Hike #1308; Whiting to Ocean Gate

Hike #1308; Whiting to Ocean Gate

3/22/20 Whiting to Ocean Gate with Shane Blische, Diane Reider, Kirk Rohn, Justin Gurbisz, Professor John DiFiore, Craig Craig, Thomas C. Huber, Mike Heaney, Neil George, Brittany Audrey, Serious Sean Dougherty, and Michael Varner

This next hike would be a point to point, and pretty much the last in my series to hike the entire Pennsylvania Railroad Atlantic Division, which crosses the entire state.

A map showing the Atlantic Division

This would be a rather interesting time for me, not just because it was the final thing in the series, but because of this massive virus outbreak thing coming along.

Oh boy, masks

In a very short time, the world has turned upside down into a crazy mess. It’s terribly easy to get caught up in the stress of all of it.
Most everyone was telling me to discontinue doing my hikes, but the longer I spend out there, the more stupid the entire thing seems to be.
Since everyone is out of work, parks are getting record attendance. Our group has discontinued the hugs and handshakes that have always been the start of every day, so it’s not like it’s particularly unsafe. Further, no one is practicing social distancing, and no one is adhering by the rules.

Historic view of the Whiting Station

Just this week as I write this, I have dined in at two establishments, many businesses remain open, and purchase orders went through to put countless laborers back to work, but only after the state got it’s demanded package from the federal government.

Whiting Station site

The virus is not a hoax, but it’s entire management really is. The curfew is probably the biggest joke of all. It forces people all to shop within the same time frame, which is totally against the social distancing thing.

Whiting Station foundation

The curfew actually has nothing to do with the virus and everything to do with the fact that it’s one of the criteria to impose in order to justify “state of emergency”.
There are some people who are in fact at risk. These are the people who should be quarantined, but the “experts” provided not just by government, but by two fighting factions of government, have their own that cannot be trusted as non-biased scientific community.
I have many friends who are legitimately susceptible to this, but the best thing we can do is wash our hands and not sneeze or cough on things. Even at the highest projected number of fatalities, this is not going to exceed previous pandemics where there were less impositions.

Tuckerton Railroad route

It’s not that I’m making light of all of it, but I foresee something of a revolution if this all continues. The “herd immunity” thing that they were doing in England and Denmark is probably the only way to go about such a thing. I think we’ll get more viruses that cannot be contained. Partly because people will not contain, but also because it just can’t be.
When I see so many medical professionals not only out hiking with groups, but even LEADING hikes in many other groups, I find it very telling. Someone coined the term “covidiots”, which may or may not be proven more legitimate with time.

Old turntable

In order to combat backlash, I’ve refrained from publishing my hike journals until well after this mess has blown over and my opinion, which is usually pretty accurate, is proven correct.

Historic marker

Of course, I had planned this trip well before any quarantine had taken place. It was actually my birthday weekend, and would have been the anniversary hike, but I had postponed it one week because my buddy Matt would be busy at work this weekend.

Atlantic Division line

I had wanted this to be somewhat of a celebration itself. The hike was to end at the point where the Atlantic Division crossed over the Barnegat Bay, at a restaurant known as Martell’s Waters Edge. I had already hiked that bit of the railroad bed, but decided to go back over it again, in addition to the last section I had not done, for a dramatic ending at the water.
We could then have a great dinner at the restaurant overlooking the water and bridge site. It seemed like it was going to be quite the perfect way to end.

PRR Atlantic Division

Then, the virus took over. All restaurants were closing eat in services. Fortunately, the owners told me we could still park at their facility.
I figured this would be the last hike I would keep posted as I normally do for a while. I changed the anniversary hike thing to a covid19 image and put “let down” in the title.
When I arrived at the parking lot, I was rather shocked to see lots of cars there. 12 people had shown up, which was more than had initially signed up anyway. I had thought that everyone would be afraid to leave their houses.

