Asphalt crossing

While walking through the woods, I followed a dirt path off a main trail, and found myself staring at this railroad crossing sign with no railroad in sight.

Thinking of the old New Jersey West Line, I started snapping photos. Maybe this was a leftover relic of a railway of yore!

As I clicked away, an older gentleman (who’d been sweeping a nearby back porch) called out and asked me what I was doing.

I explained— blah blah, local photoblog, blah blah blah.

Since I had his ear, I asked if he knew the origins of this crossing sign.

“Yeah,” he said, “one of the guys found it somewhere and put it here a few years ago. We’re hoping to rewire it, get the lights working, and actually get a gate going one of these days.”

As he spoke, I read his shirt:
THE MODEL RAILROAD CLUB

I’d stumbled into the backyard of the local Model Railroad Club! Of COURSE they’d have a railroad crossing sign in their parking lot!

I didn’t really have time to go inside and get a full tour at that moment, but I really have been meaning to check out their offerings for a while (because, as we all know, I am a giant nerd). One of these days…!

New Jersey West Line

This wall of rocks, near the first sharp curve of Brookside Drive in Millburn’s South Mountain Reservation, is a stone abutment. It’s one of the last remnants of the New Jersey West Line Railroad east of Summit.

(Below is what this stone wall looks like from the road, if you’re NOT the type to go climbing up steep poison-ivy filled hills to get better photos of historical ruins [cough]. See it peeking through, there on the left?)

This stone abutment originally supported a wooden trestle locally known as the Ghost Bridge, so-called because there was never actually a railroad built on top of it.

There was never a railroad on it because east of Summit, the New Jersey West Line was never fully constructed.

Construction started in 1870. They bought the land for the right-of-way, and they graded the land, and they even laid tracks in some places… but construction was stopped by 1873, in part due to corporate politics, in part due to lack of finances (Panic of 1873, anyone?).

Before 1873, everyone was so certain it would be built that the railroad started appearing on several maps. Here’s an 1872 map with the Morris & Essex line highlighted in blue, and the proposed New Jersey West Line highlighted in red (hint: not the county boundaries). (Click to see it larger.)

(1872)

If part of the NJWL on that map looks familiar… that’s because WEST of Summit, the New Jersey West Line became the modern-day Gladstone branch of the Morris & Essex line!

(2012)

(As a New Providence resident, I use the Gladstone branch every day! Hooray for partial construction of the NJ West Line!)

This isn’t to say that NOTHING east of Summit was ever built on the NJWL. There was a quarry in the South Mountain Reservation that needed to export its rocks to the rest of the world. The solution? Reclaim an unused bit of the NJWL that conveniently connected to the Morris & Essex Millburn station! Here’s a map from 1906, showing the railroad spur in use long after construction had otherwise ceased on the line:

(1906)

And that’s all I know. Abandoned railroads are fun!

 

References:
Beers, F.W. (1872). “Topographical map of Hudson, Union, and Essex Cos, New Jersey.” State atlas of New Jersey based on State Geological Survey and from additional surveys by and under the direction of F.W. Beers. Beers, Comstock & Cline: New York, NY. From the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. http://www.davidrumsey.com/.

Lampe, O.W. (1999, 2000). Images of America: Millburn. Arcadia Publishing: Charleston, SC. ISBN 0738504130.

The Millburn-Short Hills Historical Society. (n.d.). The Map Room. “1906 Atlas Map of Millburn, Plate 32.” http://www.mshhistsoc.org/map-room.

Wikipedia. (2010, last edit). “New Jersey West Line Railroad.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_West_Line_Railroad.

 

 

(P.S. Hey, speaking of railroads and history, Amtrak is sponsoring National Train Day this weekend, in honor of the completion of the country’s first transcontinental railroad in 1869. If you live near a city, and you’re into trains, why not check it out?)

Trainlight

When I stepped off the train at Summit, I was greeted by a big glittering beam of light at the other end of the platform, slanting down over the top of the train, illuminating the evening dust.

Naturally, I whipped out my camera and tried to capture it. Not sure I succeeded.

In any event, this shows the new monitors at Summit. The monitors let you know which train is coming next, and whether that next train actually stops at your stop. Either I don’t notice things (very possible) or they were just installed a couple weeks ago.

