What's this odd trident-shaped structure jutting into the Sandy Hook Bay? Well, it's a good thing you asked, because we're about to take a look at one of the oddest pieces of rail infrastructure in the US.
Zoom in close on Maps's 3D view, and you'll see an odd ship with some interesting looking boxcars. These are used to transport munitions to a specialized storage site in New Jersey (we'll get to that in a bit). Munitions are offloaded on these piers and shipped inland...
(The pier *really* sticks out into the bay – this is no small time intermodal crane facility we're talking about)
You can follow the line pretty easily inland – note it doesn't connect with other part of the rail network!
We've arrived at the *very* heart of this unique system: the munition storage facility. The scale of this is truly something to take in; located between Freehold and Asbury Park is this large, forested area, and it looks quite impressive from satellite views.
Here, the specialized boxcars loaded with munitions are offloaded and stored. You can see both specialized warehouses, but also underground facilities designed for long-term storage of dangerous explosives. If you explore the facility on Google Maps, you'll also find some sidings
These leaf-like sidings look odd from the air, and notably are located far away from the rest of the site. Why? Well, it's to store excess munitions before they can be properly stored in bunkers or warehouse facilities. Zoom in and you'll find something special about them...
Each one of the "leaves" is a special, sunken track designed to absorb the impact of an explosion in case something were to happen with any of the boxcars. You can even see some stored cars here on Maps, with a nice close view of the sunken track as well.
There's also a small yard with a whole bunch of these white (and some rusty) boxcars, as well as the switchers which are captive and serve just to make shuttle runs to the pier and back to the facility.
Up here, a whole other set of "bunker" tracks, with a lot of stored munitions cars!
Here's a closer look at one of the bunker storage sites. You can see it bears a striking resemblance to a standard warehouse loading dock that's designed to receive carloads...other than being built into the ground in the middle of the woods, that is.
There are *a lot* of these bunkers. Again, go check out this site on Google Maps, it's *huge*
There's also some additional storage, with smaller bunkers, served by access roads for short trucking from the boxcars to these bunkers.
Without being down in the Pine Barrens, this site is probably as remote as you can get in Northern Coastal New Jersey. Ironically, located near a Trump golf course, among other things.
You can follow @jeremyzorek.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled:

By continuing to use the site, you are consenting to the use of cookies as explained in our Cookie Policy to improve your experience.