Expert: Morris County Needs More Railroads

Maintaining and expanding Morris County’s rail freight capacity will be a crucial part of transportation planning, a consultant told the Morris County freeholders Wednesday.

Increasing rail capacity would protect the $25.5 billion economic output represented by the county’s manufacturing and warehouse/transportation industries, and offer an alternative to adding more trucks to the county’s  highways, according toThomas Phelan, vice president of Eng-Wong Taub & Associates, which conducted a two-year story of the county’s freight infrastructure system.

Manufacturing accounts for 8.7 percent of the employment base in Morris County, Phelan said, a larger percentage than New Jersey as a whole. But that situation is threatened by crowded highways, a heavy reliance on trucks for freight movement, and development issues such as the high costs of land, he said.

Long-distance haulers are already skirting the North Jersey region because of the congestion, Phelan said.

Projections show that between 2009 and 2035, the most significant growth in truck traffic will occur within the Interstate 287 loop. Growth is projected to be between .9 and 2.9 percent. Much of the truck traffic will be for deliveries to shops, businesses and homes.

Phelan said that while truck traffic will increase along I-80 west of I-287, that growth will be slower than inside the I-287 loop. He attributed that slower growth to the lack of manufacturing or warehouse development in that section of the county, and said  haulers who have begun to find routes around North and Central Jersey will continue to do so.

Morris County should continue to support companies that can utilize its three county-owned rail lines—the Chester Branch, the High Bridge Branch and the Dover & Rockaway—he said.

Companies along those lines employ more than 349 workers,  and produce a direct economic impact of $189 million, Phelan said.

Four miles of the Chester Branch were just rebuilt with $5.8 million in federal stimulus funds, and the High Bridge line was singled out for a $1.585 million grant from the New Jersey Department of Transportation and the County Railroad Surcharge Trust Account.

The Dover & Rockaway line is  being studied again for a possible realignment and new spur that would allow Morristown & Erie Railway trains that service customers on that track to avoid running slowly through the center of Dover.

But the development of rail freight service is also hampered by several factors, Phelan said.

First, much of the track in Morris County is rated for 263,000-pound railcars. Nationally, rail haulers use 286,000-pound cars, which carry more freight. The smaller freight cars drive up the cost of using the rail system, he said.

The second key issue is height limitations, Phelan said.

Because much of the rail system in Morris is operated by New Jersey Transit, the height of cars is limited to 15 feet, 5 inches by the system of electrical wires used to power the transit trains.

In addition, some old bridges in Warren Count limit the height of rail cars used by railroads that serve Morris County, in particular a bridge in Phillipsburg that limits the height of freight cars to 16 feet, 6 inches, he said.

Kuiken Brothers, a lumber company that opened last year along the Chester Branch, could benefit from the ability to use taller rail cars, Phelan said.

Freeholder Margaret Nordstrom, who is a member of the freeholders' Rail Freight Advisory Board, said she has been speaking with the Warren County freeholders, who have indicated a willingness to find a solution to raise the height of that bridge.

Phelan recommended the county work to secure intact rail rights-of-way because they could be developed to serve customers.

Other recommendations include working with municipalities on land use issues that could yield ways to reduce truck traffic  and better utilize industrial  sites,  and support of efforts to address the height restrictions caused  by low bridges and the weight restriction issues relative to rail cars.

He said the county should also enhance its capacity to forecast truck traffic with better data tools.