Work on the Lodi branch?

Do any of you recall the old Barclay site there in Lodi, along the railroad line, between 17 and the inspection station?

not me. but there are 2 huge empty lots now that are supposedly contaminated.

The first empty lot west of Rt 17 used to be United Technologies Corp (UTC) later to become BASF. They manufactured inks and dyes. They used Toluene in their manufacturing process and used to store it in multiple underground and above ground tanks. This is the source of the problem on-site. A remediation system was constructed in 1994 (about 6-7 years before the factory got torn down and has been running since out of the small green building at the back of the property. The site includes the empty lot and the forested lot adjacent to it.

Supposedly (as was told to me by an old timer), before the factory was constructed in the 1930's -1940's, the site used to house a locomotive service facility. I guess that would have been part of the original Lodi RR.

heard the samething. i'll ask my g/f's grandfather about it. he's a life long resident of lodi. He remember seeing the nysw widing thru and across old 46 and over to main st.

does anyone know what they serviced there?

I wouldn't be surprised if they serviced that pharmaceutical plant along the river (the one that blew up in 1994 or 1995)

This line apparently made it as far south as the present day location of the Lodi Library & municipal building. IIRC rails in the pavement under Arnott Street (sp??).

BlockLine_4111 wrote:This line apparently made it as far south as the present day location of the Lodi Library & municipal building. IIRC rails in the pavement under Arnott Street (sp??).

My (mid-1990s) Geographia Atlas backs you up on this, showing the line going south of 46, turning SW at Church, and crossing Main where it runs into Memorial Drive (Graham Lane?) - the line on the map stops at this point, about a block or so from Arnot St. - regardless of what my Atlas says, it must be more than a while since this ROW was around.

Even better (and I brought this up on the old board), my Atlas also shows a line branching off the Lodi Branch south of Garibaldi, and then running East parallel to and between Garibalid and MacArthur Ave. - crossing east over Terrace Ave, then curving SE to join the 'ConRail' line at Green St. and North St. in Teterboro!
This deserves an exclamation point, as there are buildings on this mapped ROW which are clearly from the 1970s, if not earlier. It is labeled as the LB RR, and I think we discussed the history of it on the old board (which of course, I forgot).

Well, one more note, since I mentioned Teterboro - the branch which left the line and paralleled Westley Street heading east, before turning North to service a pasta firm, has been recently cut at Green Street (paved over) - AFAIK this firm was recieving covered hoppers (well, I only every saw one hopper spotted there at a time) till 2 years ago - I cannot ascertain if the company closed or moved or whatever.

that line that branches se off the lodi branch i have asked about too. The map we have hear at work (think map) shows old row's sometimes. I asked about what turnoff used to go off of the njt pvl west ward and nobody knew. If your on 17 there is a piece of land that looks like where it went. its next to a furniture building that usually has an orange van in the lot and then a slight hill with houses on it also right were the 711 is. I too wish i knew who was served on this and how long ago it was removed.

2005Vdub wrote:that line that branches se off the lodi branch i have asked about too. The map we have hear at work (think map) shows old row's sometimes. I asked about what turnoff used to go off of the njt pvl west ward and nobody knew. If your on 17 there is a piece of land that looks like where it went. its next to a furniture building that usually has an orange van in the lot and then a slight hill with houses on it also right were the 711 is. I too wish i knew who was served on this and how long ago it was removed.

While I could not find the post I was referring to from the old-school railroad.net (well, I didn't try that hard), I can give you two pieces of info:
The branch from the Lodi Branch to Conrail was once called the "Lodi Branch Railroad", and the Lodi Branch that this thread is about was originally the Hackensack & Lodi Railroad.
If you google for the Lodi Branch Railroad, you will see about 4-5 links, two of which refer to a wiki New Jersey RR map (which link seemed to be broken when I checked, but you never know), and a mention that in 1896 the township of New Barbadoes was extended south to the crossing of Polifly Road w/ the Lodi Branch RR (and apparently New Barbadoes was eventually subsumed by Hackensack). Maybe your search efforts will be more successful...

I believe that the Lodi Branch RR was one of the earliest abandonments in NJ (circa 1880 or so??) The grade up from the NJ&NY was horrible, and IIRC they sold the right/s to serve Lodi to the NYS&W or predecessor, who built down from present location and used the trackage from just South of Garibaldi on into Lodi. The ROW from that point on East on the old LBRR is still quite visible.

At one time, I am told that after the Lodi Branch crossed Main St. it not only b branched south to where the Municipal Bldg is now, but also had a spur that served a "tank farm"? on the other side of Saddle River. Anyone have info on this?

The branch never crossed the river after crossing Main Street.

My grandmother worked at the factory at the extreme end of the branch, I guess where the municipal bldg is now. Trains used to pull in with giant rolls of paper which would be offloaded for some form of processing. What the paper was used for I never asked.

