t ...

from Manville, New Jersey to Bound Brook that was built between the Philadelphia and Reading Railway'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 Co. connection.

20th-century decline

The Port Reading Railroad and its parent the

, 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 Conrail to describe branch lines) was little more than a seldom 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 (Conrail used the Lehigh Line for most traffic into the New York area from the south).

Conrail Shared Assets Operations ownership

In 1999,

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

and

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31, ...

split Conrail, but because of the Port Reading Secondary's proximity to the New York City consumer market, they could not decide how to split it, so, they took most of the lines near NYC and they created a separate company,

Conrail Shared Assets Operations Conrail Shared Assets Operations (CSAO) is the commonly used name for modern-day Conrail ( reporting mark CRCX), an American railroad company. It operates three networks, the North Jersey, South Jersey/Philadelphia, and Detroit Shared Assets Area ...

. It is jointly owned by the two railroads, to switch cars in the NYC area. (The same thing happened in the Philadelphia area and the Detroit area). 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, CSAO invested millions of dollars to upgrade the Port Reading Secondary to handle long distance trains, including intermodal trains taking an alternate route to their terminals along the Chemical Coast Line, such as NS's E-Rail Terminal and the PANYNJ owned ExpressRail terminals. The Port Reading Secondary now offers an additional route to CSAO's rail facilities in the

Port of New York and New Jersey The Port of New York and New Jersey is the port district of the New York-Newark metropolitan area, encompassing the region within approximately a radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. It includes the system of navigable water ...

, 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 Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull and ...

. 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 Avenue in Avenel, but not at Omar Avenue in Avenel, where such signals would interfere with exiting trucks. Also, Carteret has signals at the crossing by the NJ Turnpike entrance. Also, Port Reading Conrail has signal gates at Blair Road, Rahway Avenue and Saint Georges Avenue in Woodbridge Township.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Port Reading Railroad Defunct New Jersey railroads Former Class I railroads in the United States Companies affiliated with the Reading Company Railway companies established in 1890 Railway companies disestablished in 1976