Atlantic Division line

We had to shuttle in three cars to keep it a bit easier. It was just better to keep people slightly apart than by cramming like we might have otherwise into my van.
When we arrived at the parking lot at the Whiting Town Center strip mall parking lot, there were two police officers sitting side by side there talking. Shane went off to the left of the buildings while I went through to the right, through a breezeway to behind the buildings where we had left the Atlantic Division the previous hike. Some of the group went with each of us.

Some old ties still in place

We then waited on the right of way for Tom Huber to show up, who had run late. From there, we turned east to where the Atlantic Division crossed the former Central Railroad of New Jersey.
The Atlantic Division history is quite interesting, how it was pieced together.
The first part of the Atlantic Division was chartered in the 1840s, proposed as a horse car railroad to pass through some of the towns on its way to Mt. Holly.

Atlantic Division line

The horse car railroad never came to be, but the same charter was used to create the Burlington and Camden County Railroad in 1866, which achieved the goal of connecting Camden with Mt. Holly.

PRR rail bed

The line was extended east with some little branches as far as Pemberton, where the Pemberton and Hightstown (later the Union Transportation) continued to the north through Fort Dix, New Egypt, and other points. That station at North Pemberton was a union station used by both lines that connected there.
A junction, in a place called Birmingham, just west of Pemberton, is where the Atlantic Division continued to the south side of Pemberton and beyond.

PRR rail bed

This section section was originally built from what I can understand as a branch of the New Jersey Southern Railroad, known as the Pemberton and New York Railroad.
The line became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad rather than the Central Railroad of New Jersey like the rest of the New Jersey Southern lines. Pennsylvania Railroad started operating the stretch August 1 1878, and was sold to PRR on March 31st 1879.

PRR rail bed

We had already done the entire Union Transportation and just about all of the Kinkora Branch previously and we’d done three other hikes on the main through route of the Atlantic Division. The first was the bit from Pemberton west to Mt. Holly.
The second one was from Mt. Holly heading west, much of which is still active, to Merchantville. The third one was the missing piece we hadn’t done between the junction with the former Camden and Amboy at Camden and Merchantville.

PRR rail bed

The last one was where we had started in Pemberton and headed to Whiting across the bulk of the Pine Barrens.
The Jersey Central line was originally the New Jersey Southern Railroad, which operated from the Raritan Bay down through Red Bank and Farmingdale, then across the Pine Barrens to Whiting, and beyond that to Atsion eventually. I’ve walked a lot of this line before, through Wharton and Brendan Byrne State Forests, but never connected the many sections of it there and further north that I’ve touched. That will have to be future stuff.

The rail bed going along wetlands

The line was completed through in the 1860s, and somewhat recently reactivated through Manchester Township, in which Whiting resides.
Whiting was also the junction with the Tuckerton Railroad, another one we had hiked to a great extent.
Tuckerton Railroad started out as the Barnegat Railroad Company when it was chartered in 1866. The name was changed to Tuckerton Railroad, and it was completed 29 miles between Whiting and Tuckerton in the Fall of 1870.

Wetland view on the rail bed

We had hiked all of this line as closely as we could from Barnegat area to Tuckerton, but I’d never done any of the inland sections.

Wetland view on the rail bed

Tuckerton Railroad continued with passenger service until 1936, and one last fan trip took place in 1939. The rails were torn up in November of 1940.
We all convened close to where these lines all came together. The railroad station used to stand at the northeast corner of the crossover point, and it served all three railroads. There is now a fenced in pit where the station used to be.
Where the Tuckerton Railroad used to go is now the route of Lake Road, and there is a paved trail beside it.

Wetland view east of Whiting

There were some good historic markers in this area, and next to one of them was another fenced in area that revealed one exposed side of the old Tuckerton Railroad turntable.

Rail bed entering a development area

It was an armstrong turntable of sixty foot diameter, which is plowed partially in from the construction of Station Road, which becomes Lake Road. I did not know that was there previously.
I didn’t want to mill about town area, exposed for very long. The majority of the hike would be in pretty nice woods and somewhat hidden. It wasn’t a “trail” that a ton of people was using, which was part of the reason I kept this one rather than postpone it.

