Dover & Delaware River Railroad will lease 27.2 miles of NS lines in Warren and Passaic counties in New Jersey. They include the Washington Secondary between Hackettstown and Phillipsburg, N.J.; the Old Road Industrial Track in Washington, N.J.; the Pompton Industrial Track in Wayne, N.J.; and the Totowa Spur in Totowa and Wayne.
Dover & Delaware also will be the operator of 80.7 miles of NS trackage rights over NJ Transit. These include the Morristown Line, Gladstone Branch, and Montclair Line, according to a Dec. 4 regulatory filing with the Surface Transportation Board.
Dover & Delaware will interchange with Morristown & Erie at Lake Junction, N.J., and affiliated railroad Dover and Rockaway River Railroad, at Chester Junction, N.J., and D&R Junction, N.J.
The two railroads are controlled by holding company Chesapeake & Delaware LLC, which also operates New Jersey short lines Belvidere & Delaware River Railway and Black River & Western.
The transaction will eliminate the need for NS to perform local service over its short, disconnected routes and interconnected lines owned by NJ Transit.
In southern New York, NS will lease the 1.9-mile Crawford Industrial Track in Middletown to the Middletown & New Jersey Railroad, along with 30.1 miles of trackage rights over Metro-North Commuter Railroad between Campbell Hall yard and Port Jervis, N.Y., according to a Nov. 29 regulatory filing.
NS owns the former Erie Railroad main line and leases it to Metro-North.
The 43-mile Middletown & New Jersey already operates several routes in the Middletown area and interchanges with NS at Middletown and Campbell Hall, as well as regional New York, Susquehanna & Western at Warwick, N.Y.
The spinoffs are the second and third such transactions for NS in recent months.
This week, Watco short line Ithaca Central Railroad began operating NS’s Ithaca Secondary, a 48.8-mile route between Sayre, Pa., and Lansing, N.Y.
