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Re: (erielack) West Paterson Spur

The alleged track was not in front of that station when I first went there around 1970. There was nothing there but an all concrete station with broken windows and doors
 
Jerome


________________________________
From: "jananran_@_mymailstation.com" <jananran@mymailstation.com>
To: EL Mail List <erielack_@_lists.railfan.net> 
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 6:21 PM
Subject: RE: (erielack) West Paterson Spur

As y'all talk about the Boonton/Newark/Greenwood Lake lines and how and where they connected, it might help our younger and/or western friends to point out that most of the old Boonton Line is still in service -- it's just cut into two parts.  The eastern part is NJT's Hoboken-Suffern-Port Jervis line, which meets the Bergen County Line at Ridgewood Jct; it meets the old Erie Main Line by ramping onto the old Erie Newark Branch just south of Paterson.

The western part of the Boonton still operates from Mountain View (near Wayne, NJ) to Denville as NJT's Boonton Line (well -- what else?)  The big change was putting the Boonton onto the Greenwood Lake at Mountain View to get to Hoboken through Montclair instead of Paterson (I-80 and all that).  The most recent change was the "Montclair Connection" -- new construction to connect the old Greenwood Lake and the DL&W dead-end Montclair (electrified) Branch.  This killed the Greenwood Lake east toward Hoboken, but brought electrification to the Normal School (see?  I am an old-timer!)

South of Paterson, the closest the Newark Branch got to the Greenwood Lake, before or after the Mountain View changeover, was about 40 feet (straight up!) where the Greenwood Lake crossed the Passaic River way above the Newark Branch which runs along the river.

Next -- please recognize that many, if not most, of us don't know "RM" junction from "RM" Nixon.  Using geographic names is a big help to anyone who's trying to follow all this on a map.

Finally -- a little background. The Boonton was designed and built to be downhill (for coal loads) from Denville to Secaucus to avoid the old main through Summit (called that for a reason). The Montainview/Greenwood Lake via Little FALLS/Great NOTCH (called those reasons!) megillah took care of that.

Yours, for clarity in history,

Randy Brown


- -----Original Message-----
>From: "Paul R. Tupaczewski" <paultup_@_comcast.net>
>Sent: Oct 23, 2012 12:17 PM
>To: 'EL Mail List' <erielack_@_lists.railfan.net>
>Subject: RE: (erielack) West Paterson Spur
>
>> Bob,
>> 
>> Not sure how long it lasted (the turnout was located
>> 
>> outside the interlocking plant). Between where Valley
>> 
>> Road crossed overhead the West Paterson Spur and
>> 
>> the former DL&W station at Paterson, there were two
>> 
>> sidetracks, one of which served a coal dock just east
>> 
>> of the station. Can't recall their names though.
>> 
>> Bill
>
>Bill,
>
>Your diagram book (circa 1974) shows the switch for the spur but quickly
>trails into the abandoned DL&W Boonton Line segment, with no indications of
>customers at that time.
>
>    - Paul
>
>
>

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