The rail bed has been landscaped away...

We got across Station Road and started following the right of way, which was on the power line for most of the way. We continued on this route and soon crossed over Lacey Road ahead, which was much busier.
I did not adequately communicate that this one would probably be one to draw less attention to ourselves than what I would normally do. I am known for wearing a suit and tie hiking, but this time I just put on a black leather jacket I’d gotten at a thrift store recently, and some normal pants.

PRR rail bed in development

Shane, however, showed up in bright green pants, an enormous green hat, and a totally new wave eighties blazer. Craig went one level further, and showed up in a beautiful 1970s wedding tuxedo!
Fortunately, we did not draw too much attention to ourselves I don’t think.
This hike did skirt several development areas, but there was a good degree of anonymity even when it was close to these places. Beyond Lacey Road, we were surrounded by homes, and still were after our next crossing at South Columbus Blvd.

The group

The path gave way to mostly pine surroundings when we went across Schoolhouse Road. We crossed the south branch of a stream known as Michael’s Run, then skirted a Christian retreat center on the right, and another housing development on the left.

PRR rail bed, Crossley Preserve

The right of way seemed very park like, with railings and such along the edge at times on fill.
We crossed Congasia Road next, at a development known as Crestwood Village. Soon after that, we crossed another little bridge over the branch of Michaels Run again.
This was a very pretty setting that felt like a public trail. Ahead, the path along the right of way became paved and a bit easier to walk than the sand. The area was known as Pine Ridge at Crestwood.

Crossley Preserve

We reached the access road, known as Country Walk Blvd, which was part built over the right of way at the end of this, as we approached Township Line Road. We quickly made our way through this very developed looking area and crossed the street to enter the Crossley Preserve, which would be the most secluded portion of the entire hike.
Crossley Preserve is the largest of the many preserves of New Jersey Natural Lands Trust, at 2,948 acres. It’s named for the forgotten clay mining town that dates back to the 1800s, where material was used to make pottery and bricks or terracotta.

Crossley Preserve

There is apparently a loop trail of 1.5 miles in the preserve, the Thomas F. Hampton Interpretive Trail, which follows an old mule drawn railroad that served the site, but we didn’t have the time to be taking side trips for it this time. I did not a couple of trail signs of some sort, one to the north of the PRR line we were walking.
It looked like clearing had taken place recently on the right of way, maybe with the addition of some of the new higher towers.

A scene in Crossley Preserve

There are tall metal ones along the way as well as smaller ones.
Shane commented about where the site of the settlement of Crossley used to be, and that there was once a station stop there, but there was really nothing left to see of it.

At Crossley Preserve

Even Crossley Road, the main access to the site, is only a sand road accessible from rather far to the south.
There were some nice wetland pits along the way, which reportedly are now habitat to endangered tree frogs, where clay was taken for the mining operation. It was a pretty area. We were seeing signs in there reading “keep going” and such from what must have been a race that took place recently.
A little dock was just below one of the wet areas, with a little chair overlooking the water.

Yep

We skirted another development to the north of us, known as Wrangell Brook Park, and then crossed a bridge placed on the old stone abutments to the original railroad bridge, crossing a stream known as the Davenport Branch.

Craig looking extra dapper

The term “branch” rather than “creek”, “kill”, “river” or “brook” is something you see more often when you travel south of the Mason Dixon Line. We see it occasionally in south Jersey.

Just keep going...

Up north, we have branches of rivers we refer to but we’ll often say something like “South Branch of the Raritan”. In Maryland especially, you’ll hear streams referred to solely as “branch” or “falls” more commonly, even if the latter is not a waterfall at all.
There was a lot more junk dumped on the rail bed in the section ahead.
Aside from lots of just plain trash, someone found a full bottle of Lord Chesterfield’s Ale along the path. That was grabbed up and brought with us. A little further ahead, there was another full bottle of Youngling. This too was grabbed up. Justin tried the Lord Chesterfield’s Ale because he thought that it was going to taste like Ginger Ale, but he was terribly disappointed.

