Conrail (former CNJ) Harsimus Branch - Abandonment (Freight rail line next to Rt 1/9 after Skyway)

Jtgshu wrote:I believe the tracks were shifted over to closer to the NEC when EWR station was built. The Monorail curves and goes up and over that former ROW and there wouldn't be enough clearance. So they built two new tracks that come in from Lane and instead of following that old ROW swing out towards the NEC up towards Hunter.

Browns Yard? As far as I know, the entire complex there was called Waverly Yard, there is a Browns Yard down in Sayerville tho

I'm in full agreement with you on your fact JT.

The line went to the Meadows facility and then on to Greenville Tard I believe.

If you want to see what things looked like from above by year, check out historicalaerials.com web site. You will be amazed to see that 75% of the railroad infrastructure is gone.

The area by the EWR monorail station was Waverly Yard. It was large. It handled the freight for the Newark area when there were lots of factories. It was gone by the 80s. You can see the wire insulators on the I-78 bridge above with nothing under them but trees! The tracks spanned the entire area under the overpass.

When they were building the monorail station and tracks, they ripped out the old freight line and spurs into all the factories that ran along the NEC. That was 100-year old track. Very light rail and rusted black. The ties were literally disinegrated. I can't image the local traffic the PRR had back in the old days into all those factories.

The only customer left is AB beer. They get grain in by rail. They used to ship beer out by rail too but removed the spurs in the 80s. You can still see the spurs in the back parking lot. Now they ship 100% truck.

carajul wrote:When they were building the monorail station and tracks, they ripped out the old freight line and spurs into all the factories that ran along the NEC. That was 100-year old track. Very light rail and rusted black. The ties were literally disinegrated. I can't image the local traffic the PRR had back in the old days into all those factories.

Why was that rail removed? Were all those factories gone? Or did they not get service anymore? My point is, by taking rail out, no chance of any future service.

Thanks for correcting my error...Waverly Yard.

I would imagine that brewery doesn't need to ship the finished product too far, given its proximity to NYC.

As mentioned, this is not an abandoned freight spur, it is just what when they relocated the freight line to build the newark aprt rail station and monorail.
The line is the PRR Passaic and Harsimus line, which is the ex-PRR freight cutoff around Newark Penn station. It is till used at lot from a connection with the LV line at Oak Island, to Meadows yard in Karny, and to Marion Jct and ex-EL croxton yard. The part between Lane (Jct with the NEC) and Oak Island is still used by the bud plant switcher, and trains from Oak Island to Metuchen yard near New Brunswick. Waverly yard was never that big..it was an auxiliary yard to the PRR's main Meadows yard. Locals working the Newark area and the NEC would wok out of there, and freights would hold there waiting to get into Meadows, or out on to the main. After conrail, it was pretty much superfluous, and connecting tracks were built for trains to get back and forth between the LV main and the P&H branch.

Back in the olden PRR days, trains usewd the P&H to get from the Main Line (now NEC) to Meadows Classification yard and the coal docks at Harsimus Cove in Jersey City. It used to be double track and signalled with OH wire the entire length....and I think it is still DT and signalled up to Marion Jct.

An eastward PRR freight would leave the main line at Lane; at about 40.7072N 74.18665W it came to WA-3? WA-4? where the line to Greenville split from the P&H. The P&H curved back compass-westward to cross beneath the LV next to the main line, as it does now. The Greenville line stayed on the south side of the LV, so it never came near Meadows yard.

timz wrote:An eastward PRR freight would leave the main line at Lane; at about 40.7072N 74.18665W it came to WA-3? WA-4? where the line to Greenville split from the P&H. The P&H curved back compass-westward to cross beneath the LV next to the main line, as it does now. The Greenville line stayed on the south side of the LV, so it never came near Meadows yard.

Yes, I forgot about greenville. Freight left the main at Lane for Meadows and Harsimus Cove via the P&H, and to Greenville and the float bridges via the Joint PRR/LV line over the Upper Bay Draw. You could also get north from Greenville on the Jersey City side of the bay via the National Docks line...which I think could get you all the way up to the NYC and NYSW, although I could be wrong.....I don;t know what National Docks connected to before the PC track rearrangement of that area.

I think the National Docks connected to the NJ Junction RR , which went under the PRR at Waldo tunnel, ran up along the Palisades through west Hoboken, and then to the NYC at Weehawken. So it connected the LV (which controlled National Docks I think) and the NYC (which controlled NJJRR - might be wrong on that though). I read the PRR fought the Waldo tunnel for a long time, until they lost, because it would allow NYC more connections to the south along the waterfront.
The Erie, DLW, and even the PRR eventually I think connected to the NJJRR as well. JS

timz wrote:An eastward PRR freight would leave the main line at Lane; at about 40.7072N 74.18665W it came to WA-3? WA-4? where the line to Greenville split from the P&H. The P&H curved back compass-westward to cross beneath the LV next to the main line, as it does now. The Greenville line stayed on the south side of the LV, so it never came near Meadows yard.

