Riverline: Camden and Amboy Revival
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| A map of the Riverline. |
The RiverLine, a sort of diesel-powered overgrown trolley car line, has just opened on the Conrail tracks from Camden to Trenton. It runs every 30 minutes in both directions, but unfortunately stops at 10 PM to let Conrail run freight trains at night. That's almost a perfect fit for the two operations, although it can leave baseball fans stranded at a night game at Campbell Park, or concert goers at the Tweeter Center. The trains are running fairly full, partly because of their novelty, and partly because they aren't terribly diligent in collecting the $1.10 fare during the introductory phase of operation.
It's well worth an historical excursion on the RiverLine, which runs on the former right of way of the Camden and Amboy RR, the first railroad in New Jersey, chartered in 1830 by Robert L. Stevens. A genius of many talents, Stevens invented the iron rail which looks like an inverted "T," held in place by a system of plates and broad-headed spikes. The system is still in use today. Stevens also devised the use of wooden cross ties rather than granite ones, finding they resulted in a smoother ride. In 1834, he joined forces with another many-talented genius, Robert F. Stockton, who constructed a canal from New Brunswick to Trenton. Stevens then built a railroad beside the canal, and then continued the rail line from Trenton to Camden. Stockton ran ferry boats from Perth Amboy to New York, and from Camden to Philadelphia. The full trip from New York to Philadelphia took nine hours, a remarkable advance over horse-drawn competition. The partnership also got the Legislature to confer monopoly rights, so the arrangement was highly profitable as well as an engineering marvel. Sixty years later, the Sherman Act would declare such monopolies to be crimes, but in 1830 they were considered a clever way for Legislatures to stimulate risky investment. The Pennsylvania Railroad bought the partnership and its monopoly in 1871, but preferred to bridge the Delaware River at Trenton, so the towns and track along the Jersey side of the river soon dwindled away. The RiverLine now provides a pleasant one-hour excursion along the riverbank, down the main streets of some cute little towns, past some remarkable woods and wilderness up near Trenton, and past Camden's urban revival at the other end. The ballpark, the Rutgers campus, the Aquarium, the Tweeter Center, and the Battleship New Jersey are all on display along the tracks. For some time to come, most of the traffic will probably come from Philadelphians who take the PATCO high-speed line, getting off at the Broadway Station and transferring to the Riverline on its way South to the entertainment area. The PATCO and Riverline cross at that point, essentially using the same station.
The hope, of course, is that the connection will allow traffic back and forth between the Haddonfield-Lindenwold areas served by PATCO, and the reviving little towns along the Jersey side of the Delaware River. Some of those towns look pretty cute, and booming real estate values could draw quite a crowd to the marinas, easy commuting and, yes, forests.
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| Washington Crossing the Delaware. |
There has been a lot of talk in recent years of building a tramway over the Delaware from Penn's Landing to the Camden Aquarium area. That would link tourism from around Independence Park all the way to Trenton. Just get the folks in Trenton and Lambertville to make a tourist attraction of the Hessian Barracks and Washington's Crossing, and you might really have a nationally attractive excursion. Think bigger, and continue on the northern half of the old Camden and Amboy (past Lawrenceville, Princeton and New Brunswick) to New York Bay, and you could have an entirely new region to visit. Or, back at Trenton, make a hard left to the shops of New Hope, and then left, again, to Valley Forge, linking to Amtrak at Paoli. The whole circle would make a really nice two-day or three-day historical tour.
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Riverline Camden, NJ  |
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Google Earth |
