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Conrail North Jersey Santa Train 2025 Tracker

Unofficial tracker for the Conrail Santa train on Saturday, December 20th, 2025

Santa will be riding in his magical caboose through several New Jersey towns: Newark, Hillside, Roselle Park, Roselle, Cranford, Clark, Westfield, Scotch Plains, Edison, South Plainfield, Piscataway, Bound Brook, Piscataway (again), Edison (again), Metuchen, Edison (again), Woodbridge, Port Reading, Carteret, Linden, Elizabeth

Map

Use the interactive map (not live) to learn more about the route.

Image and map data from OpenStreetMap

The route starts from the top end and down the blue line and turns around down the red line. At the end of the red line, the train has a stop in the yard for 2 hours. The green line will be the return route. The yellow line is a possible round trip excursion.

The thick black line (if present) represents the portion of the route confirmed to be completed and may jump long distances.

Notice

SANTA-01 (NJT 4208) is at Port Reading Yard as of 7:17PM. No more updates expected. Good night!

Upcoming points

The most recently completed checkpoint is always in this table. Bold "E" for "Time" means this is an expected time calculated by assumed speed but based on the last known position and time.

Completed	Time	Line	City	Milepost	Location	Notes
Yes	07:17PM	MANS	Woodbridge	16.1	Port Reading Yard / CP Ron	Expected arrival: 6:30PM
	08:00PM E	MANS	Woodbridge	16.1	Port Reading Yard / CP Ron	Expected departure: 8:00PM
	08:00PM E	GSTS	Woodbridge	0.0	CP Ron	CP Ron is on both lines
	08:06PM E	GSTS	Linden	2.2	CP Karen	At Rahway River
	08:14PM E	GSTS	Elizabeth	5.3	CP Ralph	At Goethals Bridge
	08:21PM E	GSTS	Elizabeth	8.0	CP Port	Near Newark Airport and IKEA
	08:29PM E	GSTS	Newark	11.0	CP Fran	At Oak Island Yard
	?	NATB	Newark/Bayonne/Jersey City	-	Upper Bay	Traditional unannounced part of route as done in 2023 and 2024 over Newark Bay on Upper Bay Bridge and into Jersey City

Past points

Completed	Likely	Time	Line	City	Milepost	Location	Notes
	-	02:30PM	LEHL	Newark	8.0	Oak Island Yard	Event starts at the yard (not a departure time)
Yes		?	LEHL	Newark	8.0	Oak Island Yard	Expected departure: 4:30PM
Yes		04:52PM	LEHL	Newark	10.5	CP Valley	Over Northeast Corridor
Yes		04:58PM	LEHL	Newark	11.4	CP Newark	NJT converges from Newark
Yes		05:09PM	LEHL	Union	14.5	CP Townley	CP and defect detector; near Union (NJT passenger station)
Yes		?	LEHL	Roselle Park	16.0	CP Roselle Park	At Roselle Park (NJT passenger station)
Yes		?	LEHL	Roselle Park	16.9	CP Aldene	NJT diverges to Cranford on RVL
Yes	-	?	LEHL	Clark	19.4	Clark	Timetable station near Central Ave
Yes		05:47PM	LEHL	Edison	23.2	CP Potter	Near Inman Avenue
Yes	Yes	06:00PM	LEHL	South Plainfield	26.0	Auto 26	Automatic signal
Yes	-	?	LEHL	South Plainfield	26.5	South Plainfield	Timetable station at Front Street and Metuchen Road
Yes	-	?	LEHL	Piscataway	29.1	New Market	Timetable station at New Market Road
Yes	Yes	06:14PM	LEHL	Piscataway	30.5	Middlesex HBD-DED-WID	Defect detector
Yes		?	LEHL	Bound Brook	33.7	CP Bound Brook	Arrival time; near Bound Brook (NJT passenger station)
Yes		?	MANS	Bound Brook	0	CP Bound Brook	Departure after changing ends; estimated departure time: 5:40PM
Yes	-	?	MANS	Piscataway	1.6	Bakelite	Timetable station at Baekeland Avenue
Yes	Yes	06:47PM	MANS	South Plainfield	5.6	South Plainfield HBD-DED	Defect detector
Yes	-	?	MANS	South Plainfield	7.0	Durham	Timetable station at South Avenue near Interstate 287
Yes	-	?	MANS	Metuchen	9.3	Metuchen	Timetable station at Main Street
Yes	Yes	07:02PM	MANS	Edison	11.0	CP Donald	Next to Roosevelt Park
Yes		?	MANS	Woodbridge	14.0	Auto 14	Automatic signal at St. George's Avenue

Lines

LEHL - Lehigh Line
MANS - Port Reading Secondary
GSTS - Garden State Secondary
NATB - National Docks Branch

Radio and tracking

Radio channels:
160.800 MHz / AAR 046: Oak Island and surrounding yards
160.860 MHz / AAR 050: Lehigh Line, National Docks Branch
160.935 MHz / AAR 055: Port Reading Secondary, Port Reading Yard, Garden State Secondary

You can try using Central New Jersey Freight Rail Lines to listen to railroad radio in this area, however this broadcast mashes many different railroads and lines together.

Conrail practices require verbal acknowledgement of signals and defect detectors over radio. Defect detectors also use the radio on their own and the axle count report will make the Santa train stick out with only about 20 to 30 axles.

About / Disclaimers

Some checkpoints may be missed in which case no time is written. The "Likely" column indicates the chance of hearing the expected radio traffic and generally reflects the distance from the radio capture setup. Other checkpoints are just for estimation purposes.

The train is assumed to be traveling at an average 23MPH except 20MPH when shoving (caboose in the front) over the Port Reading Secondary. The train must maintain an average of 22MPH to travel over LEHL and MANS (the first 42 miles) in 2 hours. The departure from CP Bound Brook to the Port Reading Secondary is assumed to be at 5:40PM because that would get the train to Port Reading Yard near 6:30PM as scheduled. The "likely" checkpoints should confirm if the train is pacing too slow or too fast compared to the assumption.

GSTS mileposts are custom (milepost zero at Port Reading Yard) because there is a discontinuity at in mileposts at CP Port. CP Bound Brook's milepost was changed from 33.1 to 33.7 to make more sense in calculations.

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