Northern New Jersey photos by Jack May - Trains Magazine

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Northern New Jersey photos by Jack May

Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, September 15, 2021 6:49 AM

04-Breaking COVID's cabin fever North Jersey part 1

By no means were my visits to Boston and Philadelphia the only rail-oriented activities I undertook during the period from March to May, 2021, as I was beginning to feel safe--and comfortable enough with a mask in the vicinity of railroad station platforms and transit rights-of-way.  The next three segments consist of many of the photos I took in New Jersey during this period.

Part 1 covers a visit to the northern end of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail line during April, when the leaves were first coming out, followed by a journey to the marshes of the Meadowlands west of Secaucus, where NJ Transit's former Erie and Lackawanna diesel lines work their way to and through Passaic and Bergen Counties.

With regard to Hudson-Bergen, I have plenty of photos in the area shown during all seasons, including many with snow on the ground around bare trees, and in the fall when the leaves change colors.  So this was an attempt to get the greenery at its earliest in the season.

Above and below:  The leaves are just coming out in these two views looking northward along the Hudson-Bergen light rail line in Weehawken.  The spot is just south of the Port Imperial station and the former West Shore Railroad tunnel that takes the line to its outer terminal, Tonnelle Avenue.  The northernmost point on the network, that station is located in the town of North Bergen, which despite its name is part of Hudson County.  Many transit advocates urging its extension, and cynics as well, call the existing system the "Hudson-Hudson" light rail line.  The bridge in the background carries Pershing Road over the railway from the Hudson River waterfront.  Port Imperial Boulevard runs parallel to the light rail line, to the right of the photographer.  The ferry terminal at Port Imperial is on land that once was the Weehawken terminal of the New York Central's West Shore line, where connecting ferries ran to West 42nd Street and Cortlandt Street in Manhattan.  The terminal was also served by Public Service streetcars, which followed a steep course on private right-of-way alongside Pershing Road and used their own bridge on its far side, until their abandonment in 1949.  PS's all-service vehicles, which were discontinued in 1947 prior to the abandonment of the streetcars, operated under trolleybus wire on the pavement of Pershing Road.  The wire had been erected only in the uphill direction of the road.

Two services are operated along the Hudson-Bergen tracks to Tonnelle Avenue on weekdays:  one from Hoboken Terminal and the other from West Side Avenue, Jersey City.  The Hoboken service generally runs with just a single car, while the longer route usually operates with two-car trains, most often a 3-section unit (90 feet long) coupled to a 5-section one (127 feet), the latter, constituting about half the fleet, having been extending by adding two sections to the middle of the original rolling stock.  The upper view shows a 5-section unit leading a southbound train, while the lower one displays the rear of a northbound lashup with the 3-section car closest to the photographer.  While there is a loop and small yard at the Tonnelle Avenue terminal, most runs just pull in to the island platform, change ends, and then pull out.  I believe many of the platforms on the system are not long enough to accommodate a pair of 5-section cars.  Originally, most were built to a length of 180 feet.

  This view of a 5-section southbound LRV alongside Port Imperial Boulevard heading to Hoboken Terminal, provides an illustration of the vertical extent of the Bergen Shield, or Palisades, in Weehawken.  The steep cliffs are about 300 feet high at this point, but reach an elevation of over 500 feet at its northern extremity, in the town of Nyack, New York.  Always (and still) a geological barrier to east-west transportation along the lower portion of the Hudson River, a number of tunnels were bored through it throughout the years, starting in the 1860s, including the former West Shore Railroad's (1881), which is now used by the Hudson-Bergen light rail line.  The structure shown atop Bergen Hill is the single-family home at 6 Hamilton Avenue, which sold for some $6 million in 2014, no doubt much because of its view of the Manhattan skyline (although some will say being in sight of the light rail line is the reason).  It is located adjacent to the Weehawken Dueling Grounds, a park commemorating the venue of a great deal of personal combat in the 18th and early 19th century, including the famous duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton in 1804* (thus the street name, Hamilton Avenue).* See .  Although Hamilton Avenue and the park are located in the heights, it is highly probable that the duel occurred at a spot between the river and the light rail line, as the participants arrived on separate boats.  Perhaps it was where this photo was taken.

