I used to commute for work into NYC in the 1990s and there was this freight track that seemed very busy and was signaled that ran under the NEC just before the Hudson tubes. Just westward of the NEC it went across a swing bridge. I was sad on a recent trip into NYC to find it abandoned and track removed. Can anyone give me a brief history and insight on what this track was and why it was pulled? I hate seeing trackage removed. The amount of abandoned sidings and spurs along the NEC is bad enough.
Railroad Forums
Abandoned track under NEC approaching Hudson tubes
- Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New Jersey
Moderator: David
Sounds like you're describing the Lower Boonton Line. Pre-Montclair Connection, NJT used it for their Boonton Line trains which now run via ex-DL&W thru Newark. NS kept using the portion of the Boonton line through the meadows to access a freight customer (Spartech in Kearny) on the east end of the Newark Branch until about 2002, when that company stopped getting cars to their factory. Aside from car storage for Croxton on the tracks east of the swing bridge, there's been no use through the Meadows since.
Originally the New York and Greenwood Lake RR, acquired by the Erie a long time ago.
Newark Branch came off the Greenwood Lake right near the DB draw over the Hackensack Rivere....and also the Orange branch and Caldwell branches came off the greenwood lake line.
Connecting track to the ex-DLW boonton line that crossed at a diamond at Mountain View, was made in 1962, and former DL&W mainline trains to Dover via Patterson, now took the Ex-Erie Greenwood lake line to Mountain View, and then the DLW Boonton to Denville, when it joined the M&E.
Former Erie employees always call the line the "Greenwood Lake", and the ex DLW employees called it the Boonton. LOL.
In the 1990s (???) the ex lackawanna Montclair branch was connected to the ex-erie Greenwood lake line at Montclair, .
All trains (just NJT now) now run DLW M&E (under the wires) to montclaie, ex erie Greenwood lake to Mt View, and Ex DLE boonton to Denville.
The ex-erie Greenwood lake between Croxton yard, West End tower, and Montclair was abandoned. This was at least partly done to save the cost of fixing the swing bridges at Arlington (5 mph speed restriction) and at DB.
The abandoned portion is supposedly going to become at biking trail...
Newark Branch came off the Greenwood Lake right near the DB draw over the Hackensack Rivere....and also the Orange branch and Caldwell branches came off the greenwood lake line.
Connecting track to the ex-DLW boonton line that crossed at a diamond at Mountain View, was made in 1962, and former DL&W mainline trains to Dover via Patterson, now took the Ex-Erie Greenwood lake line to Mountain View, and then the DLW Boonton to Denville, when it joined the M&E.
Former Erie employees always call the line the "Greenwood Lake", and the ex DLW employees called it the Boonton. LOL.
In the 1990s (???) the ex lackawanna Montclair branch was connected to the ex-erie Greenwood lake line at Montclair, .
All trains (just NJT now) now run DLW M&E (under the wires) to montclaie, ex erie Greenwood lake to Mt View, and Ex DLE boonton to Denville.
The ex-erie Greenwood lake between Croxton yard, West End tower, and Montclair was abandoned. This was at least partly done to save the cost of fixing the swing bridges at Arlington (5 mph speed restriction) and at DB.
The abandoned portion is supposedly going to become at biking trail...