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From: "Gary R DOT Kazin" gkazin AT yahoo DOT com
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2022 14:12:28 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: Re: (erielack) Greenwood Lake Branch & Boonton Line Questions
"1983-05-14_box_001_slide_16_M_E_16@Harrison_Ave_Roseland_NJ_w_DLW_MU_trailers.jpg" - image/jpeg, 2000x1361 (24bit)

Roseland Borough celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1983. The Morristown & Erie ran free train rides from what was then the east end of its track just east of Harrison Ave. Three DL&W MU trailer cars from NJ transit were ping-ponged between ALCo C420 #16 and S1 #14. AFAIK, this was the last passenger train east of the B&G (former Polaner) plant.

BlueLinx is the current lumber company in Denville, formerly Georgia-Pacific. Google aerial view shows several railcars there; I can't tell how old the view is.https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8845729,-74.4720524,168m/data=!3m1!1e3
The Hartz Mountain site next to the Watsessing Ave station in Bloomfield was redeveloped as housing...
Chesapeake & Delaware in turn is affiliated with the Black River & Western Railroad and Belvedere & Delaware Railway.http://www.chesapeakeanddelaware.com/

Gary R. Kazin
CSX Milepost SX992.39FEC Milepost 321.51
Boca Raton

DL&W RR Milepost R35.7Rockaway




On Monday, December 12, 2022 at 08:36:07 AM EST, Paul Tupaczewski wrote:

> Just watched a YouTube video of a run on the Greenwood Lake
> Branch/Boonton Line from Hoboken to Netcong before the Montclair
> Connection, and some questions arose from watching it
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJunvtlrs6U):

I'm so glad someone digitized this video... I think my VHS copy has probably disintegrated by now! :(


> The video was shot in the 1990's (a Walter Berko video). One of the
> reasons given for why the eastern Greenwood Lake Branch was abandoned
> after the Montclair Connection was the condition of the bridges over the
> Hackensack and Passaic Rivers. This train seems to take these at track
> speed, not as if there were a speed restriction in effect as there was
> for the Erie Main Line over the Passaic River in Passaic Park. Was this
> a reason for the end of commuter service on the eastern Greenwood Lake
> Branch, or was it more for the convenience of not having to route some
> trains via the Lackawanna Montclair Branch and some via the Greenwood
> Lake Branch? Or some other reason?

The condition of DB and WR drawbridges were both listed as major reasons (and the cost of overhauling/rebuilding them). I think the bridges were good for 25 MPH (perhaps slower?) Other reasons given:

* Limited passenger boarding from the stations east of Montclair (Glen Ridge, West Arlington, Arlington)
* Non-welded track - still jointed rail
* No easy way for a one-seat ride into New York City

Of course, this happened AFTER the line was abandoned, but Superstorm Sandy did a good job destroying large parts of the right of way on the Meadowlands causeway, too - which would have been a HUGE expense if the line was still being used for passenger service.


> Google Maps shows M&E rails under I-287 to west of Fernwood Av. How far
> east does the M&E have customers? Does the M&E operate any part of what
> was the Caldwell Branch?

By "M&E" you mean Morristown & Erie, not Morris & Essex, correct? And I believe you mean I-280, not I-287, yes?

I can't remember the story exactly, but I thought that the M&E wanted to acquire the Caldwell Branch from the State and/or EL - or that might have been the other way around? Either way, that idea fell through and the entire Caldwell Branch is completely gone today (as is the M&E from that I-280 overpass in Roseland all the way to the Caldwell Branch connection at Essex Fells)


> Are there any freight customers left on the Greenwood Lake Branch &
> Boonton Line from the Montclair Connection through Dover?

The last major customer that kept NS crews working the Greenwood Lake east of Montclair was the Hartz Mountain pet food plant in Bloomfield on the Orange Branch. But, like most industry in NJ, they closed up shot a number of years ago and took their operations down south where the taxes aren't as onerous as they are here in NJ.

Today the freight service is run by Chesapeake & Delaware under their "Dover & Rockaway River" subsidiary. I'm not sure if the lumber place is still there in Denville (right where I-80 goes overhead), but on the Boonton Line itself, there are NO freight customers left. The Totowa Industrial Branch (that comes off in Mountain View) still manages to hold on and has two customers remaining - one of them does flour transloading, if memory serves me.

Of course, the problem is the complete de-industrialization of New Jersey. Another big former EL customer - Mennen products in Morris Plains - shut down operations and "moved south," and today the entire facility has been demolished and replaced with townhouses and shopping malls. :( Some people say "that's progress," but I'm not sure if I'm included to agree! :(


> From 1962-1966, while in high school in North Haledon, I occasionally
> would walk from home (3 blocks into Rutherford) to the EL Passaic
> station on the Main Line. The ROW was wide enough for 4 tracks, but one
> had been removed. The track narrowed to a single track through South
> Paterson and to the junction with the Erie Main Line east of Paterson
> station. When was the 3rd track removed from the Boonton Line east of
> South Paterson? Hard to believe that a 4-track line condensed to two
> tracks at the draw over the Passaic River at Lyndhurst and then down to
> one track to cross the Hackensack River.

A lot of the track removals came about as a result of the 1963 track rearrangements (where the east end of the Boonton Line became the new EL "Main Line" As part of those realignments, the Erie Main Line from Paterson was connected into the DL&W Boonton Line using a single track connection that utilized a small part of the Erie Newark Branch. The EL itself converted the 4-track Erie from HX to Rutherford to two tracks around that same time.


> In the early 1960's, maybe weeks before Boonton Line service via
> Paterson/Marshall St. and around the mountain to Mountain View was to
> end, I took a train to the Marshall St. station. This was after Erie
> Main Line service via downtown Passaic had ended. As I recall there was
> one track at the Marshall St. station. Was this part of the Boonton
> Line constructed with two tracks? Four tracks? Something else?

Yes, the Boonton Line was once four tracks at this point, but it was slowly reduced down to the single track that remained before the abandonment.

In the "glory years", the Boonton Line was 4 tracks from Denville to the Ramapo River Bridge at East Lincoln Park, then was two tracks east of there until after the West Paterson High Bridge, and then fanned back out into four tracks from right before the Marshall St. station all the way to Lyndhurst, where the Passaic River drawbridge limited the tracks to two mains.


> Although I rode the Greenwood Lake/Boonton Line to Denville once, I
> wasn't aware that it was a single track. Some of the bridges were
> constructed for two tracks. When was the Boonton Line reduced to a
> single track?

Early 1960s by the EL. Although in the ensuing 60 (!) years nature has reclaimed a lot of the right of way, if you go out during the winter months you can see the remnants of the extra tracks. In Boonton, there are still three bridges over the Rockaway River (and the piers for the 4th bridge still stand).


> I assume that trains west of Dover operate on the "old road." This
> appears to be single track now. Was it double track at one time?

West of Dover it's still two tracks all the way to Port Morris where it goes down to single track all the way to Phillipsburg. I believe at one point it was double track all the way to P'burg but that was single tracked back in DL&W years.


> When service on the cut-off resumes, will the junction with the old road
> be controlled out of Hoboken?

Nothing is controlled out of Hoboken today! All NJT lines are dispatched out of a large dispatching center in their maintenance complex in Kearny. Hoboken Terminal tower sits empty now and is used by MOW forces I believe?

The junction at UN (does NJT still use that term?) - Port Morris - will just be another switch off the former DL&W main.

- Paul

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