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  • EX Riverfront Terminals (All RR's)

  • Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New Jersey
Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New Jersey

Moderator: David

 #1008789  by carajul
 
I too was in shock when I saw what was the NJ waterfront years ago compared to now. Except for NJT Hoboken Terminal it's all been oblitereated. I suggest using historicaaerials.com you can do layered and comparison overview shots by year. Everything was mud fields by the mid-1970s and by the 1990s was developed into houses and offices. I guess that there was more money to be made by CR in selling real property than running trains. Keep in mind that the manufacturing base of lower NYC is gone (now in China) and coal fuel has been replaced. Plus NJ property taxes are rediculous. One of my good friends owns a house on 2 acrs of land in a northern NJ county and his property taxes are $21,000/yr. Imagine what the RRs paid for thousands of waterfront acres.
 #1008808  by Jtgshu
 
One of the biggest downfalls to the waterfront wasn't outsourcing (although that didn't help at all) but was the development of containers and piggyback service, especially to LCL loads. No longer was it necessary to unload a boxcar, put the stuff in a warehouse, then reload it when ready to be shipped via carfloat across the River. You could have a standard tractor trailer, load it up at a factory, have it driven to its destination relatively cheaply (at the time) or have it driven to the local intermodal yard, and placed on a train, and unloaded close to the destination, and trucked the rest of the way. The goods inside are never touched, the doors locked and sealed, and all the stuff that was inside when shipped, still be inside when it arrives. (several uncles worked the docks in Port Newark...I know what happened then and im sure still now to a point)

Not to mention, it being quicker and easier to simply drive across the river and deal with traffic then having even an entire boxcar be switched in the yards, then loaded on a car float, unloaded on the other end, switched again, and then placed aside for delivery and then eventually get delivered. A truck could get the trailer to its destination probably by the time they got the paperwork organized and the boxcar arrived in the yard for switching for the carfloat.

Its a shame to see what was once such a HUGE operation totally gone so quick, but its reality and the waterfront operations were just a remnant of days gone by when trucking really wasn't a viable option, which by the early 1960s, it was quickly becoming the preferred method.
 #1008818  by Sir Ray
 
carajul wrote:I suggest using historicaaerials.com you can do layered and comparison overview shots by year. Everything was mud fields by the mid-1970s and by the 1990s was developed into houses and offices. I guess that there was more money to be made by CR in selling real property than running trains.
The question is: what percentage of the North Jersey Hudson waterfront railyards were allocated to:
Passenger operations
Coal/Mineral transloading
Car-Float and lightering operations
LCL operations (Hudson county)
Support of waterfront Industries
Support of break-bulk port operations.

Passenger Operations:
This is now just Hoboken terminal for Commuter Rail, and whatever facilities PATH/HBLRT requires). Pavonia, Jersey City, Weehaukeen, etc - all gone.

Coal/Mineral transloading
This was BIG back in the day (say 1940s), there were several coal dumpers (e.g. Jersey Central McMyler) in this area, along with their support yards. The export coal market has since migrated to dumper operations in other ports (in Virginia for example), while domestic coal use in NY is negliable.

Car-Float and lightering operations
Car floating only out of Greenville Yard (PA/NYNJ). No rail-based lightering anymore, no matter how cool that was.

LCL operations
Any support for LCL (Parcel) is pretty much TOFC/COFC on the railroads' part, and that's more or less West of Rte 1 in Hudson County nowadays.

Support of Waterfront industries
Now, except for Bayonne (notably Constable Hook) and Greenville (Jersey City), I know of very little remaining Hudson River Waterfront Industry for the railroads to support (North of Liberty State Park - is there any left, or is it all Office/Retail/Residental?)

Support of Break-Bulk operations
Any break-bulk I believe is relegated to Port Newark/Elizabeth - I know scrap, motor vehicles, and petroluem/chemicals is handled south of Libert State Park (Port Jersey), and I suppose some container shipping also.
 #1009218  by Earle Baldwin
 
I was going to ask the same thing as I was shocked at the extent of the boat's deterioration. The Binghamton holds some wonderful memories for me as my wife and I spent some fantastic evenings onboard when it was a restaurant so that picture is very tough for me to look at. It appears as if it's now settled on the river bottom.

There goes another link to our waterfront railroad heritage.
 #1009787  by Hawaiitiki
 
Steve F45 wrote:
Ðauntless wrote:Whats left of the Bing'.

Image
WOW, when did it start to fall apart like that? I mean it had been in use as a restaurant only a few years ago.
I have some friends in Edgewater who gave me the skinny on the state of the Bing. Its completely damaged beyond repair, but it is not yet enough of an environmental hazard for the goverment to give the current owners a subsidy to remove it. Pretty much, the current owners don't want to pony up the cash to remove it as it cannot be floated away in its current state due to hull breaches and being grounded in the mud. I just wonder what Milton Friedman would have to say about this bizarre Goverment/Economics circumstance.