Bradley Beach station is an active commuter railroad station in the eponymous borough of Bradley Beach, Monmouth County, New Jersey, Located at Railroad Square, Bradley Beach station serves trains of NJ Transit's North Jersey Coast Line between Bay Head in Ocean County and New York Penn Station. Bradley Beach station is on the diesel only section of the line south of Long Branch. The station has a pair of low-level side platforms, one of which parallels Memorial Drive and has the standing Central Railroad of New Jersey depot on the inbound platform. A parking lot surrounds the station depot, which is on the National Register of Historic Places and hosts a café.
Built on a site owned by the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, Mayor James A. Bradley of Asbury Park spent $1,500 to build a new station on their property. The station was little more than a small shanty formerly used as a lecture hall at the Asbury Park Excursion Grounds. Bradley Beach station opened to pomp and circumstance on June 24, 1893. Repeatedly promised a new station by New York and Long Branch Railroad Superintendent Rufus Blodgett, no progress was made until the railroad came under the supervision of Lee W. Berry. A point of contention in building a new station was the lack of Sunday service in the area because of an agreement between the railroad and the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. Sunday service began at Bradley Beach station on July 4, 1912 and a new station opened under a month later. The Camp Meeting Association attempted twice (in 1919 and 1920–1921) to gain possession of the station grounds due to a violation of the 1893 agreement. Bradley Beach gained title of the depot square in May 1921.
In 1938, the station name was renamed Bradley Beach–Neptune after repeated complaints by Neptune Township for representation. The station was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 22, 1984 as part of the Operating Passenger Railroad Stations Thematic Resource. Following the elimination of the ticket agent at Bradley Beach on July 1, 1981 as part of greater cuts, the station depot went into a state of neglect with the windows being boarded up and covered in graffiti. After municipal pressure to get the station renovated, NJ Transit started a project in 1996 and finished it in June 1997 to have the depot re-opened.
History Establishment and growth (1893–1909) By early 1893, Bradley Beach was a growing section of Neptune Township and on March 28, the small community became an incoporated borough. The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association offered land for construction of a new railroad station in Bradley Beach along the New York and Long Branch Railroad, a joint venture between the Central Railroad of New Jersey and the Pennsylvania Railroad. This land, in size, was given to the railroad for free and James A. Bradley contributed $1,500 (1893 USD) for construction of a new railroad station. The new station depot at Bradley Beach cost $500 to build. Bradley donated the station depot, which had served as a lecture hall at the Asbury Park Excursion Grounds.
On June 24, 1893, an opening ceremony was held at the new Bradley Beach railroad station. They illuminated the new station with candles for lighting and placed flammable tar barrels in the square the station stood. A new platform was built from the south end of the square, where opening speeches were held. More than 1,500 people attended the opening ceremony at 7:00 p.m. that evening. West Asbury Park's Excelsior brass band and the Bradley Beach drum corps attended the ceremony to play music. A children's chorus sung a song before Bradley took the stage. Clarence Steiner, whose firm helped develop much of Bradley Beach, followed another musical performance. A member of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association also spoke. Rufus Blodgett, who served as the superintendent of the New York and Long Branch Railroad, also spoke, stating the new station would be operated on a year-long basis rather than serving as only a summer sport. Blodgett added that the resort would help the railroad.
The poor conditions of the station at Bradley Beach, little more than a shed for passengers, and the station's location away from the Bradley Beach Hotel and various boarding houses, a half-hour walk. All local stagecoach operations also were using the station at Asbury Park and none were using Bradley Beach station. The primary problem for ridership at Bradley Beach was the lack of railroad service on Sundays in Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, a request by the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. The Camp Meeting Association made the deal that no train would stop within in order to get land for Interlaken station. Sunday service along the New York and Long Branch Railroad ended at Interlaken, north of Bradley Beach. Locals suggested that proper stagecoach service would make Bradley Beach a proper terminus for Sunday service instead of Interlaken.
The Central Railroad of New Jersey limited service at Bradley Beach station until June 1903. By that time, the station had a regular 35+ commuters daily. At that time, the railroad introduced a 7:22 a.m. stop at Bradley Beach, a train that went local to Long Branch station, where it would then express to Communipaw Terminal in Jersey City. Thomas Somers, a businessman from New York City who owned property at Bradley Beach, put his influence on the railroad to make this train stop. The railroad also added that June 1903 had been the most prosperous month for the railroad since the opening of the station in 1893.
As part of an agreement on July 28, 1904 between the railroad and the Camp Meeting Association, the Interlaken station would be abandoned in order to get Sunday service to be extended to North Asbury Park station. The new arrangement would be enforced as of August 7. Influence of citizens got the railroad to add stops at Bradley Beach on their theater train starting in February 1909.
