Timeline of Jersey City, New Jersey-area railroads

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Port of New York Railroads ca. 1900

For the purposes of this article, the Jersey City area extends North to Edgewater (the Northern end of the line along the Hudson River), South to Bayonne and includes Kearny Junction and Harrison but not Newark. Many routes east of Newark are listed here.

Railroad Name Abbreviations

1833

1834

  • September 15: The New Jersey Railroad, which 38 years later would become the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), begins regular trips from Newark to Jersey City's first terminal.<ref name="Jersey City and its Historic Sites">Jersey City and its Historic Sites</ref> The route crosses the Passaic River on the Newark, over Centre Street Bridge to the Hackensack River and onto Jersey City, on the West side of the Palisades.<ref name="Jersey City and its Historic Sites"/> It uses temporary tracks and horse-drawn trains around and over the Bergen Hill, to the Terminal on the Hudson at Paulus Hook for transfer to ferries bound for New York City.

1836

1837

1838

  • December 2: The New Jersey Railroad (PRR) switches from horse to steam power.<ref name="Jersey City and its Historic Sites"/>

1858

1861

1862

1864

  • July 29: The CNJ's Jersey City extension opens, from about Spring Street in Elizabeth to the Jersey City terminal, including a long bridge across Newark Bay.

1868

1869

1870

1871

  • January 9: The frog war between the Erie and DL&W ends, with the frog being placed to allow DL&W Boonton Branch trains to run through the Erie's tunnel.

1872

1873

  • The Pennsylvania Railroad constructs a new passenger ferry terminal with 12 tracks and six platforms. The wooden terminal is built on piers over the water.<ref name="BSAR">Buildings and Structures of American Railroads, Walter G. Berg, C.E., John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1892, p.412</ref>
  • The Hudson Connecting Railway, part of the New Jersey Midland and later NYS&W, completed to West End Junction with Erie connection to Marion Junction.

1877

  • May 12: The DL&W opens its new tunnel through the Palisades, ending its trackage rights through the Erie's tunnel. Included with the tunnel are western approaches to the DL&W mainline and Boonton Branch; the former includes a new bridge over the Hackensack River, south of the old one (which is then used only for the Erie's Newark and Greenwood Lake Branches). The new alignment at first crosses the New Jersey Midland Railroad (NYS&W) at grade.

1883

1884

  • The West Shore Railroad's (NYC) tunnel through the Palisades to Weehawken Terminal opens.
  • August 4: The Pennsylvania Railroad passenger and ferry terminal at Exchange Place burns as a result of an explosion in a gas reservoir underneath the station.<ref>"In One Mass of Flames, the Pennsylvania Railroad's Buildings Burned", New York Times, August 5, 1884</ref><ref>"Pennsylvania Railroad Fire",

Leslie's Illustrated newspaper, August 14, 1884. On page 411 there is a large drawing of burner up pier area.</ref>

1885

1886

1887

1889

1890

1891

  • The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), rebuilds the passenger ferry terminal to replace the old terminal which was partially destroyed by fire. The new terminal is raised Template:Cvt above the old level to accommodate new elevated rails that eliminate grade crossings in the city.<ref name="BSAR"/>

1892

1894

  • May 15: The New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway Edgewater Tunnel through the Palisades opened to freight traffic. The mile-long tunnel took 18 months to construct and provides the NYS&W access to its own waterside terminal in Edgewater. The NYS&W had previously used the DL&W terminal in Hoboken.<ref>"Palisades Tunnel Completed", New York Times, May 14, 1894</ref>

1897

1900

  • The Greenville and Hudson Railway (LVRR) completes construction of a line roughly parallel to the National Docks Railway from the Newark Bay bridge to the Jersey City terminal. Upon completion, the Lehigh Valley Railroad has a wholly owned route from the coal fields of Pennsylvania to its terminal in Jersey City.

1908

1909

1910

1911

1937

1939

1959

Weehawken Terminal closes. The Weehawken is the last ferry to the terminal on March 25, 1959 at 1:10 am, ending 259 years of continuous ferry service.<ref name="Arthur G. Adams 1996">Template:Cite book</ref>

1960

  • The Erie Railroad trains shift to Hoboken Terminal, as the company merges with the Lackawanna Railroad.

Erie trains began moving to Hoboken in Oct 1956 for off peak and weekend trains. Peak hour trains began using Hoboken on March 25, 1957 with the exception of Nyack and NYS&W trains which continued to use the few remaining tracks in Jersey City. NYS&W trains were later discontinued and Nyack trains used a backup move to reach Hoboken until they were discontinued in 1966.

1967

  • With the Aldene Plan, Communipaw Terminal, the last Jersey City terminal closes. Lehigh Valley trains now terminate at Newark Penn Station, as do Reading Railroad trains. CNJ Trains run over LV from Roselle Park, NJ to Newark, NJ then on the PRR and terminate at Newark Penn Station, and use a small yard in Harrison. It was not until the late 1990s, when the midtown direct service was instituted, that NJ TRANSIT ran a service of some Raritan Valley trains to Hoboken (Penn Sta. New York).

1983

NY Waterway re-institutes ferry service across the Hudson.

1994

A short, partially elevated track, known as the Marion Running Track, is built to connect the ex-PRR Passaic and Harsimus Line from Kearny to the ex-Erie Northern Branch. This reconfiguration provided the ex-NYC West Shore (aka River Line) with a more direct connection to other lines heading west and south at Marion Junction.

1999/2000

Conrail Shared Assets Operations created. CSX River line is shifted to the re-newed Northern Running track to North Bergen Yard.

2000

The Hudson–Bergen Light Rail opened to the public on April 15, 2000 with an initial operating (MOS) The extension to southern terminal at 8th Street opened January 31, 2011.

2001

NJ Transit renovates Bergen Tunnels.

2003

Secaucus Junction opened on December 15, 2003.

2009

On July 26, 2009, NJ Transit began shuttle service to the Meadowlands station at the Meadowlands Sports Complex.

2010

On October 7, 2010, New Jersey governor Chris Christie announced that the Access to the Region's Core, which included a new right-of way from Secaucus Junction under the Hudson Palisades and Hudson River to Midtown Manhattan was officially cancelled.

2019

ExpressRail at Port Jersey opened on June 17, 2019.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

See also

Sources

Notes

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