Whose tracks? Englewood, Tenafly, Cresskill etc.

Hi All,

Who owns the tracks that head north from around Palisades Park through Englewood, Cresskill, Tenafly, Closter, Norwood, Northvale and then terminates up by the NY State line? I believe it becomes a rail trail up there. Not the CSX main line - the rails I am talking about are further east (the CSX main goes through Teaneck/Bergenfield/Dumont not Englewood.) It seems like they must originate off the CSX main somewhere but I haven't tracked them back to their origin.

I worked in Englewood for a while and every now and then a locomotive would show up in the center of town and move around the string of black tank cars that were always sitting on a siding just south of Englewood Ave. That was around 10 years ago now and I don't remember ever seeing the markings on the locomotive. Used to drive people nuts because it would mess up traffic real bad and it didn't seem like they were really doing anything productive. *Someone* was using the tracks for something back then - car storage at the very least.

What is the history behind those tracks? (Erie?) Is that CSX now? Are they still active at all? North of Englewood where the tracks closely parallel Dean St., they are very dodgy looking. They don't look to be in any kind of shape to support traffic.

Sorry for abbreviated answer, but I'm a little tired.

Were Erie, are CSX, will (in many, many moons) be Hudson Bergen Light Rail (NJ Transit) as far as Englewood Medical Center.

Not a problem; in between these posts I was following the tracks on Google Maps and I was thinking it wouldn't be real hard to make those rails part of the HBLR system. Pretty cool! I am working down in Weehawken now; how many moons do you think it will take?

CSX C777 goes to Englewood monday to friday on those tracks.

What customers do they serve up there? I assume they'd still be able to serve those customers after the Light Rail goes in?

Food grade oil is delivered to the Admiration plant in Englewood, usually in the A.M. Typical train is 6 t0 10 cars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Branch" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Sadly there are no more customers up on the north end of the line. And going thru Closter, the tracks are in real bad shape.

CSX C777 goes to Englewood monday to friday on those tracks.

I remember seeing the train run through Englewood SO MANY YEARS AGO... Nice to know it's still running daily - that means a nice weekday trip for me to visit the area and hopefully catch lunch after photographing the train... Thanks for the info! Also glad to hear the light rail will make it's way through there, makes total sense. I wonder if they can/should share the line with CSX? That's not done anywhere else on the light rail line is it? I thought the light rail cars, due to their construction, couldn't share railway with freight etc? I'm speaking from WAY OUTSIDE as a fan, of course, so I'd love to know more.

If hungry, I heartily recommend Vittorio's Pizzaria in the shopping center near Shop Rite. I used to fly small planes into Teterboro just to grab a few pies when I lived in an area that had no idea what a real pizza was...which is pretty much everywhere outside of the NY metro area.

Shame there's only one customer left. I seem to recall heavy traffic from a corrugated cardboard firm (American Container?) back in those days. I heard they closed up shop a few years ago.

Looking at this link -- http://www.wislew.com/nbexploreengle2.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; -- this is what I remember. These leased locomotives were what I usually saw, which is probably why I couldn't remember them. The HLCX loco actually specifically strikes a chord with me.

I guess what I was seeing was CSX switching the Supreme Oil siding. 2004/05 would have been when I was working down there, and it was usually lunch time when I saw them (which is also why people got so irritated - you could spend half your lunch hour waiting at a crossing.)

I don't think the line could support sd-40s anymore. At least not without derailing that is.

Something else too... that link said that in 2009 there were only 5 customers left. Is there really only one customer left now?? What happened to those other 4 customers?

Yeah that link was very confusing in terms of what customers were still active. I have my doubts there is anything active north of Englewood these days. The tracks on the north end of Englewood are in dreadful shape.

Snowmojoe wrote:Yeah that link was very confusing in terms of what customers were still active. I have my doubts there is anything active north of Englewood these days. The tracks on the north end of Englewood are in dreadful shape.

Well I happen to know there are no customers left north of Englewood. The tracks thru Closter are essentially unpassable, and there looked to be a small washout in Northvale.