New Jersey Museum of Transportation

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The New Jersey Museum of Transportation is a museum dedicated to the collection, preservation, and operation of historic railroad equipment. The organization runs excursion trains on a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge tourist railroad named the Pine Creek Railroad. The museum is independently operated along with the Allaire Village and is located in Allaire State Park in New Jersey. The museum runs Santa Special trains on the weekends in December.

Video New Jersey Museum of Transportation

History

The origins of the New Jersey Museum of Transportation began with the purchase of a Baldwin 0-4-0T engine from the Raritan River Sand Company in 1952 by a pair of railroad enthusiasts. This first engine was named the Pine Creek No. 1 and was eventually sold to the Walt Disney company, where it was overhauled and renamed the #4 Ernest S. Marsh. The engine is still in use today at the California theme park.

Initially a 2.5 acres (1.0 ha) plot of land on Route 9 in Marlboro was purchased where the railroad was run as a tourist attraction, but in 1952 when the organization was facing large property tax increases the not-for-profit Pine Creek Railroad Division of the New Jersey Museum of Transportation was formed and the operations were moved to its present-day location in Allaire State Park.

While the Pine Creek railroad loop runs adjacent to the abandoned Freehold and Jamesburg Agricultural Railroad that skirts the park (now known as the Edgar Felix Bikeway), it was never part of that rail line right-of-way.

Maps New Jersey Museum of Transportation

Collection

The following is only a partial listing of equipment that has been or is currently at the Museum.

Sunken engines

In 1985, two steam engines were found side by side and in an upright position by charter boat Captain Dan Lieb in 90 feet (27 m) of water 5 miles (8.0 km) off the coast of Long Branch. Further identification of these engines occurred in 2004 when a team of diving and railroad enthusiasts working along with the a History Channel production team investigated the engines. After viewing several digital images it was discovered, through the evidence of several artifacts on the engines, that they were Civil War-era Planet Class 2-2-2 locomotives from between 1850 and 1855.

On September 25, 2004, the New Jersey Museum of Transportation was granted custody of the two engines by US District Judge Joseph Irenas. The museum hopes one day to raise the relics for display and interpretation at the museum.