National Docks/lines in Hoboken and Jersey City

I am one of only a few conductors that was actually called to "flag" in the projects. I took the call, sat there all day and the contractors never showed up.

What street were the projects on. How come this does not happen anymore, I see trains on the National Docks most of the time I am over there.

Thanks

I imagine the projects are still there. As far as you seeing trains there all the time, I understand that there's no more freight railroading going by those projects. Are you sure you aren't seeing a different section of the Docks? The projects would have been east of Patterson Plank Road, which ran atop the bluff, and the projects should be located somewhere between 12th street and 16th street, around Madison and Monroe. Maybe a map search could help. They are big, 12-15 story brick project towers, not hard to miss. The projects were located just south of a sharp "S" curve, that took the tracks away from Patterson Plank to the edge of the water, to what would have been Weehawkin Yard. I would imagine the light rail follows the same route, as the route was already there as a railroad........

GOLDEN-ARM wrote:I imagine the projects are still there. As far as you seeing trains there all the time, I understand that there's no more freight railroading going by those projects. Are you sure you aren't seeing a different section of the Docks? The projects would have been east of Patterson Plank Road, which ran atop the bluff, and the projects should be located somewhere between 12th street and 16th street, around Madison and Monroe. Maybe a map search could help. They are big, 12-15 story brick project towers, not hard to miss. The projects were located just south of a sharp "S" curve, that took the tracks away from Patterson Plank to the edge of the water, to what would have been Weehawkin Yard. I would imagine the light rail follows the same route, as the route was already there as a railroad........

Although it has been a long time since I ran a train over this line,the above regarding the "Hoboken Projects" as we called
them seems to be about it. 14th Street goes over the line on a high bridge and that might be just barely north of the
bad area but I am not positive. I wonder if 14th Street might be the remnant of the old trolley elevated that went through
Hoboken, it looks possible to me but others probably know more about this than I do.
There were three grade crossings in the area all of which had gates and flashers; from north to south they were Paterson
Plank Road presently listed on DeLorme as Franklin Street, Ravine Road presently listed as New York Avenue and
Hoboken Avenue which still is listed as Hoboken Avenue. Incidentally the area where we often had flooding problems was
around these crossings especially the southern most two, Ravine Road and Hoboken Avenue.
Usually there were at least two and sometimes three police cars spread out over this area to watch us by. Another thing,
we often got clobbered by rocks and sometimes the windows got busted so bad that we would either have to turn the power
at Weehawken or change the power out because of destroyed windows and particles of broken glass everywhere. We did
not have the type of glass in those days that they have today.
There were two other areas around New York City that were also very bad, the lead to the Hunts Point Market in the Bronx
and the railroad between Fremont and Bay Ridge in Queens and Brooklyn but in both of the New York City cases, we did
not handle anywhere near the traffic that we handled through Weehawken and Hoboken.
In my time the worst part of working the River Line was the area south of CP-7 and I would suspect that is the same today.
Noel Weaver

OOK. I know what your talking about I thought this would happen in Jersey City on the National docks by I-78. In honoken today the only projects are from 2nd street to 6th street right along the Light Rail tracks. All of them north of there are gone. The part where I see trains is by I-78 in Jersey City. Not a very nice area. In terms of the tracks through Hoboken, it became the HBLR.

Thanks

I rode the light rail line in August of 2007 and the same projects were still there and open at that time.
That was when I wondered if in the weeds around the area the remains of some of the looting could possibly still be found.
Noel Weaver

Hi Guys:

About that video with the"cop". It's a small world, I was there the day the video was shot. The "Cop" is actually my friend James.
At that time James was a bus driver for Atlantic Express. We were hanging out and decided to do a little railfanning while James was on his break. The location is well past the Hoboken projects. If you notice at the start of the video the train is emerging from the loops from the Lincoln tunnel and then crosses Baldwin ave. As the train fades in the distance to the right you will notice the ventilator shafts for the Lincoln Tunnel, which the river line passes before entering the Weehawken Tunnel.

It is a small world. Do you have any photos from that area?

thanks

Closing angle cocks was a favorite way of stopping trains when I worked Nave in the late 1960ies and early 70ies. I'd help the the train crews or police walk the train, looking for turned angle cocks. A closed an angle cock cuts off the air to the cars behind it, dragging a train to a slow stop if it's moving.
Waldo (for Waldo Avenue) was a tower just east of Journal Square. There is a hole in the rocks on the north side of the cut, where the tower used to be, nearly opposite a switch on the south side leading to a small yard. It controlled the switches on the Jersey City branch, and the switches on the east end of Journal Square staion. We could also clime over the rocks behind the tower to hand train orders on P&H branch trains. Nave (for nearby Newark Avenue) was a switch at the foot of the bridge the PC put in to connect the P&H branch with the Nation Docks. It had a telephone booth size tower for an operator to man the switch and report trains by on the National Docks, until it was CTCd.
The National Docks, at least as far as Nave, was former New York Central. There was a NYC style mile post (it looked like a tomb stone,) at Nave.
An old timer at Waldo, Bill Cyester, told me that he used to visit National Junction tower, somewhere on the National Docks.
A PC police lieutenant, who new that I had worked Nave, visited me at Waldo one day, trying to get ideas on how to stop the looting.
I think the looting might have been the reason Conrail Shared Assets put in the bridge connecting the Meadows Yard and Marion, cutting out the National Docks. The switches at West Side Avenue had always been between Marion and points east. A drill from the Meadows had to pull down and back into Marion. When the Erie was using the cut through Journal Square, before digging their tunnels under Bergen Hill, the switch tender at Marion had to look at the Markers on approaching westbound trains to determine whether to line them for the broad gauge Erie or the the standard gauge PRR.
Philip Martin

