Incomplete link

“What is it with these goofballs?” I asked my good friend **** *****, referring to a computer hairball on my end. **** is retired from management at Regional Transit Service, where I once drove bus.
***** was one of the BEST management persons at RTS, where many in management were jerks.
In fairness I should also note -a) many bus-drivers were jerks, as were -b) many mechanics.
“That stupid Pineys link doesn’t like the closing-parenthesis at the end. You’ll hafta Google ‘New Jersey Pine Barrens’ yerself.”
I was responding to *******’s most recent e-mail. It forwarded a newspaper article about mysterious railroad-tracks along a south-Jersey beach. Normally the tracks are covered by beach-sand, but recent nor’-easters unearthed the tracks.
Herewith the link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5494583/Famous-buried-ghost-tracks-reappear-Cape-May-beach.html?ito=email_share_article-top
My response recounted discovery of abandoned and never removed railroad-tracks up in the south-Jersey Pine-Barrens. Central-of-New Jersey (CNJ), which mainly served north-Jersey, had a branch down the central spine of New Jersey to serve south-Jersey. My guess was it served sand-mining, and perhaps cranberry farming in local bogs.
The line didn’t make sense once the state started building highways that encouraged auto-use. But it still existed in the early ‘50s when I was a child — perhaps later than that.
Mined sand often traveled west, not north.

The Pine Barrens from Apple-Pie Hill fire-tower.

The Pine-Barrens are table-flat topography covered by mostly scrub-pine. The soil is very sandy, as the area was once under receding ocean. In order to get to the south-Jersey seashore, you have to cross the Pine-Barrens.
My family lived in a suburb in south-Jersey not far from Camden-Philadelphia. We went to the south-Jersey seashore often as I was growing up. That CNJ spine-line was north-south, so we crossed it driving east to get to the seashore. I don’t recall ever seeing trains on it.
That railroad was smack in the middle of the Pine Barrens. Probably the only freight there was sand from sand-mining. Farming was minimal in the Pine-Barrens, since the soil wasn’t advantageous to farming. About the only farming there was was cranberries in bogs. But for that you need a bog. Water was here-and-there in the Barrens, but not prolific. Look at that Apple-Pie Hill pic, and where’s the water?
Driving across the Barrens was always boring. Fire-towers appeared on the distant horizon looking like matches. Leaving our home, surroundings seemed pretty much the same for 15-20 miles. Then we’d merge into the Barrens = table-flat as far as the eye could see, and covered with scrub-pine.
We’d see Smokey-the-Bear warnings about fire-danger. The Barrens often had forest-fires. Back then was before Atlantic City Expressway, and I think we crossed that CNJ line at Chatsworth.
The Barrens are a completely undeveloped area surrounded by extreme development. The Barrens are attractive since land there is cheap. The residents, so-called “Pineys,” are very rural and outback, totally unlike their suburban neighbors. They are few and far-between.
The Barrens prompt various stories. Foremost is “The Jersey Devil.” People suggest Jimmy Hoffa is buried in the Barrens. New York City’s Mafia supposedly disposed its enemies in the Barrens. Dark and foreboding, you see little civilization in the Barrens. It’s right in the middle of the east-coast megalopolis.
I always say north-Jersey’s the dump for New York City, and south-Jersey’s the dump for Philadelphia. The Barrens seem separate from both.
Railroad construction across the Barrens was slam-dunk. No mountains to climb, no civilization to thread. Arrow-straight. Trains could run 100+ mph — Philadelphia to the south-Jersey seashore. (Philly-to-Camden was a ferry-crossing.)
Baltimore & Ohio in concert with CNJ ran a glitzy Jersey City to Atlantic City passenger-train called the “Blue Comet.” (Jersey City is across the Hudson from New York City.)
The Blue-Comet ran down CNJ’s spine-line to Winslow Junction in central New Jersey. At Winslow it switched to Reading’s “Atlantic-City-Railroad.” Both CNJ and Reading at that time were affiliates of B&O.
Camden & Atlantic, built in 1852, was the first railroad into Atlantic City, and was instrumental to its development. The entire south-Jersey seashore attracted Philadelphia residents. Atlantic City Railroad was built because of Camden & Atlantic’s success. Pennsy bought Camden & Atlantic to take part in the Atlantic City traffic boom.
During the late 1800s Pennsy and Reading would race to the seashore; 100+ mph with teapot locomotives having gigantic 84-inch driving wheels.
The railroads on the Monopoly game are -1) Pennsylvania, -2) Reading. -3) Baltimore & Ohio, and -4) “Short line,” which is actually “Shore Fast Line,” a trolley that ran from Atlantic City to Ocean City to the south. (Shore Fast Line abandoned in 1948, shortly after I was born. Its wooden trestle to Ocean City burned.)
That CNJ spine-line continued south of Winslow, including through Vineland to Bridgeton. Most was eventually abandoned.
In the ‘70s or early ‘80s my wife and I set out in search of old hangouts in the Pinelands. In the ‘50s our family often visited Apple Pie Hill. It had a raised wooden observation-deck. We were looking for it.
Apple Pie Hill we found, but the observation-deck was gone. Driving all over on sandy one-lanes we encountered overgrown railroad tracks out in the middle of nowhere. They were remains of that CNJ spine-line, abandoned but not removed.
Railroad track is fairly permanent. If not for scrub-pine and trees between the ties that spine-line still looked operable. Maybe 5-10 mph at most, and expect to derail. (More-than-likely the rail would turn over.)
****’s link reminded of our long-ago discovery. CNJ’s spine-line was now a ghost railroad deep in the Barrens. It prompts wondering and Google-searches. Tracks abandoned long ago on a south-Jersey beach prompt similar wondering.
So began response to *******’s e-mail link. It required a link to a Wiki article about the Barrens. I have a generic link memorized in my computer-files. I overwrite so it becomes “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Barrens_(New_Jersey)">south-Jersey Pine Barrens</a>,” for example.
I did so with my response to ******’s e-mail. The Wiki-link has “(New_Jersey)” in it (as above). The end-parenthesis wouldn’t pick up as part of the link. I didn’t know this until after my e-mail was sent; links in e-mails aren’t active until sent. Not until after I send can I test that link.
The link went off to Never-Never land; it wasn’t picking up the end-paren. I tried again = just the link. It bombed again. It wasn’t picking up that end-paren, and again I couldn’t know that until I could test that sent e-mail.
I gave up; suggesting **** Google “Jersey Pine-Barrens” on his own. He could trigger that Wiki-link getting their Pine-Barrens link complete with end-paren.
Finally I copy/pasted that Wiki Pine-Barrens link and e-mailed just that to ****. That worked! Now I wonder if anyone else my age would deduce that end-paren was not being picked up as part of the link, even though it appeared as part.
Herewith my Wiki Pine-Barrens link: “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Barrens_(New_Jersey).” Copy/paste that into yer browser, readers; and make sure ya get the entire link. (And don’t copy the opening and closing quotes.)
It works for me. Constructing it from my computer link-file bombs.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; I retired from that over 12 years ago.