NJ Waterfront Yards / Operation Questions

1. When did the LVRR carfloat ops, next to the CNJ terminal, cease operation?

2. Did CR ever operate float ops in the mid-1970s?

3. After the Aldene plan in 1967 what was the CNJ terminal used for?

4. What was the date the CNJ terminal closed?

5. After it closed did it just sit there as an abandoned wasteland for years? Did CR ever own it?

6. Was waterfront operations deemed unprofitable by the late 60s and the RRs just gave up and ripped the track up? Why did they pull the plug?

First, if you haven't visited this site do so INDUSTRIAL & OFFLINE TERMINAL RAILROADS OF BROOKLYN, QUEENS, STATEN ISLAND, BRONX & MANHATTAN - the guy who runs it posts on the NY&A thread from time to time.

This little article should give you some info about CNJ Bayonne passenger service after the Adele plan was implemented CONRAIL/NJ D.O.T. Draws the Curtain on the Bayonne Shuttle

Just to answer a few of the CNJ related questions.......

The CNJ Jersey City Terminal closed on April 30, 1967, with the departure of the last Raritan local just before midnight.
The Aldene Plan took effect and all remaining CNJ passenger trains from Raritan and Bay Head were re-routed to Newark Penn Station,
or ran in shuttle service between Bayonne and Cranford along the CNJ mainline.

The area around the Jersey City terminal was still used by the CNJ for a few years for car storage, and the freight yards and engine terminal saw service
for a few years after as well. To the best of my knowledge the last train activity to take place within the train sheds themselves was when a scene from the movie
Funny Girl was shot there during the late summer of '67.

By the early 1970's the terminal sat empty but was purchased by the State of NJ in 1973 for incorporation into Liberty State park.

Ken

On point 5, Conrail began operations in April 1976, 3 years after New Jersey acquired the terminal, and thus was never involved. When Conrail was formed by USRA leading up to April 1976, the policy was firm that no property would be conveyed to Conrail that was not actively used in rail service; the government was not about to compensate the bankrupt estates for any more property than was actually needed for Conrail to operate -- and by then the old CNJ terminal had been disposed of.
On point 6, interchange carfloating was expensive; Penn Central established an all-land interchange with the Long Island via the Hell Gate Bridge and Fresh Pond Junction. Conrail, after its formation, routed all LIRR traffic via this route and eliminated the former carfloat interchange of the EL, LV, and CNJ with the LIRR, leaving only the interchange with the New York Dock and its successors. Import-export lighterage and floatage were desperately unprofitable by the 1960's, and as containerization began to come into its own in the mid-1960's the railroads did everything possible to get import-export freight out of boxcars and into containers. Since the intermodal (container) terminals were located inland (North Bergen, Kearny, Croxton, Oak Island, etc.) the waterfront trackage previously used for boxcar traffic was no longer needed. At the same time, LCL freight, which had previously been loaded in boxcars which were then carfloated from waterside terminals in Manhattan to float bridges on the Jersey side, was converted to piggyback, which was trucked to the inland New Jersey intermodal terminals mentioned above.

Another point is that CNJ, PRR, ERIE, and DL&W once hauled a lot of coal to the Hudson. As coal traffic slowed, a lot of the yard space was no longer needed. That, and the move to containerization and piggybacking got rid of boxcar and warehouse traffic as mentioned above, leading to great big yards that weren't needed anymore. The ferries were phased out so waterside passenger terminals weren't required, as you could take a train directly into the city via PRR / PC / Amtrak and H&M / PATH.

Hoboken is the exception, of course, but note the rest of the terminals are long gone.

If you are old enough to remember these yards in action, you would remember how fascinating they were to just railfan all day.