Passenger Trains > [NJ] Hazlet on the North Jersey Coast Line

Hazlet is a station on the NJ Transit North Jersey Coast Line, (rail) west of Aberdeen, and (rail) east of Middletown. The line was originally a Jersey Central + Pennsylvania Railroad property, the New York & Long Branch Railroad. The NY&LB sprouted a number of branches operated by each of its owners, including the line to Highlands, the line to Lakehurst, the Seaside branch, etc.

Hazlet is about a mile south of busy highway 35, making it a convenient station for many people who live farther south. It's not quite as close to the Parkway as Aberdeen, but it does have about 600 parking spaces, and a lot of service. The rebuilt station has high level platforms, capable of holding perhaps 8 cars. About 45 minutes to Newark, and another 20 minutes on to NY Penn, assuming nothing goes wrong.

As a new station, upgraded from a cross roads stop in what was once a rural area, now suburban, there's no agent. I continue to be surprised at how NJ Transit allocates resources. This higher speed line (100?) has wood ties, while the lower density, lower speed Boonton Line has concrete ties in several locations. There may be a reason.

The station has a nice sprinkling of artwork, with several tiles of fish, beach scenes, farm scenes, etc. Most remodeled or new NJ Transit stations have a substantial display of topical art.

Picture 1 - looking southeast (rail west, toward Bay Head) from the highway crossing. Very clean, well maintained station and lot.

Picture 2 - looking southeast as an early rush hour train drops about 40 passengers, and picks up another 20 for points down line.

Picture 3 - looking northwest (rail east, toward RIVER and Newark) as a Bay Head to Hoboken train roars through. The diesel had passed through Point Pleasant Beach about three hours earlier. I believe this was train 2312.

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The Matawan to Long Branch section was the first modern 25kV AC Constant Tension Catenary main line electrification in the US before the New Haven - Boston section came on line. Yo see an example of the OHE in these photos of Hazlet.

BTW MAS on the NJCL is 80mph, not 100mph. The speed limit is dictated by the desire to stick to FRA Class 4 track rather than upgrade to class 5 or class 6.

Boonton and M&E tracks actually see considerably more wear and tear than the NJCL due to the geography, the shape of the RoW and the frequency of stops, so there is some justification for opting for concrete on those lines. NJT has installed concrete ties selectively on platform tracks at many stations for this reason. Also, on the M&E the first section to get concrete was the Millburn to Summit ramp which gets heavy pounding from trains climbing up the ramp.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/12 06:21 by Jishnu.

Jishnu Wrote:
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> The Matawan to Long Branch section was the first
> modern 25kV AC Constant Tension Catenary main line
> electrification in the US before the New Haven -
> Boston section came on line. Yo see an example of
> the OHE in these photos of Hazlet.
>
> BTW MAS on the NJCL is 80mph, not 100mph. The
> speed limit is dictated by the desire to stick to
> FRA Class 4 track rather than upgrade to class 5
> or class 6.
>
> Boonton and M&E tracks actually see considerably
> more wear and tear than the NJCL due to the
> geography, the shape of the RoW and the frequency
> of stops, so there is some justification for
> opting for concrete on those lines. NJT has
> installed concrete ties selectively on platform
> tracks at many stations for this reason. Also, on
> the M&E the first section to get concrete was the
> Millburn to Summit ramp which gets heavy pounding
> from trains climbing up the ramp.

Thanks for that information. It looked like the diesel was really ripping through the station with an eastward train.


Hazlet is a very nice looking, and seemingly quite well engineered. I was especially impressed that it's on a straight away, so it didn't look like there was any significant gapping of the train and the platform edge. Here's a sample of the artwork in the station.

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There is a short section of concrete ties on the NJT Atlantic City line in Westmont and Haddonfield, NJ.

curve patch for rail stability on the tight curve under Haddon Ave

I remember one late night about 10 years ago, standing in the lead car just behind the vestibule with the engineer. We were southbound in this area of the NJCL. You could see the block signals changing in the blackness of the night along that long straightaway, and I remember looking at that speedometer get to just under 90 MPH. Guess the engineering was pushing the envelope a bit with that speed. It was one of those moments I will never forget as we glided down that line. Everything was perfect!