West side of Newark Branch

First-Thanks for the shout out John. It has been an interesting run.

IN regards to the blue pain on the rail joint bars. I saw that south of Rutgers Ave. in Belleville as well. There were NS maintenance personnel working in the power boxes of the crossings down there about this time last year. Haven't seen anything since.

They are marks for the start of the signals !!!!

Interesting

It was 50 years ago today that passenger service was discontinued on the Newark Branch

http://www.subchat.com/readflat.asp?Id=1368316

thanks John for that link!

Damn...save maybe the Carlton Hill Branch (too short to be worth it) and the Caldwell Branch (rather roundabout and slow from what I have heard), we'd kill to have all of those services back.

Can you imagine how much it would cost to restore those services these days (several billio ndollars) and how many additional riders there would be on the system (easily upwards of another 10k a day) if we did? What a shame.

Thanks for the link.

Interesting that the Main Line lost Sunday service in 1966. I don't think it was brought back, even in very limited service, until the 1990's. It wasn't until Secaucus opened around 2002, if I remember correctly, that respectable weekend service returned. Of course, since then, it has been cut several times again.

They installed this sometime on 10/6/16 by the Kingsland Ave. & Bloomfield Ave crossing !! Not sure what this is about , maybe they are going to finish installing the track down where the had the derailment , they never set or tamp the track in !!!

Why would NS install the track there? There is no rail activity in that area anymore.

Because they got paid grant $$$$ from the Gov, a few years ago to fix the line & caught a lot of heat from the town & state from the derailment , so they have to make it look good!!!!!!

For those interested, here is an over-view of E-L's passenger train with drawls in the 1960's, up to the final run in January 1970 of The Lake Cities.

Of the commuter lines that were cut, the Newark Branch had the most protest with the towns of Nutley, and Bellville the most vocal.
One plan was to retain a single rush hour trip on the line, but the E-L claimed it wanted to use the branch as a freight by-pass during rush hours.

My paternal Grandfather manned the manual crossing gates on Grant Avenue between Kearny, and East Newark, and his last day (along with the men who manned the Davis Avenue, and Schuyler
Avenue crossing) was the last Friday in October 0f '66. They were kept that long in case a plan to save the service occurred.

http://rails.jimgworld.com/psngrs.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ken

bukie2k wrote:While out and about earlier today I noticed that on either side of the Grant Ave grade crossing in Nutley the plates joining the individual rail sections had been painted blue. I hadn't noticed this before and was wondering if there is any significance to the blue paint?

The blue paint indicates that that is an insulated joint. Power from the relay case connects to the tracks there. Circuits to activate the crossing have to be 250ft away from the crossing in either direction to assure that the lights will be flashing for 25-30 seconds prior to trains arrival.

I saw the derail too, and want to report that at this time 9:51 PM tonight, I hear horns blowing for Bloomfield Avenue/Allwood Road. Wasn't the original plan that some of the dirt removed was to be treated and returned at a later date?

So sorry to report, but as of (actually before) 08/2017 The West Side of The Newark Branch is officially DEAD.
With the desolving of Innovation Fuels and no other company opening up there that can use rail delivery,
it was only a matter of time the property would be used for something else.
In between Verona Ave. & Grafton Ave, a trucking company is now renting the space(they've buried the tracks).
Innovation Fuel's location & the old Cleveland Station location are parking lots now. Most everything else is weeds.
I've set up a page to show some comparisons of Then & Now.

http://www.97wwdj.com/rrdeath.html

It was reported (or perhaps rumored) elsewhere on this site that the spinoff of the BR&W that took over the operation of Morris County's lines was considering taking over (among other lightly used branches served off of NJ Transit) the Newark Branch. Either that or the rumor/report was that NS was considering spinning off those branches.

I will post the report when I find it.

Doesn't mean they will be able to find customers, but I would imagine they will put in more effort than NS.