Negotations for a new depot (1909–1911) With an announcement that the railroad was going to build a new station depot at Asbury Park in September 1909, locals in Bradley Beach began renewed efforts to get a new one in the borough. A newly organized Bradley Beach Board of Trade announced a new plan on September 10, 1909 to meet Rufus Blodgett with a petition to build a new station. They added that if a new station could not be built, that they at least get the current structure repaired. The Board of Trade also stated that they would request permission to replace the shrubbery around the current depot and plant new flowers to help beautify the structure.
In February 1910, the first proposal was offered to get Bradley Beach a new station. The proposal involved moving the closed station at Interlaken, a stone structure that had been abandoned with the 1904 deal with the Camp Meeting Association. With the station unused, locals thought it would be possible to put the building on flat cars and transport it to Bradley Beach overnight. The status of Interlaken depot also was seen as a way to get Blodgett to agree to move the building. At the same time, a proposal to move the freight station at Bradley Beach to a location near Springwood Avenue in Asbury Park (near the passenger depot) failed because of lack of space in a nearby meadow.
However, in March 1910, C.W. Huntington, the general superintendent for the railroad, announced that plans were in the works to replace the station depot at Braley beach with a new structure. This new station would be located on the site of the existing depot. That week, a crew of 20 railroad workers began doing survey work in Bradley Beach in the square around the existing station depot while they had been installing a new track from Corliers Avenue in the West Grove section of Neptune Township to Fourth Avenue in Bradley Beach. This new track would be used for summer excursion trains. This would also involve improvements to the southbound main line track at Bradley Beach station.
The Central Railroad of New Jersey approved $6,500 (1910 USD) in late April 1910 for construction of a new station depot at Bradley Beach. The new station would be a rough model in design of the station at Little Silver.
Angst began developing by February 1911, with the dilapidated boxcar serving as a station and no word on replacement progress. The Board of Trade stated that they would make the station grounds presentable for the railroad to build a new station at. C. Arthur Hall, who served as the president, stated that the railroad would build a new station if they could eliminate the Sunday service restriction in Bradley Beach. They decided that they would make a committee to talk to the Asbury Park Board of Trade to determine the future of Sunday service in the two communities. They also stated they received letters from the Central Railroad of New Jersey and the Pennsylvania Railroad about the problems in Bradley Beach. The Pennsylvania Railroad stated they were less interested in helping the municipality, resulting in the proposal of a boycott of the company's service. By doing so, they would put pressure on the railroad and offer better service at Bradley Beach station.
At a meeting in Bradley Beach on February 22, 1911, officials from the Central Railroad of New Jersey, including new superintendent L.W. Berry (who replaced Blodgett), met with political officials from the municipality at the Board of Trade. The three railroad officials, Berry, Mayor Edwin Parker of Long Branch (who was also the freight agent for the New York and Long Branch Railroad) and former mayor Charles McFadden, who was the general passenger agent, met with new mayor William E. MacDonald and other locals with the Bradley Beach Board of Trade. They arrived at Bradley Beach on a 3:30 p.m. train that was greeted by over 100 residents of the borough. There, the officials were brought in automobiles on a tour of Bradley Beach, ending up at Borough Hall. At Borough Hall, they had a meeting in the Council Chambers to discuss the ridership and costs figures for a new station in the municipality.
MacDonald started the discussion at Borough Hall, stating that stations along the line with smaller populations such as Avon-by-the-Sea, Belmar and Allenhurst had more train stops and better depots than the stop at Bradley Beach. He added that the population of Bradley Beach had been growing and that 300 people were going to Asbury Park station instead because of the lack of service at Bradley Beach station. MacDonald also noted that freight services had gone up significantly, requiring two agents rather than one to handle all the business. MacDonald added that Blodgett's agreement in 1893 was that a new station would be built at Bradley Beach by 1898, but that it had never happened. Instead, paint had been replaced multiple times and a new floor had been installed at the station. Joseph McLaughlin, a member of the Board of Trade, added that he had issues renting local cottages because of the lack of train stops at Bradley Beach despite the fact that many trains already passed through the station on a daily basis. Berry responded by stating that he personally had started discussions internally about improving the amount of train stops at Bradley Beach. He added that they had already made an extra stop on a New York-bound train. Dr. Hugh Sutherland Kinmonth, a local doctor, added that he was embarrassed to tell people that the station depot at Bradley Beach was nothing but a shanty for local tramps to sleep at. He added that he would rather lie and state that the railroad had no station at Bradley Beach than embarrass himself with the existing structure.