Storms reveal ‘ghost railroad tracks’ at NJ beach

🔹 Storms reveal Shore ‘secret’

🔹 ‘Ghost tracks’ over century old

🔹 Same beach has rich history

The latest round of heavy rains to help wrap December have prompted another glimpse of the “ghost railroad tracks” along a beach in Cape May.

Remnants of what was once a rail line used to transport supplies — for sand mining and munitions testing — still resurface sporadically along Higbee Beach, depending on erosion and low tide.

Jersey Coast Emergency News was among those to post photos on Tuesday.

The rail line was never for transporting passengers, according to locals and an Urban Explorers video shared to YouTube, but it was used to shuttle items, well over a hundred years ago.

The same stretch of tracks was uncovered after a nor’easter last year in May 2022.

Before that, a trio of powerful storms also uncovered a good section of the tracks in 2018.

Same beach has rich history

Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area is a roughly 1,100-acre area that spans several different habitats, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The ghost tracks are not the only partially hidden treasure — there has also been the wreck of the SS Atlantus to add to the beach area's intrigue.

Atlantus was one of a dozen concrete ships built during World War I, when steel was in high demand, according to Wildwood Video Archive.

It was sold to a private company and set sail in 1920, with the goal of using the ship as a Cape May ferry terminal.

The ship fell short of its destination amid severe weather and was left beached off the coast, where the wreck has slowly worn away over the past century.

Also nearby, amid Cape May Point State Park, is a World War II bunker, built in 1942.

According to Atlas Obscura, "a sister bunker stands across the bay in Lewes, Delaware."

Report a correction 👈 | 👉 Contact our newsroom