The New Jersey Southern Railroad was a railroad that started in 1854. It would continue under this name until the 1870s as a separate company and the lines that it had constructed or run continued to be run in the New Jersey Southern name until the early 2000s.
Raritan and Delaware Bay Railroad
The New Jersey Southern Railroad (NJS) began life as the Raritan and Delaware Bay Railroad Company (R&DB), in March 1854. The R&DB was chartered to construct a railroad from the Raritan Bay to Cape Island (Cape May), near the outlet of the Delaware Bay. It was to form part of a rail and water route from the New York City area to the Norfolk, Virginia area.New York Times, 20 June 1860 The man behind it was William A Torrey, who owned in the area of present-day Lakehurst.John T Cunningham, Railroads in New Jersey : the formative years, Afton Publishing, 1997, p.178-179
Construction began in 1858 from Port Monmouth on Raritan Bay. The first segment opened in June 1860 ran south via Red Bank as far as Eatontown and then by a branch running east to the resort town of Long Branch on the shore. It was the first railroad to reach Long Branch. Summer service in the first year was three train and boat trips per day in each direction. This first section included what would remain the two largest engineering works on the line: the long pier at Port Monmouth and the Navesink River bridge at Red Bank.Cunningham, p.181
Later in 1860 the main line was opened as far as Lakewood. As construction continued, instead of turning southeast at Lakehurst to Toms River and parallel to the shore to Cape May, the main line continued southwest, opening to Whiting (Manchester Township) and Atsion (now in Wharton State Forest) in 1862.Warren B Crater, New Jersey Central Album, 1963, p.18; Cunningham, p.182-183 The route passed through the center of the lightly populated Pine Barrens, and was connected to towns on Barnegat Bay only by stages running on public roads. A branch to Toms River was opened later, in 1866, and extended to Waretown in 1872.Crater, p.18
The reason for the Pine Barrens routing soon became clear. In September 1862, the R&DB and the Camden and Atlantic Railroad began operating a through service between the New York City market (specifically, in Jersey City) and Philadelphia once a day, without change of trains between Port Monmouth and Camden. (New Jersey trains would only begin entering New York City in 1910 with the opening of Pennsylvania Station.) To make this possible the two railroads had built a connecting line from Atsion to Atco on the Camden and Atlantic Railroad.New York Times, 27 December 1862 As roundabout as it was, this service caused controversy because it broke the state-authorized monopoly of the Camden and Amboy Railroad for travel between Jersey City and Philadelphia. But as the Civil War put demands on the railroads to transport troops and materials, the Camden and Amboy Railroad proved notoriously unable to handle the traffic on its one-track main line across New Jersey, and the R&DB rapidly became a valuable alternate route. 17,500 troops were sent via the R&DB over nine months starting September 1862.Cunningham, p.183-185 But the Camden and Amboy Railroad took the matter to court, and tried to use its influence in the state legislature to dissolve the R&DB, while the R&DB appealed to the United States Congress to protect its operation.New York Times, 1 April 1864
Through service to Camden was discontinued in February 1866, and in December 1867 the R&DB lost its case on appeal and was ordered to close the section of line from Atsion to Atco, making it impossible for passengers to travel to Camden even by changing trains.New York Times, 28 February 1866, 14 December 1867 The Camden and Amboy's zealous defense of its rights is all the more remarkable because the monopoly was set to expire on January 1, 1869.
The Camden and Amboy Railroad further weakened the R&DB by supporting a competing service to Long Branch. The Long Branch and Sea Shore Railroad was opened in 1865 from Spermaceti Cove on Sandy Hook down the narrow sand spit to a station in Long Branch near the R&DB station. This route was shorter and faster both by sea and land than the R&DB route, which had been built incidental to the main line to southern New Jersey. The Camden and Amboy Railroad supplied the locomotives and cars for the new road.Joel Rosenbaum and Tom Gallo, Iron Horses Across the Garden State, Railpace, 1985, p.9 The LB&SS would later become part of the New Jersey Southern.