Thanks for the correction.

The factories were long closed. They were just burt out shells. Most have been torn down now and are condos. In the mid-90s you could still see the freight track that ran along the NEC in that area that served all those factories. There were lots of spur and spurs off of those spurs! I think in Rahway there is still a spur that goes down off the NEC on a steep slope that usually has a covered hopper spotted on it.

carajul wrote:The factories were long closed. They were just burt out shells. Most have been torn down now and are condos. In the mid-90s you could still see the freight track that ran along the NEC in that area that served all those factories. There were lots of spur and spurs off of those spurs! I think in Rahway there is still a spur that goes down off the NEC on a steep slope that usually has a covered hopper spotted on it.

Nah, that was Greif Bros/Virginia Barrel and they are now closed as well, and I haven't seen covered hoppers spotted there in a VERY long time, probably close to about 10 years. That siding is used to store an Amtrak catenary maintence vehicle.

There is a very old I believe its a PRR boxcar just north of North Rahway at a factory - its been there for years, as teh track is long severed, and i remember being able to make out a PRR keystone on it a long time ago, but its not visible any longer. There were industrial leads on both sides of the main tracks all up and down inbetween Newark and Rahway pretty much.

The abandoned line under I-78 is the old PRR/PC/Conrail Greenville branch.When you came off the NEC at LANE under the No. one track jumpover there was a manned 24/7 block station and switchtender called WA-6, this was the starting point of the P & H branch. WA-6 would line you for whatever route the DS or YM wanted you.All most all of the tracks into the yard were wired. The next junction you arrived at was WA-3 this was the start of the Greenville branch. The Yardmasters office was called WA-4. AT WA-3 you had to line yourself up for the branch as no switchtender was on duty here.If your train was routed to the Meadows you went left down to WA-5 where another yardmaster and switchtender was on duty 24/7. At WA-5 you could also access the Greenville branch via the Bayline spur which met up with the Greenville branch at WA-2. After WA-2 the Greenville branch was double track and block signaled to Greenville over the BAY bridge.Just east of WA-2 was the interchange track with the Lehigh Valley.There was a ramp track off of Greenville No. 2 that took you up into the OAK Island recieving yard.The next interlocking was CY tower where the CNJ NWK & ELIZABETH main crossed the Greenville branch,a small amount of interchange occured here. AT BAY tower now referred to as upper BAY, the LV and PRR/PC had a joint operation over the bridge to Greenville. The PRR teminated in the massive Greenville yard and the LV split off at Constable junction for either their Jersey city float yard or Claremont and eventually National junction with the NYC River line to Selkirk. those LV/PC coal trains came off the LV at Oak Island took on a PC pilot train crew at BAY and ran over to Weehawken or North bergen, at that point a river line crew took them north. BTW getting back to Waverly yard, Waverly-7 or WA-7 was RR code for the Weequhaic bar on Freylinhysen ave. LOL

Zeke, very interesting. Your recollections match up pretty well with this map, although i don't know the date of it.
http://broadway.pennsyrr.com/Rail/Prr/M ... jersey.gif
According to the broadway site where I found it , it was not from an official site but put together from someone's memory. http://broadway.pennsyrr.com/Rail/Prr/M ... ranch.html
I don't see WA7 on the map however! JS

Back in the early 1960s I was studying mechanical engineering at Newark College of Engineering in Newark NJ. My good friend and fraternity brother, Dick, was studying law at Rutgers while working as a Block Operator on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Sometimes the partying and noise got so bad at the frat house where I was living that I could not concentrate on my studies. So I would get on the phone and call the Waverly 6 tower (actually a ground level shack). If a gruff voice answered, "WAVERLY --------- (pause)-------- SEX!" I knew that Dick was working there that night and I would head down for some relative peace and quiet, sitting inside hitting the books while Dick talked on the radio, every now and than heading outside to throw a switch. If any of my memory is wrong here, I'm sure that Dick will get back to me and invoke a correction. The Waverly 6 was located across US Routes 1 and 9 from the Anheuser-Busch brewery and was just south of the Waverly yard, now gone, which was located in the vicinity of the present Amtrak Newark Airport train station.

One dark night Dick says to me, "Martin, we're going to have a war." "Why do you say that, Dick" was my reply. "Come outside and I'll show you." There was a long train of nothing but flatcars rumbling slowly by toward Waverly in the darkness. I stood there in awe. The entire train was loaded with nothing but tanks, jeeps, military trucks, personnel carriers and artillery. A year later, the United States was up to its eyeballs in the Vietnam conflict.

I said, "Dick, you sure called that one right!" His reply: "Martin, when you work for the railroad, you always know when there's going to be a war."

A map of the main line with the Lane interlocking heading into Waverly from the south: http://broadway.pennsyrr.com/Rail/Prr/M ... k/lane.gif

A view from I-78 today