CNJ Fan 4evr wrote:I see a small yard right next to the E. 22nd St. light rail station and there is a track outside the fence along the light rail rout in Bayonne that is for freight. I have been shooting video along the old CNJ and want to get the Liberty State park station. Someone told me that was once Communipaw curve under the National Docks Branch. Is that correct ?
South of the LSP Lightrail station(railroad west) was the mainline curve for CNJ passenger trains into the passenger yard and Terminal. North (railroad east) of the LSP station was the LV main into its freight facility, along the south side Morris Canal Basin. (LV had a carfloat bridge on the Hudson River immediately north of the CNJ passenger terminal.) A bit beyond was the curve where LV passenger trains went (so I have been told) to the area north of the canal basin (the map I linked shows a track marked LV where the white background area is adjacent to the pink area. That track was long since freight only by the time the map was made, but much earlier for passengers continued east towards the river. Don't know, but perhaps LV passengers took the PRR Exchange Place ferries to get to NYC?
Interestingly, the map incorrectly spells the Jersey City Street that went to the CNJ ferry terminal as "Johnson" Avenue. "Johnston" is the correct spelling as it was named for the first president of the CNJ at its formation.
Until it was destroyed in a large fire in the 1960's there was a large wooden CNJ freight house (for LCL) on Prospect Avenue, Bayonne between 19th and 21st Streets. South of 19th Street was the Bayonne Freight yard of which the present version you saw is a smaller version.
The mainline was 4 tracks and at about 34 or 35th Street or so there was a 5th track that branched off and was the very long lead track into the Bayonne Yard as well as for switching the freight house. There were two tracks that came out of the yard at the west end and went to a smaller yard just west of Avenue C, and those two also merged and joined the mainline at about Avenue C just west of the 8th Street Station eastbound platform. On the other side along North Street were at Avenue C a Swift's meatpacking facility and next to that a coal yard (one of several along the mainline in Bayonne). Both of these were still active freight customers into the 1960's.