The abandoned Rahway Valley Railroad: Part 3

You may or may not remember that I went hunting for the Rahway Valley Railroad a few weeks ago (as I mentioned in Part 1 and Part 2 of this saga).

To recap, the Rahway Valley Railroad was a short set of tracks that shuttled between the modern-day Morris & Essex line and Raritan Valley line. It was formed in 1904 and closed in 1992 after a long decline.

Morris & Essex in green; Raritan Valley in orange; Rahway Valley (defunct) in pink

 

When I explored a few weeks ago, I did not succeed in finding the tracks.

But this week, I took a roundabout route, all the way through the long Hidden Valley Park (which lies adjacent to the area of interest, and it is an official Union County Park and therefore legal for me to traverse. Look, they publish a PDF map and everything, it’s got to be okay).

Success!

Incidentally, now that I’ve traveled the path, if I were to do it again, I’d start behind the Knights of Columbus; there’s a sort of a trail head behind their parking lot, which is much closer to the tracks. I’d also bring a friend; I got a really creepy vibe from those woods. (No human remains [that I saw], don’t worry.)

———-

 

(This is part 3 in a series of posts on the Rahway Valley Railroad. Click here for Part 1, or click here for Part 2.

Morning commute

We’ve been having some lovely foggy mornings recently. I wish I could hang out on the roof of my train and take scenic photos as we whiz by these foggy landscapes.

It’s a circle! It’s a cross! It’s…!

Juuuuuuust a window in the side of the Short Hills station. I thought it was kind of interesting.

Short Hills station

The original Short Hills train station was built in 1880.

Original Short Hills station, c.1906

 

It was deeded to the Lackawanna Railroad twelve years later, in 1892 (although Millburn owns it nowadays).

As far as I can tell, the original station was replaced by the current station around 1908.

Current Short Hills station, c.1910

It’s also home to the Millburn-Short Hills Historical Society!

And here’s a final couple of photos for context, because why the heck not:

For information on parking and schedules, check out NJTransit’s website.

 

References:

Lampe, O.W. (1999, 2000). Images of America: Millburn. Arcadia Publishing: Charleston, SC. ISBN 0738504130.

The abandoned Rahway Valley Railroad: Part 2

As I mentioned yesterday, the Rahway Valley Railroad operated only between Summit and Roselle Park, connecting the Morris & Essex Line to the Raritan Valley Line. It was formed in 1904 and finally closed in 1992 after a long decline.

Morris & Essex in green; Raritan Valley in orange; Rahway Valley (defunct) in pink

But there are still remnants of it lying about.

Although the majority of those remnants (in Summit, anyway) are secured behind fences with daunting “NO TRESPASSING” signs, I did find an unofficial entrance near the Summit chapter of the Knights of Columbus. But after climbing to the top of the embankment (which I was SO SURE must have been for the railroad), all I found was a maintenance road, as seen in the top photo. No rail tracks, and it’s probably too curvy to be repaved tracks.

According to an old map, that area apparently used to be a quarry.

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After I got home and compared aerial photos to an old map of the region, I discovered that apparently I’d been walking all over the former railroad at the base of the embankment. If there are any tracks still there, they’re apparently either buried or so far off the beaten path as to be invisible.

 

—–

For more information (and for where I got my sources), here are some links:

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.

—–

 

(This is part 2 in a series of posts on the Rahway Valley Railroad. Click here for Part 1, or click here for Part 3.)

The abandoned Rahway Valley Railroad: Part 1

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.

 

———

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.

 

—–

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!

—–

 

(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.)

Plainfield station

This is the Plainfield train station. Although nobody seems to agree when it was built (though Central Jersey Railroad passed through Plainfield by 1839, and maybe the depot was built by 1869?), it’s been on both the National and NJ State Registers of Historic Places since 1984. The station underwent a $12.4 million restoration around 2002-2003.

I visited because it seemed nearby to some errands I was running. Initially, I had intended to wander around Plainfield and get a bunch of photos all at once; I took out a library book on Plainfield architecture a couple months ago, and I was kind of excited to see some of these historic buildings.

As it turns out: this area is a little sketchy. I got my train station photos and skedaddled.

Incidentally, the Plainfield train station is about two miles north of the South Plainfield house fire that killed five people last week.

For trip information to/from Plainfield rail station, check out NJTransit’s website.