NJ rail yards "lost" and "downsized"

On the NYSW there was a small yard and round house in Hawthorne, NJ called North Hawthorne is now the site of a large resturant . Also had a yard at Beaver Lake now a swamp!

ladder2 wrote:On the NYSW there was a small yard and round house in Hawthorne, NJ called North Hawthorne is now the site of a large resturant . Also had a yard at Beaver Lake now a swamp!

Forgot about NYSW's North Hawthorne engine facility. The site is now an industrial park. There appears to be a structure (right) that may be the old roundhouse. Premio Sausage has its production plant in this complex on Utter Av.

NYS&W indeed did have a seven stall roundhouse and turntable at Hawthorne

http://history.gsmrrclub.org/history16.html

I wanted to piggyback on JT's information regarding Matawan and Red Bank as each location featured some fascinating operations. As late as the 60's, CNJ was spotting baggage cars for "head end" traffic at Matawan station. In order for eastbound trains to make their pick up, they had to pull down the west/south leg of the wye onto the Freehold Branch and then reverse up the opposing leg to make the coupling. Now, the train had to again pull down the branch and then back up the south leg to get back onto the NY&LB main. These trains usually had GP7s for power as the TM's wouldn't have fared so well on that trackage.

In the years leading up to Conrail, Red Bank could be a very active place on weekday afternoons. CNJ's JS-1 frequently ran west/south in the middle of the afternoon. If he had work to do in Red Bank Yard, he'd stop east of the Navesink River Road crossing, cut off and run into the yard before returning across the bridge to his train to begin the trip down the Southern Division. Also, Penn Central operated a local freight down the NY&LB to Red Bank which also usually arrived mid-afternoon. He'd do his work in the small yard located east of the main. This is the area in which NJT now stores MOW equipment. After setting off and picking up, he'd typically be held in the yard and then followed the CNJ passenger train which ran east during the 5PM hour. CNJ's yard job crossed over the NY&LB main to pick up whatever interchange traffic the PC train set off.

I spent a lot of happy afternoons and evenings after school watching all this unfold. Those were the days!

On the Erie, there were yards at Caldwell behind where the Baskin Robbins is now on the Caldwell Branch and at Wanaque, the end of the Greenwood Lake Branch.
On the DL&W, there was the yard at Montclair, between the station which is now a shopping center and where the PathMark now is across Grove St.

I forgot two: DL&W had a large yard on the Clifton/Paterson border just south of Broad St /Hazel St area. I don't know if it had a connection to Erie's Newark Branch. Erie had a large yard in Waldwick.

Waldwick Yard is used by NJT MoW. While most Bergen Line trains (and some Main Line trains) terminate here, sets are not laid over, but use the trackage to turnaround.

NYSW original yard was massive compared to what is down in little ferry now. Also NYC's coal yard for the power plant, some tracks still remain. The URHS had there equipment stored on it till a few years ago.

I would like to add these yards to the list
Lackawanna yard Harrison 15 tracks
Worthington yard 11 tracks located next to Harrison yard
Erie yard 4th ave. Newark. 8 tracks for freight, 4 tracks for car loading companys, 2 produce tracks
Erie yard Kearny between Schuyler ave and Davis ave on Newark branch 5 tracks
Erie Seaboard yard off Newark branch in Kearny. 15 tracks total
Erie Benson st. 5 tracks
Erie Silverlake yard on Orange branch 16 tracks (Chevy had a plant there along with Bambergers whse & Charms candy and others
Erie Orange branch, West Orange yard 7 tracks and turntabl
Erie Swift yard Kearny, served Swift Packing, Darling Delaware, Theobalds 3 tracks
I worked all these places in the better days of railroading. enjoy
Steve a k a Chief

Shows you that the Newark area was a railroading mecca in the golden age of rail.

On the NY&LB, at the southern end is Bay Head yard, mostly intact but just a few tracks used now. Point Pleasant had a yard and an engine terminal and roundhouse at one time. Before the NY&LB and the Freehold & Jamesburg linked up at Sea Girt, PRR had a yard and roundhouse in Manasquan. Sea Girt had a small interchange yard, and there was a yard just inside the National Guard camp. Farther up the line was the Bradley Beach yard (still there, but with only one track for MOW storage. This yard was officially called "Asbury Park" but the rest of the world called it Bradley Beach. There were once two long tracks on the east side of the ROW as well. Then you had Long Branch, which boasted two yards, the bigger yard for CNJ and a smaller one for PRR. And then Red Bank.

In the distant past, the original Monmouth Park racetrack was located where Fort Monmouth is now, and there was a huge passenger loop with quite a few storage tracks. According to some guys who did landscape work there, many of the tracks are still there, simply buried in soil. The current Monmouth Park once had a four-track stub-end passenger terminal.

Stretching it a bit, long eastbound freights often had to double the hill out of Red Bank, and used the Lily-Tulip Cup siding as a yard to hold the first half of the train.

There were mail sidings at most stations. Team tracks were scattered most anywhere, often part of a siding into a business.

On the Southern, Farmingdale had a small yard, and then Lakehurst/Mamchester once had a fair sized yard with an engine terminal.

On the Toms River & Barnegat, CNJ had a small yard in Toms River.

On the Southern, at Whitings, there were three yards. CNJ and PRR had interchange yards, and the Tuckerton RR had a terminal with a turntable.

On the Tuckerton RR, there were two yards at Bay Ave in Barnegat, side-by-side CNJ and Tuckerton RR. Farther south was the yard and terminal at Tuckerton.

NWS Earle used to have several large yards. As they've been getting less and less inbound rail loads, I'm not sure if their yards are still in use as they previously were. You can almost see their engine terminal and yard from the Route 18 overpass, but not much detail.

GSC wrote:NWS Earle used to have several large yards. As they've been getting less and less inbound rail loads, I'm not sure if their yards are still in use as they previously were. You can almost see their engine terminal and yard from the Route 18 overpass, but not much detail.

I am aware of just two real yards at Earle: the "main" classification yard and the receiving yard off the Southern. Are there any others that I am missing?

In the waterside complex, there are also a few storage tracks used to stash tankcars of bilge. The receiving yard was in pretty rough shape the last time I was there, and I have not heard of any activity since. There are a few tracks outside the shops, but I do not think they constitute a yard.

The Earle interchange was quite busy during the 70s and the early 80s. During this period, trains operating to Leonardo frequently had common carrier box cars in their consists. In fact, it was not unusual for trains to run without any USN cars. Most common carrier equipment seen was of the modern exterior post 50 foot type. Roads I recall spotting were Santa Fe, BN, Maryland & Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, Milwaukee Road, Railbox (lots and lots of Railbox) as well as many of the shortline painted cars which were so prevalent during this period. It's been quite awhile since I've seen anything other than the Navy's own equipment on the line. Some years ago, a train consisting of CSX and Railbox cars ran to Leonardo. I haven't heard of common carrier equipment on the line since then except for gondolas reportedly being used for MOW purposes.