I worked with Golden Arm quite few times through there, I also ran my own trains throught there...I remember one trip on TV-11 (this was about 1992) I was conducting and we were going through on a restricting signal (The little cretins cut the bond wires) As we were going through at restricted speed, one of the cretins came out, layed a tire in the rail, eyed us up, re-adjusted it and waited for it to bounce. Their were no cops that night (actually about 8pm or so) We actually made it through in one piece. They actually caused quite a derailment there with an LPG tank car one day. The kids cut the train up near Nave/Waldo area and the crew looked back and saw that they only had the head 10-15 cars of the train with them...The CRPD started to yell on the radio because the rear end was coming and catching up to them...I believe that when the rear end caught up with them there was a 5-6 car pile up...Golden Arm may remember this. He wasnt the engineer but I think he was still around when it happenned...


Rich C

fastfrt1 wrote:I worked with Golden Arm quite few times through there, I also ran my own trains throught there...I remember one trip on TV-11 (this was about 1992) I was conducting and we were going through on a restricting signal (The little cretins cut the bond wires) As we were going through at restricted speed, one of the cretins came out, layed a tire in the rail, eyed us up, re-adjusted it and waited for it to bounce. Their were no cops that night (actually about 8pm or so) We actually made it through in one piece. They actually caused quite a derailment there with an LPG tank car one day. The kids cut the train up near Nave/Waldo area and the crew looked back and saw that they only had the head 10-15 cars of the train with them...The CRPD started to yell on the radio because the rear end was coming and catching up to them...I believe that when the rear end caught up with them there was a 5-6 car pile up...Golden Arm may remember this. He wasnt the engineer but I think he was still around when it happenned...


Rich C

Wow. Thses are some great stories. Did they ever shoot at the crew or enter the engines?

Thanks

I can't honestly say whether or not that they shot at crews but I do remember another time in the early 1990's when the hit a set of lite engines going to Selkirk. This happened on a Sunday afternoon on the "Chicago Lites" This was a lite engine set that went to Chicago via Selkirk for the Tuesday morning Van trains. Anyway, they got on one of the engines and set one of the seats on fire with a fusee.

Another funny story was one trip with Mail-8. The crew had a qualifier riding with them so the Cdr was riding the 3rd unit. This cdr was very old school, hired originally on the L&NE as a fireman and went to the CNJ when the LNE folded. Anyway as they're going through he thinks he hears something outside the engine (a G.E. C-40-8W) as he's opening the inner door the outer door opens!!!! The Cretin beats a hasty retreat back out the front door. Dennis (The cdr's name) slams the door on the guy, pinching him between the handrails and the door. Dennis hits him again with the door and the guy FALLS OFF the engine. Dennis is now standing on the platform muttering to himself when out from underneath the trailer on the first car comes a set of bolt cutters....Dennis jumps from the engine to the car and the guy comes out from underneath the trailer and there's Dennis standing over him...Dennis was about 55 when this happened and he was about 6'2" or so and solid...The guy looks up at Dennis and Dennis says to him "You have two choices...You're jumping or I'm throwing your ass off of my train!!!!!" Needless to say the guy "pulled the D ring" and jumped off!!! Dennis then throws the bolt cutters after the guy and gets pissed off because he couldv'e used a set at his house in PA....I know that this story sounds a little unbelievable but it really happened back around 1995 or so. The engr and the qualifier had no idea any of this was going on and when Dennis came up to the head end at North Bergen he was all dishevelled....They asked him what happened and he told them the story. The next time I saw Dennis I asked him what happened in the Projects? He asked me what I had heard and I told him and he said "yep that's what happened!" They don't make cdr's like that anymore!!!!

One thing that some of the old NYC/PC guys told me was that they used to wrap barb wire around the caboose ladders to keep the animals off going through the projects


Rich C.

Hey, Rich!!! I remember the incident involving the "uncontrolled coupling" after the train was cut. I added a few "Screamer" stories myself. He was an original, that's for sure. Fastfrt Rich and I spent many a trip together, and he was without a doubt, one of my favorites to work with. Remember the race from Kearny to Stock, with the first train getting there being able to cross over, and depart first. I remember calling the other train, with PurrFectTransportation working as conductor, when I said to them on the radio "you Might have a plug door open, on the next to last car on your train". (he did have a plug door car in that location) Upon hearing that, the DS chose to run the GA's train first...... One of many good times!

Great stories,I worked with Dennis a few times,one of only a few conductors that would do something like that,and set Conrail straight about why he did it! He loved reading Steven King novels on the quiet parts up the River Line. RRG

wow that is a great story.