CNJ east of Elizabeth...abandoned or not???

I'm confused. If you start at the CNJ/PRR (NEC) crossover where the old CNJ passenger station is in Elizabeth, NJ and go east on the CNJ there is still 1 rusty track in place. You only go east a few miles and there is a large RR yard just before the turnpike. It's full of rail cars. What yard was this? I thought the CNJ line was completely abandoned east of Elizabeth???

The yard was rebuilt a few years before the Conrail takeover for use as the Flex-Flow terminal. Entrance is off the Chemical coast line. I am not sure if it was Conrail or Shared Assests who rebuilt it though. My memory is not as clear as it once was.

Eport yard is still used by shared assets csx and ns. last i heard csx has two rco shifts to switch the flow facilty shared runs at least one pn job into there a day to do local work in the area ns uses tracks 1 &2 for storing overflow from erail

A few weeks ago I passed under the remaining ex-CNJ bridge over Route 1 in Elizabeth and noted a locomative moving overhead so it appears that at least from the yard west to the Route 1 bridge is still used as a switching lead. It is my understanding that the right of way is owned by New Jersey DOT (or Transit). The unused portion of the track from the vicinity of Route 1 to Aldene may be officially out of service rather than abandoned.

Ken W2KB wrote:The unused portion of the track from the vicinity of Route 1 to Aldene may be officially out of service rather than abandoned.

I know for sure that the "CR Elizabeth Industrial Track" is OOS from just East of the Aldene Flyover to Broad Street. The rest of it, I have no idea.

Where does the name change from the Garwood Industrial Track to the Elizabeth Industrial Track?

At the East switch for the Federal Plastics spur.

See an earlier thread, Elizapethport Secondary (to use an earlier CR name for the former CNJ Main), there are a number of discussions about the ownership of the tracks. To the best of my knowledge the owner of the ROW is NJ DOT all the way from the E-Port yard to Aldene Junction and the track is officially OOS for most of the route.

Ken

NJT used this track to access the old E'port shops until MMC opened in the mid-1980s, right?

That's right. This thread over on Railfan.net displays a number of photos showing NJT Geeps with Comet IIs passing through the Elizabeth Broad Street station, which looks like it is en route to Raritan from the E-port shops.

One of the erail jobs took a pup down the old cnj in 2003 or 2004. they had to pull empties into eport 1 and while waiting for a ride back to erail they cut away and took a spin up what was left of the track. i remember hearing about them getting to or close to the amtrak bridge

Irish Chieftain wrote:That's right. This thread over on Railfan.net displays a number of photos showing NJT Geeps with Comet IIs passing through the Elizabeth Broad Street station, which looks like it is en route to Raritan from the E-port shops.

How often is the engine facing the train (as in the picture)?

General wrote:One of the erail jobs took a pup down the old cnj in 2003 or 2004. they had to pull empties into eport 1 and while waiting for a ride back to erail they cut away and took a spin up what was left of the track. i remember hearing about them getting to or close to the amtrak bridge

Thats awesome - I would have love to see the faces of the "locals" that have made the ROW their home in the years since the rails were last used!!!

Jtgshu wrote:

General wrote:One of the erail jobs took a pup down the old cnj in 2003 or 2004. they had to pull empties into eport 1 and while waiting for a ride back to erail they cut away and took a spin up what was left of the track. i remember hearing about them getting to or close to the amtrak bridge

Thats awesome - I would have love to see the faces of the "locals" that have made the ROW their home in the years since the rails were last used!!!

This also means there is still hope for the line- in some small part at least for freight. Storage and track space around these yards seems to only be getting tighter.

Took this photo recently of an old CNJ signal bridge spanning the ROW through Roselle:

CNJ Signal Tower at Linden Avenue