The tracks were in place for quite some time after abandonment, as late as the later 90s if I recall correctly.

I worked on Gregg St from 1994 to 1999 and sporadic trips to downtown Lodi for lunch at Burger King or to buy donuts at the local D&D.. I never saw anything from Garabaldi westwards. You could kind of tell how the ROW would have come across Garabaldi St. and made it to Rt 46, but that was it. Everything was gone quite a while before.

No news is sucky news, 'cause looks like nothing exciting has happened with the Lodi Branch - Suzy Q spared no expense with the ballast, drowning the tracks in it (well, at least you can't see any more dips or rolls - maybe they straighten the track, maybe the ballast just hides it) - I expected a big hand with a huge stiff bristle brush to come from the skies and sweep up the excess, and then spray matte-medium along the line.
So the mystery continues on why this was done - the large Chemical plant site (GCP it says on the parking sign, although it said something else on the main building wall) remains for sale, and although Susquehanna may know something, since that area along Garabaldi is packed with multi-family row-townhouses, I wouldn't be shocked to see a half dozen more eventually.

CJPat wrote:I never saw anything from Garabaldi westwards. You could kind of tell how the ROW would have come across Garabaldi St. and made it to Rt 46, but that was it. Everything was gone quite a while before.

Yeah, I was looking southwest that way today - you have the end of track (and ballast), the little parking lot, Garabaldi, then a large parking lot serving a low brick building (one office was a Physical Therapy, I believe), then a fence in portion of the parking lot, and you can see clear through to Pro-Tech Motorcycle[?] on the south side of 46 - Although I'm pretty sure the ROW was actually a little to the east, on a narrow grassy lot with a house trailer wedge in parallel to Rte 46. I think I did try ROW hunting a few years back without great success.

CarterB wrote:The ROW from that point on East on the old LBRR is still quite visible.

As I posted before, I didn't use to think so...but as I was in the area I drove down Pleasentview Ave to Summit, and stopped at the 7/11 there (didn't realize it was there, so went in to get a Super-Gulp Pepsi - I am a railfan after all). Of course, I immediately saw the small linear park along the north side of LongView[?] Ave, so I took a stroll alongside it and everything fell into place. I maintain that the Office Buildings on Rte 17 and on Polifly (and Rte 17 itself) have oblierated the ROW at those points, but between Summit and 17 it's straightforward. Going West, well it seems that the ROW probably would have been on the driveway between the two '60s-'70s style homes (595 & 599, I think), and I wasn't about to tresspass to find out whats behind the fence in their backyards...

Edit: OK, so livelocal works in that area, so I could virtually tresspass - Ra!
Parts of the LBRR do exist, but between I guess short street and Summit it is covered by a.) The aforemention Multifamily Row Townhouses (or, since these look pre-1980, call them Garden Apartments); b.) Backyards and Garages for the Homes on McArthur Ave; c.) Several Houses themselves (with attendant backyards) on the cross streets.
Summit east to 17 there is the linear park, and east of 17, the (largely) Black-Office building's parking lot covers the ROW, while the (largely)While Office Building's parking lot is bounded on its North Side by the ROW.
Livelocal also shows a huge undeveloped lot on the North Side of Columbia - with radio antenna. Looks swampy - is this land protected, or just waiting for the right price?
As for the old ROW south of Rte 46 - forget my nonsense - the trailer is part of a large trailer park, and the ROW passes West of ProTech - clear south to Church, then as it curved West several outfields are build upon it,
then the ROW was clear till main st. (since these images are a few years old, and it looked as if they were going to build something on the east side of Main St., not sure if this is still true; finally the ROW forms a driveway to some facility with a lot of trucks on the brook, right north of the strip shopping center - no evidence of it crossing Saddle Brook (River?).

the old lodi row you can see if you use a map like google earth. Its clear as day. The office building between polify and rt.17 sits on it. The old exxon station across from the office building sits on a portion of it too.. If you stand in the offce parking lot and look west there is a wooded area next to this 1 story carpet store i believe. It went right thru there and would go right thru 7-11 or to the south of it.

2005Vdub wrote:the old lodi row you can see if you use a map like google earth. Its clear as day. The office building between polify and rt.17 sits on it. The old exxon station across from the office building sits on a portion of it too.. If you stand in the offce parking lot and look west there is a wooded area next to this 1 story carpet store i believe. It went right thru there and would go right thru 7-11 or to the south of it.

I updated my post, as noted above, but that wooded area I did mention in the original as definitely being the former ROW (and Livelocal proved it) - that's the linear park I mentioned being north of Longview. There's the 7-11, then a small brick building south of that, and then the former ROW. West of Summit, meh, the ROW didn't fair so well...