Aldene Plan - Montclair Connection

John_Henry, that was music to my ears.....


All CNJ fans smile, nod silently with eyes closed and let out a collective "sigh..........."

BigDell

CNJ wrote: I don't know how old you are, but I (and Big Dell) are old enough to remember the pre-Aldene Jersey Central.

Me too.....

Are there any good web sites that describe Aldene Plan?

Facts, changes, maps, and purpose?

Here's one Tom....

http://www.thorpefamily.us/bayonne.html

CNJ SAID:
"Well I belive that the money spent on the Aldene Plane could have been used for an major state-sponsored infrastructure improvement of the CNJ and its terminal operations"

But that was my point...back then you did not have a strong NJT to do such work and nor was the state department of transportation nor public thinking in tune with such a public outlay for a private business , that the plan was a device of two bankrupt private enterprises desperately trying to what could be done within their charter capacities as well as their financial incapacities. Times were quite different!

Wasn't the Aldene Plan, a/k/a Palmer Plan, brokered by then NJ Transportation head Palmer? I suspect the railroads didn't have much say in the matter.

Brokered, maybe...but still neither the public, private enterprise, nor NJ DOT were sure of what they were doing. It was the beginning of NJT as we know it today in effect. It was not the mindset of the times for a government agency be a rail operator/owner in NJ...Rockerfeller had barely gotten the LIRR into the NY state family and everyone was cautious of this spreading liberalism of a socialistic endeavor! Sarcastic maybe, but more true than not.

Although the Aldene/Palmer plan had been around in various forms for a long time, you have to take into account that both railroads were teetering on the brink of collapse at the time and I think some officials used this and the "freedom of navigation" of the Newark Bay as a convenient excuse for an otherwise unpopular solution.

CNJ service had markedly degraded, both in terms of reliability and in terms of speed and the ferry fleet was dangerously outmoded and not being upgraded. No radar or electronic navigational aids either on most of those coal-fired, wooden-sided boats. They were an accident waiting to happen.

As another poster mentioned - if somehow the state or the railroads had the wherewithal to tunnel from either Jersey City or Hoboken to lower Manhattan before the rail business went in the dumper after WWII, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in today. But no railroad in its right mind was investing in passenger facilities to compete against the automobile and the freeway builders.

If the Waterfront Connection is expanded and better scheduled then you can send more trains to Hoboken. Yes it is a circuitous route through Newark and Harrison but will get you to the ferry boat.

I think if the state of NJ foresaw the coming of AMT, CR (CSX & NS) and their PITA ways they would have not done Aldene plan.

As I understood things, there was quite a bit of favoritism in the NJDOT as to what railroad got subsidized to what degree. IIRC, they based it on who had the best on-time performance, and the CNJ apparently had suffered in that arena whereas the E-L had the best. So the E-L kept all of their NJ commuter lines (save the Northern Branch) while the CNJ lost quite a bit (the Main Line between Aldene and Jersey City, as well as the E-Port & Perth Amboy and the NY & Newark).

The dough spent on the Aldene Project was, to be sure, substantial in its own right. I daresay that you could have kept the CNJ main line open in its original configuration plus paid for a PATH extension to CNJ Terminal with the money spent on reopening Hunter, rebuilding Aldene and elevating the LV through Roselle Park and Townley...since Townley didn't get a station until a couple of years ago, they couldn't have been seen to be losers in an Aldene no-build anyhow.

I've also heard the PATH argument as to how Hoboken stayed open. Erie Terminal and PRR Exchange Place terminal (the latter actually being the location of the first CNJ terminal on the waterfront, when they used to share tracks with the New Jersey Railroad) had Hudson & Manhattan (later PATH) service, but neither terminal exists today...and to be frank, you have Newport Mall now right where the Erie Terminal used to be, and all the financial firms around Exchange Place, which would make the terminals that used to be there quite viable as destinations in and of themselves nowadays...

...and relating to CNJ Terminal, we have Liberty State Park of course, but this could lead into the "transit village" realm—of course, nobody wants to desecrate LSP's pristine greenery, but there is the "boat parking" on the north side of the old terminal, and a pedestrian link across the Morris Canal at the very least (but the best-case scenario does assume a PATH link) would indeed attract workers in Exchange Place...