COVID calzone

As we walked on a little further, we were rather shocked to find an entire HUGE size calzone was laying in the middle of the path! Serious Sean picked it up with a large pinwheel he also found and was following us asking if we wanted some of this “Covid Calzone” or something to that effect.
It was actually quite sad to see this enormous amount of food go to waste. Although I’ve eaten some deplorable stuff however, this was not anything tempting to me. It was more like looking at a cute but deceased animal; I might have liked to pet it if it was alive. This calzone was dead.
We soon crossed St. Maximillian Drive, and continued into another area of development.
The next crossing was Mule Road, maybe the name having something to do with some of the old clay mining work. We crossed this one at an angle, and then continued to curve kind of East Southeast to cross Davenport Road next. The route remained pretty well hidden despite being surrounded by houses.

Wetland view

The development we were surrounded by at this time was known as Holiday City, and we soon passed out of it and into another expanse of woodlands.

PRR rail bed

The right of way got a little less worn, crossed a small tributary or wet area, and then came to where the power lines split to go both north and south, and the railroad bed continued ahead into more dense cover.
Serious Sean knew this area. He said he had looked at homes in this area before he bought the house we’d visited him at previously. He knew the neighborhoods and it just didn’t work out right for him, but it was neat because we were literally parallel with one of the streets where he had been looking!

Wetland scene

The rail bed was quite nice ahead, better than what we had been on before. Even though we were probably closer to development at this point, it just felt a bit more secluded.

Action figures!

Ahead, there was a giant pile of junk in the edge of the ATV clearing, in the rail bed. It was a giant heap of action figures and toys and such dumped off there. There were some Rescue Heros, Mega Man X, and more. I had just seen a bunch of action figures at a flea market a few weeks back and wanted to give some to Susie Duncan, who calls them “happy men” because I gave them to her in a Happy Bag and she left them all over her Princeton office. They have brought joy to her co workers for many years, and they’re starting to dwindle. I have them in my van for the next time I see her, because I loaded my pack up with as many of them as I could carry.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/L1BDM1oBRJ8

PORK CHOP SANDWICHES

Within the mess, I was surprised to find a GI Joe figure. This wasn’t just any GI Joe; it was the one that was in a stupid re-dubbed cartoon yelling “PORK CHOP SANDWICHES” from what was one of the “knowing is half the battle” shorts at the end of the cartoon shows.

Old abutments

The character yells “get the fuck out of her” multiple times and the kids talk as if they have a mental retardation. I’ve watched it so many times it shouldn’t really be funny any more.

Abandoned silos

I of course had to grab that one and have it sticking out of the pack because it made me laugh more than the other ones.
The right of way skirted some more back yards, and I was watching ahead until something to the right caught my eye. It was far too big not to.

Silos

There were enormous silos roughly forty feet high or more out in the woods. I counted about thirteen of them. We all turned off of the right of way and into this area which was obviously very well traveled.
We could get inside the things and look right on out to the top. The first couple of them were closed at the top, but the others were open. We could not figure out what they were, but we assumed they must have been for holding sand or something.
Most every website on this has little to say about this obviously significant building area. The best I can find is just a little bit mentioned in the 1928 Mineral Industry of New Jersey Bulletin #34, published in 1930. There, it states that a grinding plant was constructed in Toms River to replace one that had closed at Williamstown Junction, which is quite a ways away to the west. It makes mention of forty foot bins that resembled silos. Since this was in the mineral book, it was probably not for grains, but for some sort of local mineral. Someone suggested something to do with the military, but I could find no official writing to support that yet.

Old silo buildings in South Toms River

We took a very nice break at this site, and then climbed through some of the facility heading to the east. We made our way back onto the railroad bed, and then followed it on the north side of South Toms River Borough Community Park.

Looking out of a silo

We then passed through a narrow swath of woods on the right of way with homes on either side of us, but the path on the right of way remained pretty good.
This continued on until the railbed eventually became overgrown, and the ATV path turned off to the right into the property of South Toms River Park.
This was an undeveloped tract of land. We walked into it, and then took a break at the south side of an open field, under some small evergreens. This was directly behind the Wawa.

