The Rahway Valley Railroad was a little railroad that only operated between Summit and Roselle Park, connecting the Morris & Essex Line to the Raritan Valley Line. It was formed in 1904 and, after years of declining traffic, finally closed in 1992.
Morris & Essex in green; Raritan Valley in orange; Rahway Valley (defunct) in pink
There was talk of revitalizing it in the early 2000s for freight, but funding ran short. At the moment, the line has been more or less rebuilt from Roselle Park to Union… which means this area, in Summit and Springfield, hasn’t been touched.
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I’ve been meaning to explore this for a while, but it’s really tricky. Aerial photographs don’t show that most of the Summit part of the line is behind a tall chain-link fence with prolific “NO TRESPASSING” signs. It looks like it might be part of Celgene Corporation.
Near this particular bridge (dated 1915), there is a steep embankment from road level to bridge top that I could probably climb, but it’s in a very visible area (everybody driving or walking up the moderately-trafficked road would see me), and there are lots of dead leaves (so my exploration would be very noisy). I’ve scouted the area twice so far but have not found a discreet way to get to the top. If I ever climbed it, it’d have to be at 5:00 AM or something, and I’d have to pray that no police would be patrolling around while I was doing it.
Bottom line, I’d love to get some photos of the top, but I’d also love to not get arrested.
I did find a way in near the Summit chapter of the Knights of Columbus; you’ll have to wait ’til tomorrow to see what I found. 
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For more information (and for where I got my sources), here are some links. Google is helpful, too, as are the rest of the citations at the bottom of the Wikipedia article:
Cunningham, J.T.* (October 1950). “New Jersey’s Streak o’ Rust.” Trains Magazine. http://trainsarefun.com/rvrr/streakofrust.htm.
King, R.J. (2009). “Rahway Valley Railroad History.” Trains are Fun {personal website}. http://trainsarefun.com/rvrr/rvrrhistory.htm#pass%20history and (to a lesser extent) http://www.trainsarefun.com/rvrr/rvrr.htm.
Wikipedia. (2012, last edit). “Rahway Valley Railroad.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahway_Valley_Railroad.
* John T. Cunningham is one of the foremost authorities on local history around here. I didn’t know he’d been writing this sort of stuff since 1950!
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(This is part 1 in a series of posts on the Rahway Valley Railroad. Click here for Part 2, or click here for Part 3.)
great post and I love how you have included the history behind this particular railroad. Just fascinating! Don’t get arrested but sounds like a thrilling adventure! 