Bottom line is, we still have an extant 20-track terminal sitting utterly idle that can be made viable with money spent on better access. Meanwhile, higher sums of money are being bandied about for a new tunnel to squeeze more than 20 lbs of sugar into the same already-overloaded 5-lb bag called NY Penn. It wasn't railfans who built CNJ Terminal—it was railroaders. (Arguably, if the "no steam locos south of 42nd Street" law was never on the books in NYC, there could have been a lot of trans-Hudson drawbridges into Manhattan—but right across the river, at least to me, is just as good as being there...not a railfan's POV.)

GandyDancer wrote:Although the Aldene/Palmer plan had been around in various forms for a long time, you have to take into account that both railroads were teetering on the brink of collapse at the time and I think some officials used this and the "freedom of navigation" of the Newark Bay as a convenient excuse for an otherwise unpopular solution.

CNJ service had markedly degraded, both in terms of reliability and in terms of speed and the ferry fleet was dangerously outmoded and not being upgraded. No radar or electronic navigational aids either on most of those coal-fired, wooden-sided boats. They were an accident waiting to happen.

As another poster mentioned - if somehow the state or the railroads had the wherewithal to tunnel from either Jersey City or Hoboken to lower Manhattan before the rail business went in the dumper after WWII, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in today. But no railroad in its right mind was investing in passenger facilities to compete against the automobile and the freeway builders.

In retrospect, many people today note the abandonment and loss of key infrastructure (Suskie commuter, West Shore, CNJ Seashore, Washington NJ service) and wonder how it happened. The money involved wasn't much. I believe the E-L asked for $150,000 in help for the Northern railroad service, the NY Central was asking for $250,000 on the West Shore. The whole E-L package in 1966 was something like $4mn each year.

The basic issue was a very profound belief the state had no business subsidizing private, for profit business. Yeah, I know about the Port Authority, and the Turnpike, and the airports, but the belief in the 1960s and into the 1970s was pretty deeply ingrained. Even the H&M was a rolling heap of electrified crap when the Port Authority was forced to take it over in order to get NJ's OK to build the World Trade Center.

It's sad to look back at the 1960s and realize how a small investment then could have saved so much, but that's not how almost all legislators looked at the picture...

Again note that times were different back then. That a government agency would own and operate the commuter rail system was socially and politically unacceptable at that time and this became the first modern venture in that direction.

As far a tunneling into Manhatten, everyone looked at it but only the Pennsy had the $$$! You can wonder that if the stock market crash of '29 followed by the depression of the '30s hadn't happened would the DL&W or the CNJ or the Erie have had enough money or courage to do the dig? They all talked/dreamed of it from the turn of the Century. I don't think NYC would have cared and the Susquehanna was under Erie influence and too small in its own right.

Summary: the Aldene Plan was the best they could do at that time. It really is amazing that they were able to do it.

>>>CNJ service had markedly degraded, both in terms of reliability and in terms of speed and the ferry fleet was dangerously outmoded and not being upgraded. No radar or electronic navigational aids either on most of those coal-fired, wooden-sided boats. They were an accident waiting to happen. <<<

Not accurate. For the last couple of years, two of the three boats the CNJ used were modern diesel powered boats formerly used Brooklyn-Staten Island service. Fully equipped with radar and electronics. After the Aldeen plan started the Coast Guard acquired one or both of the diesel boats and used them for many years for the Governor's Island service.

I rode with and spoke with the Captain and crew of the Elizabeth on a couple of occasions, including the last run of the boat in 1967, the only remaining CNJ and steam boat for the last year or two of ferry service. The Elizabeth also had radio and radar which was used as needed. The Captain described how in the old days before radar, the crew would listen for a bell ringing on the ferry slips and steer for the sound. Perhaps hull and boiler condition were more an issue with this boat, but there were other diesel boats that could have been purchased at that time.

I reiterate that the Port Authority aided and abetted by the Coast Guard were the prime movers behind the Aldene Plan, and years later the removal of the remnants of the CNJ Bay Draw.

I reiterate that the Port Authority aided and abetted by the Coast Guard were the prime movers behind the Aldene Plan, and years later the removal of the remnants of the CNJ Bay Draw.

While I think it was short-sited to remove the ex-CNJ bridge in its entirety, from an economic standpoint, the PA and the CG may have been right. Imagine this area without Port Newark/Elizabeth as it is today. Given the loss of the manufacturing base over the last 30 years, we might be in much more serious economic trouble.

It would have been much easier to build a new span if the approaches were still surviving - the draw spans could have been removed, but could have left the approaches up.....

.....oh well, hind sight is always 20-20