The old rail bed

I didn’t want everyone to go in together, so I said for everyone to just wait like thirty seconds behind one another before going in. That worked out fine, and no one really cared.
I was going to wait for everyone else to go in and get the food they wanted, but some of the group didn’t need anything and were waiting behind, so I went in and bought myself a loaded quesadilla, which really hit the spot.
Tom Huber decided to Uber out at this point, and Serious Sean started singing “Huber took an Uber” or something. The rest of us had a nice break out in the little pines.

Cement towers

The next bit of the hike was the one I was most concerned about. I didn’t want to have some big group walking out in the open. I told everyone to make sure we kept distance, and that we would be meeting back up in certain areas of woods before continuing through the more urban sections.
The railroad bed was just to the south of us in the trees. It came out and crossed Railroad Ave, and continued into the woods. We turned right for a bit, and then left on Dover Road. Where we passed beneath the Garden State Parkway on this was about where the railroad crossed Dover Road.

The old rail bed

On the other side, we turned slightly right onto Rt 9 heading east.
There was a wide swath to the right where the railroad used to be, and after passing Ardmore Ave on the right, there was a path that went down into the woods parallel with 9.
We let everyone catch up in here. I was aware that we might be able to take this section, which was right below the railroad bed, but I wasn’t sure. It ended up being a really nice section.
We crossed over the end of a bridge out there that said I think 1951, which means it was originally built for the road rather than the railroad, or maybe not.

Path below the rail bed and Rt 9

Historic aerials seems to show that the railroad was out and the highway was already being built over by the 1950s.
We stayed on the path as long as we could, and when we reached a neighborhood, we split up again and headed back out to Rt 9.
We walked about seven blocks east from here into the town of Beachwood, where we passed by the former Barnegat Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey.
We had hiked this entire line before between Toms River and Barnegat, several years ago.

Sign of the times...

It will be worth doing again because so much more of it is now a trail. I’ll probably wait just a little longer on that one and focus on other lines first.

Barnegat Branch

The Barnegat Branch is now a paved trail on both sides of Rt 9. The Pennsylvania Railroad bed through this bit is off on the right side of the road or in the road, I’m not sure which.
We continued out to where Rt 9 merged with Atlantic City Blvd, and then crossed over to the Quick Chek parking lot.
The group was segmented by this point, as intended. I hurried onto Capstan Ave behind Quick Chek and followed that south a bit, then went left on Larboard Street.

Little library along the rail line

We turned right on Forepeak Avenue which took us out to Pine Beach Elementary School. We walked around the buildings to the right, and then ended up on Merion Avenue heading east. There was a swath of woods to the left of the road there, and I knew the railroad was closer to the next block over, Pennsylvania Avenue (aptly named), and so we bushwhacked through this woods out to where the rail bed is now a trail parallel with the road.
I had done this section as part of a loop hike back on the NJ Perimeter series, but the others hadn’t done it, and it was worth doing this bit for the rest of the hike out to the waterfront.

View at Mill Creek

We emerged where there was one of those mini library case things. There were of course no good books in it, all fiction and kids stuff.

Mill Creek crossing site

We turned onto the trail and started walking to the east.
Someone had written on the pavement of the trail a thank you to doctors, nurses and first respondants. All of this was getting too real to be real. There are variable message boards everywhere saying to practice social distancing. There were churches we went by that said to join them for their Sunday sermon online.

The rail bed in Ocean County Park land

I noted along the way that the actual rail bed was off into the woods to the right slightly, and that the trail was along the road. Along this stretch, we walked right by the police department with no problems, and made our way to Henley Avenue where the trail started turning off to the north a bit. There was a spur line that went out to the Toms River bay here, but the main line continued through the trees ahead, parallel with a dead end road out to a house.
We cut through the trees to the right to this road, and then continued left to the end of this other road, where the right of way became undeveloped into the woods on Ocean County Park property. There were people walking dogs coming toward us, and they were wary of us so turned off onto a trail leading away from the rail bed to the right.