The R&DB company, having exhausted its limited resources on the fight with the Camden and Amboy Railroad, went into bankruptcy, and was reorganized under new management as the New Jersey Southern Railroad near the end of 1869. That summer, a cooperative arrangement with the Camden and Amboy Railroad permitted operation of a train service from Philadelphia to Long Branch, via Trenton, Monmouth Junction, and Farmingdale, using the R&DB main line and branch north of Farmingdale.New York Times, 15 June 1869 and 18 June 1869
CityStation nameService beganService endedStation statusMiddletownPort Monmouth Station1860Navesink (Hopping) Middletown Station (Kings Highway)Red BankRed Bank 1860ShrewsburyShrewsburyEatontownEatontown JunctionColts NeckShark RiverFarmingdaleFarmingdale1860HowellSquankumLakewoodLakewood1860LakehurstManchesterManchesterWhitingFerrago StationPasadena (Wheatland)WoodlandWoodmansieShamong Station (Chatsworth)TabernacleHarris Station ShamongHampton (Hampton Furnace)AtsionWinslowWinslow JunctionWinslow (Winslow/Hay's Glass Works)Buena VistaCedar LakeBuenaLandisvilleWheat Road StationVinelandVinelandPittsgroveNorma (Bradway)DeerfieldRosenhaynUpper DeerfieldWoodruff StationBridgetonBridgeton JunctionBridgetonHopewellBowentownGreenwichSheppard's MillGreenwichGreenwich PierBacon's NeckBayside (Caviar, Bay Side)
New Jersey Southern Railroad
The new company was created by railroad financier Jay Gould. He had first taken over the Long Branch and Sea Shore Railroad, when it was of no further interest to the Camden and Amboy, and improved it by extending it farther north on Sandy Hook to Horse Shoe Cove. From this base he then acquired the former R&DB. The Horse Shoe Cove dock was more sheltered than Port Monmouth, and its better access to Long Branch made it the preferred route for the combined railroads. Boat service to Port Monmouth was discontinued about 1871. Trains now ran through from Sandy Hook to Long Branch to Eatontown Junction and from there down the NJS main line to southern New Jersey. Some service continued to run on the old NJS route from Port Monmouth via Red Bank to Eatontown.Scribner's Monthly, August 1876, p. 595; Crater, p. 18
Meanwhile, down in south Jersey, the main line was finally extended to Delaware Bay, but not by the NJS. The Vineland Railway started at the end of the NJS at Atsion, crossed the Camden and Atlantic at Winslow Junction, and reached the agricultural town of Vineland in 1870. This company was backed by Charles K. Landis, the founder of Vineland as a somewhat utopian community. The railway was continued onward to Delaware Bay at Bay Side in 1871. The New Jersey Southern's plan now was to reach Baltimore by means of the Vineland Railway, a boat across Delaware Bay, a railroad across the Delmarva Peninsula, and a boat across Chesapeake Bay, according to a statement issued in 1873 over the signature of Jay Gould, President.New York Times, 28 May 1873
The only lengthy NJS branch in south Jersey ran from Bridgeton to a place called Bivalve, on the Maurice River in Port Norris. It was opened in 1872 by the Bridgeton and Port Norris Railroad, but connected at Bridgeton not with the NJS but with the West Jersey Railroad running to Camden. The principal commodity was oysters, at that time plentiful in the area and much in demand. The NJS did not acquire this line until 1887, after the B&PN company had failed and it was reorganized as the Cumberland and Maurice River Railroad.Donald B Wentzel, "The Maurice River Branch", in West Jersey Rails II, 1985
Also at this time two connecting lines were built in central Jersey, both from Whitings. The Pemberton and New York Railroad ran west to meet a railroad from Camden near Pemberton. The other, the Tuckerton Railroad, ran southeast to reach the bay towns from Waretown (which was also on the NJS's branch from Lakehurst) to Tuckerton.New York Times, 23 August 1871
Gould lost control of the New Jersey Southern Railroad company in the Panic of 1873 and it went into receivership.New York Times, 14 May 1879
Rail service to the Monmouth County coast was revolutionized by the opening of the New York and Long Branch Railroad (NY&LB) in 1875 from Perth Amboy to Long Branch. It was the so-called "all rail route" from Jersey City, operated by the Central Railroad of New Jersey. The NY&LB crossed the NJS original mainline at Red Bank and the NJS mainline via Long Branch on the west side of town at Branchport. This was the third railroad to Long Branch, and it rapidly became the primary route.Crater, p.19 The time by rail from New York (including a ten-minute ferry ride to Jersey City) was about 1 hour 40 minutes. The "bay route" to Sandy Hook took about 2 hours but writers of the period considered it the more pleasant journey, at least in good weather. The New York and Long Branch was extended by separate companies to Sea Girt in 1876 and Point Pleasant in 1880.Crater, p.18-19
The idea of connecting New York and Philadelphia by the former R&DB was revived for about two years from 1878 to 1880. The rail portion of the new route ran from Sandy Hook via Long Branch, Eatontown, Whitings, and Pemberton to Camden. Travellers could leave New York by boat at 11:00 in the morning and arrive at Philadelphia by ferry at 4:20 in the afternoon.Rosenbaum and Gallo, p.11 The Pennsylvania Railroad acquired the Pemberton route in 1879, and used it and new construction to create a new route from Camden to Long Branch in 1881, running via a new line from Whitings to Toms River and Seaside Heights and up to the end of the NY&LB at Bay Head Junction, just south of Point Pleasant. The Pennsylvania likewise rerouted the trains from Philadelphia off the NJS in 1880, running instead by a new line to Sea Girt and then up the new NY&LB. The section of the NY&LB from Long Branch to Point Pleasant therefore had trains to both New York and Philadelphia, but not through service, and the possible journeys involving the NJS bay route to Long Branch and a change of trains to the Pennsylvania Railroad were not promoted.
The New Jersey Southern was formally acquired by the Central Railroad of New Jersey in September 1879, although a CNJ timetable of July 1878 shows that the NJS was already operated by the CNJ at that date. The CNJ moved to consolidate operations of the rail and bay routes. A new link was built in 1878 from the NJS Long Branch station, now called East Long Branch, to the NY&LB at West End, on the south end of the town. The main services from New York were now: Jersey City to Point Pleasant over the New York and Long Branch; Sandy Hook to East Long Branch and (via the new link) to Point Pleasant; and Jersey City to southern New Jersey, turning off the New York and Long Branch at Red Bank into the NJS main line. The old NJS main line from Port Monmouth to Red Bank was downgraded to a branch with minimal train service. The NJS line from East Long Branch to Eatontown saw a few trains that allowed passengers to use the bay route and connect at Eatontown for southern New Jersey.Elaine Anderson, The Central Railroad of New Jersey's First 100 Years, Center for Canal History and Technology, 1984, p.66,70
Southern Division, Central Railroad of New Jersey