It's a bit more than "several" years ago. Lehigh Valley ripped up their second main track from Port Reading Jct. to Phillipsburg back in the 1960s after passenger service ended in the late 50s, leaving only one controlled siding at Pattenburg through Musconetcong Tunnel. Conrail should have rebuilt this line as a two Main Track CTC route (along with the ex-Reading to the extent any portions of their Harrisburg to Allentown route are single track) when they shifted their freight traffic to this line (and the Trenton Line to some extent) from the ex-PRR "corridor," which easily quadrupled the traffic the Lehigh Valley used to operate on this route pre-Conrail (and with a good deal more "priority" traffic). Instead, they sized their infrastructure for recession level traffic of the early 80s, single tracking even some of the portion that the Lehigh Valley kept as two main tracks east of Port Reading Jct., since with a monopoly on northeast rail transport they didn't have any rail competitors to worry about. All this single track (and without enough sidings) is why NS has been said to be "unhappy with the speed" on the "Penn Line," of which this line is a part.
Think of all the capacity added since the CSX/NS takeover of Conrail on this route - the rebuilding of the second main between Potter and Port Reading Jct., the addition of a second main track by conversion of the "Royce Runner" into a second main between Port Reading Jct. and Hillsborough, and the new siding near Flemington. And NS still can't match CSX's best schedules from NYC (northern NJ) to Chicago. Too many bottlenecks like this to slow things down.
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