The New Jersey Museum of Transportation is not a huge facility, but a visit here will surely bring you back in time where horses, and iron horses, were the norm. This narrow-gauge railroad is not long in length, but their venerable rail equipment will interest even the most discriminating rail enthusiast. The operating steam locomotives of years ago have given way to two very unique diesel-electric units on the property these days. A General Electric 25-tonner is the usual power for the railroad, but in July of 2021 she suffered a mechanical issue that relegated her to the engine house for several weeks for repairs. In her place, the ‘big girl’, 55-ton locomotive number 45 (also a product of General Electric) was pressed into service. A former workhorse for US Steel, she found her way to the narrow rails of NJ many years ago. It’s a true find to discover a narrow-gauge railroad anywhere in the US, but in New Jersey it is operations as usual almost every weekend of the year for The Pine Creek Railroad, situated on state property at Allaire State Park in Wall, NJ. The entire 3,000 acre Allaire State Park complex features the original structures (including an operating general store, blacksmith and bakery) of the original settlers in this area, as they were back in the early 19th century. This summer day in July we find Station Master Jim observing the departure of the 1:00 train, as Michael, one of the youngest railroad engineers in the state of NJ, gives a wave and notches out the big GE locomotive on the first of two laps around the facility. Operating every half-hour, Mike & Jim and their trainmen and staff will welcome dozens and dozens of daily visitors back to the simple times, when trains transported people everywhere, decades before automobiles and trucks would come to rule the local transportation world.
Image recorded July 11, 2021
Click on the image once or twice to view it at a larger size; use your browser’s back button to return to this page.