Now to the Meadowlands.  The remaining 8 photos in this segment were taken from the surroundings of DeKorte Park in the swampland at the eastern edge of the town of Lyndhurst.  I have to thank a good friend, who took an excellent photo that was featured in a recent issue of Railpace magazine, for letting me in on the locale.  It is on the original Boonton line, constructed by the Morris & Essex Railroad in 1869, just after it came under the control of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad.  It served as a low-grade freight bypass for the company's busy Morristown line (which was electrified in 1930), providing a quick route for anthracite coal traffic to reach the Hudson River waterfront at Hoboken.  It had only a modicum of passenger service until the New Jersey State Highway Department rationalized* commuter service on a number of lines in 1963, when the former Erie Railroad Main Line in Passaic was torn up and its trains were moved onto the former Lackawanna, specifically this section of line.

* A better phrase for rationalized would be "virtually destroyed."  Like the similar Aldene Plan in 1967, forced  into use by the renamed but still auto-oriented  New Jersey Department of Transportation, it  resulted in the loss of a huge amount of passengers and the abandonment of a great deal of railroad track.

The location of these photos now sees a large number of NJ Transit passenger trains, with some running as far as Port Jervis, N. Y. (87 miles) from Hoboken via the Secaucus Jct. transfer station (with the Amtrak-owned Northeast Corridor leading from Penn Station, N. Y.)  All trains have their power on their western ends, with outbound runs coming through about 2 minutes after their scheduled departure times from Secaucus, which makes afternoon the optimum time of day to take photos.  Here is a mix of some of the different kinds of locomotives used by NJ Transit in diesel territory

A PL42AC built by Alstom in 2004 pushing traditional Comet coaches toward Hoboken.

ALP-45DP Bombardier-built Dual Powered (electric and diesel) No. 4524 pushing a train of Comet cars toward Hoboken.  These locomotives were purchased starting in 2010 and more will be delivered despite the fact that currently there are more than enough on the roster to propel all scheduled trains to run over a mix of electrified and non-electrified trackage.  No. 4524 is pushing traditional Comet coaches toward Hoboken.

New York MTA-owned GP40FH-2M No. 4904 pulls a train of Comets westward from Hoboken.  The 1966-built ex-Rock Island, ex-Mopac locomotive is not necessarily assigned to trains that enter New York State, as equipment is mixed between the two agencies.

 

The photographer was lucky to get eastbound and westbound trains pass each other.  Both of these EMD-built locomotives were inherited from Penn Central via Conrail.  At left GP40PH-2B No. 4218, which came off the assembly line between 1965 and 1969, sports NJ Transit's color scheme, while GP40PH-2M from 1968 is in owner MTA's livery

 

The telephoto lens tries to close in on the New York City skyline, dominated by the new World Trade Center (or Liberty Tower) behind the New Jersey Turnpike in this view of Alstom-built PL42AC No. 4028 pulling a train of Comet cars.  The scuttlebut is that these 2004-built locomotives will be the next to be replaced by the new dual-powered ALP-45DPs that are currently being delivered, rather than the much older EMD units built in the 1960s.  NJ Transit has no plans to further electrify the state's railroad system.

A placid scene featuring a lone egret seen from the wooden planked Marsh Discovery Trail through DeKorte wildlife preserve.  The boardwalk starts a few yards to the south of the location of the previous photos.

The 640-acre DeKorte Park was built on landfill that contains trails that take visitors out to wildlife observation areas and bird blinds.  I first saw the Meadowlands from the Pennsylvania Railroad high line in the mid-1950s when it was almost solid wetlands with bullrushes seeming to be everywhere--a magical carpet the bloomed magnificently in the spring.  But in the last half century much of the Meadowlands has been "urbanized" from the construction of commercial property on landfills created from garbage dumping (much of it illegal).  The thoroughfare that brings visitors to DeKorte Park wasn't named Disposal Road for no reason.  The complex of trails is focused on the Meadowlands Environment Center, which contains informative exhibits on the Meadowlands and its ecology.  Controlled by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority,* which seems to have successfully converted a small part of an island of garbage into a something useful and attractive ().

* You may recognize some of the NJSEA's other properties, including Met-Life Stadium (home of the New York Giants and New York Jets) and the land under the huge American Dream mall (formerly Xanadu).  Its main success has been political patronage.

Above and below:  Two photos from the Marsh Discovery Trail in DeKorte Park.  An Alstom PL42AC pushes a train of Multi-Level cars toward Hoboken in the upper view, while below, it's an EMD GP40-PH No. 4217's turn to push a train eastward.  The best time to photograph from the trail is in the early spring, before the saltgrass grows too high

In part 2 we will switch our focus to Amtrak's Northeast Corridor