NX Draw - Newark, NJ

The lower level was used by PRR to serve freight customers along the river in Newark.

Many of the rails were still in the ground right up until about 2000, when they started clearing out the area for the rebuilt McCarter Hwy/Nwk Subway extension.

IIRC, the curving retaining wall on the west side of City Dock st. where the line originally curved to rejoin the newer "Dock bridge" line is still there.

When was PATH (H&M at the time, I guess) realigned?
Was it realigned right from that bridge to its present alighment with the flyover into Penn Station Newark, or was there an intermediate step?
In the old alignment, did the tracks go into a platform at (the present?) Penn Station?
Also, when was the freightraffic stopped and when was the bridge ripped out?
....
Thanks, JS

H&M was realigned to Newark Penn Station in 1937. A second lift span for the Dock bridge (today's south span) was built, along with a new Harrison station.

The H & M Bridge was last used in the mid-1960's. The upper level (where the Tubes once ran), was for car traffic, and the lower level was used
for freight service. The freight trains served some long gone industris that were located near the bridge on the Newark side.

The upper car level was reached by a wooden trestle on the Harrison side, and on the Newark side traffic crossed Route 21 on a trestle bridge that dated
from the Hudson Tube days.

In the New Jersey room on the 3rd floor of the Newark Library there are several large photo murals that show the bridge still being used by
car traffic, and NX draw in the closed position.

After the bridge was taken OOS it sat in the open postion for a long time before being dismantled in the early 1990's.

The only activity on the bridge in it's dormat years was the additon of new marine warning lights installed in the 1970's, and just before it
was dismantled, a rock music festival was held in an old parking lot near the bridge on the Newark side. During this festival climbing on the
derelict structure was well reported in the review of the festival by the Star Ledger.

Ken

CarterB wrote:IIRC, the curving retaining wall on the west side of City Dock st. where the line originally curved to rejoin the newer "Dock bridge" line is still there.

Still there.

what exactly was this curved piece for?

connecting the old H&M bridge to Newark Penn?

60 years before there was a Hudson & Manhattan, originally the old PRR predecessor New Jersey Rail Road and Transportation Company (NJRR), crossed the Passaic on the Centre St Bridge. Later a low level swing bridge over the Passaic was done at Dock. At that time, the Centre Street line rejoined at the retaining wall curve to the main line. When the tracks were raised through Newark and the newer Passaic Bridge at Dock was done, that street level 'reconnection' was severed. But way back when, that curve was part of the main line from Jersey City to Newark.

1836 map http://newarkmaps.net/photos/displayima ... at=7&pos=3
1853 map http://newarkmaps.net/photos/displayima ... m=37&pos=0
1904 map (by which time the Dock swing bridge was in) http://newarkmaps.net/photos/displayima ... 1&pos=-207
Old Penn Station http://www.oldnewark.com/imagepages/tra ... obroad.htm

see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_Str ... e_(Newark)

Wow, I never realized that the of name of "the Centre St branch" actually came from when it continued west into Newark!

Was the connection with the NEC at teh west end of Newark Penn where it dropped down just under the CNJ Bridge (where they are building the new extension of Track 5)? There were ties in the dirt until very recently.

Jtgshu wrote:Wow, I never realized that the of name of "the Centre St branch" actually came from when it continued west into Newark!

Was the connection with the NEC at teh west end of Newark Penn where it dropped down just under the CNJ Bridge (where they are building the new extension of Track 5)? There were ties in the dirt until very recently.

The ties are the remants of two spurs diverging from a single switch from the mailine. One went to the indent in the Platform at the end of Track 5 (where the construction is) and I have been told, was used (1) for US Mail and express cars, and (2) to park private and PRR business cars without fouling a regular station platform.

The other spur, went down to street level for coal hoppers to a large boiler in a building next to Penn Station at Edison Place. That may have been a steam plant to serve Penn Station; don't know for sure.

I have been told that McCarter Highway, a/k/a Route 21 northbound lanes is essentially the alignment of the pre-raised PRR mainline; again, can't vouch for accuracy.

The Centre St Branch basically followed what is now River Street, and the "dent to the west" of McCarter Hwy is where the line ran just to the East of what is now McCarter Hwy. It also ran on where the access rd is now behind the Newark Legal Center Bldg.

http://mapper1.acme.com/save.cgi?lat=40 ... =2&dot=Yes

Apparently from when they opened (1911) to the realignment (1937) H&M had its own Newark station directly on the south side of Saybrook place, (inside corner of Center St and Saybrook Pl) directly across from Military Park. On modern maps such as maps.google.com Saybrook Pl. shows up, but it is basically a driveway in front of the NJ PAC. The tracks ran parallel to Saybrook Pl. straight to the river and over the upper level of the Center St. bridge as noted earlier. So the H&M tracks did not curve along the river like the PRR freight tracks, and the H&M station and main Newark PRR station (before 1937 just south of Market St I believe) were ~1/2 mile apart. You can see the ROW on maps from 1915 and 1938 (although perhaps not active in 1938) http://mapmaker.rutgers.edu/NEWARK/oldNewark.html

Pictures of the old H&M station: http://kearnyalumni.com/showimage.html?listingid=261 .

No idea what the H&M station was used for after 1937 (if at all) and when it was torn down.
JS

Was this part of that Center Street Branch,

http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v ... &encType=1

The embankments r still on both side of Harrison and Newark, And tracks r still paved over on the NJ Railroad ave on the Harrison Side.
Thanks

I think that the 1st Newark H&M station was called "Park Place".

many19 wrote:Was this part of that Center Street Branch,

http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v ... &encType=1

The embankments r still on both side of Harrison and Newark, And tracks r still paved over on the NJ Railroad ave on the Harrison Side.
Thanks

Yes that was part of the Centre Street Branch. The abutment in your map view was the East abutment for the bridge.