Mill Creek crossing

We continued a little further and came to the spot where the railroad used to cross the Mill Creek. A new foot bridge had been erected over this spot since the last time I was there. It was a very rough one before that went off at an angle. The footings of the old one were still there.
We all waited at this point for the others to catch up. It took them a little bit of time, but it was a relaxing spot to sit down anyway.
Once everyone was caught up, we crossed a sort of utility access, and continued on undeveloped, sandy railroad bed to the east. This took us out to Shore Blvd which is built on top of it. We followed that several more blocks to the east.

Bridge site

When we got to Santo Ave, we turned left. The railroad used to cross another Mill Creek branch just ahead, and I figured it would be far too deep for us to cross.

Bridge site

We turned right on West Chelsea Ave and crossed the creek on the road bridge, and then turned to the right on Ocean Gate Drive. We could see the old railroad bridge site almost immediately.
We approached the old bridge site, at the intersection of Ocean Gate Drive and Atlantic Avenue, and Shane just walked right across the pan on stones. The water below was totally shallow and people had placed rocks in it. We could have easily walked right on through and across this spot without taking the detour! Oh well.

Trail section about where the station used to be

We turned from the bridge site, and followed Atlantic Ave to the east. A grassy swath to our right was the grade most the time.
We passed the post office, then took Ocean Gate Ave south to Long Branch Ave east. This took us to where the next bit of paved trail starts to follow the right of way. Three blocks to the south of this point is the old Ocean Gate train station, which was moved to that point years later. Erik Weber took us to it when he was doing an article on the NJ Perimeter series for the Ocean Signal periodical he wrote, but I opted not to bother to walk there this time. It was a bit out of the way, and I was getting ready to be finished.
The trail skirted Jay Marless Park, and continued to Angelsea Ave. We followed Atlantic Ave another block from there, and the rail bed went into private land between homes.

The rail bed in Forsythe Wildlife Refuge

We turned left on East Arverne Ave to Narragansette Ave and turned right. This took us into the woods directly to the railroad bed, which at this point is now in a piece of Edwin Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. We went around the corner slightly and waited for the others to catch up before pushing on ahead. This was, of course, our home stretch.
We walked through a bit of woods, and I was thankful the flies were not like they were the previous time I was there. It was pretty much unbearable. We then made our way out into an open area with beautiful wetland views as we approached the bay.

View toward the Toms River Bridge from the rail bed

A guy was riding his bike in this section with his off leash dog following, but the group of us scared the dog and it started running back the wrong way. We had to stand still and everyone get off of the edge of the path so that he could coerce his dog to go on by us.

The rail bed in Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge

We soon came out to Bayview Avenue, and walked as closely parallel with the edge of the rail bed into the parking lot of Martell’s Waters Edge. It wasn’t possible to follow it right out to the bridge site from this point.
We walked around the right side of the building, and climbed out on the edge of the dock in order to get around to where we could see the former bridge site. There were wooden footings of what must have been the piers for the bridge known as the Ocean Gate Draw.

Bay view along the rail bed

The bridge was partially destroyed by fire in December of 1946, and the rail line was petitioned for abandonment in 1948. Removal of the rails began on Island Beach starting in 1949.
The others wanted to climb out onto the deck more, but there were cameras and I didn’t want to start any trouble. I would still like to come back one of these days and do a hike that might end at Martell’s because it seems like such a wonderful place to finish one.
I was extremely happy to finish off this series. I’ve now pretty much walked all of the Atlantic Division, with the shore from Bay Head south, and all of the stuff through Camden.

Photo fro collection of Mrs. James Erdman, from “The 75 Years of Seaside Park” by D. Gail Anderson, 1973

There’s a lot more to do in terms of the connections out there, including the Central Railraod of New Jersey lines, and the Tuckerton Railroad, so I’ll be back to the area again for sure.

The Ocean Gate draw bridge site today

Hopefully this whole crazy mess blows over sooner than later so we can shift back to being silly and noticeable instead of so so hidden.

HAM