Eastern Railroad Discussion > Ocean City NJ Branch / Crook Horn Bridge

The Ocean City Branch looking towards Ocean City New Jersey, in the salt marsh, the old Crook Horn Movable Bridge crossing the intercoastal waterway (removed about 7 or so years ago ) is behind the trees, I believe this line last saw service in 1981. Almost 25 years after abandonment, the old PRSL lays in ruin. This area is only accessible via foot. This small bridge ended my walk, within the distance of perhaps a football field from the location of Crook Horn.

---

sanmarino Wrote:
-----------------------
> The Ocean City Branch looking towards Ocean City
> New Jersey, in the salt marsh, the old Crook Horn
> Movable Bridge crossing the intercoastal waterway
> (removed about 7 or so years ago ) is behind the
> trees, I believe this line last saw service in 1981.

How much track, if any, remains in place behind you in this view?

The trackage from Route 9 ( which crosses the ex PRSL )under the Garden State Parkway and out in the salt marsh is gone, with just ties, ballast, a relay box or two, and broken telegraph poles remain. From Route 9 as you head towards Ocean City, you pass one small 20 yard wooden bridge and walk another 1/2 mile and you hit this span, which has weathered poorly. From the point of the photograph, you are about a football field distance to what was once Crook Horn Movable Bridge.

It is much easier to access the Ocean City side of this railroad, as you can drive along the old right of way, out to where the bridge tenders house was, today nothing remains other than ballast, some ties, a lone old smash board mast, and a rail laying in the intercoastal. However as you head into Ocean City, I believe there are still many blocks that have the rail, ties etc still in place.

What a shame, as it was a unique operation, with quite a bit of history. From the Reading and Pennsylvania to the PRSL to I believe Conrail and later NJ Transit. I wonder if preservation was ever considered ?

I can remember seeing this track from the Parkway in what must of been 1973-74 because I saw it from the school bus taking us down to Cape May (I think). The track looked bad then, sandy ballast sinking into the meadows but they were still using it. Someplace I've got photos of the mid 80's appearence of the AC line in the Cologne area. That looked pretty ratty too.

Looks like a hurricane or nor'easter bashed those tracks pretty good.

Here is an aerial photo of that decrepit bridge.

---

A view from further out showing where the Crook Horn bridge was.

---

those are tremendous aerial photographs of that area.... Its interesting to see the area from the air...in lieu of being on the ground and seeing it in person... What site do you get those aerial photographs from ?? 25 years of abandonment sure took its toll.....

sanmarino Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> those are tremendous aerial photographs of that
> area.... Its interesting to see the area from the
> air...in lieu of being on the ground and seeing it
> in person... What site do you get those aerial
> photographs from ?? 25 years of abandonment sure
> took its toll.....
>


It's a free downloadable service from Google, called Google Earth. You can get aerial photos from around the world. I have been using this for about 2 months now. Below is a link to their home page.

http://earth.google.com

Enjoy,

BaltoJoey