by David Hutchinson
Saw a box car being unloaded in Tallman. Can anyone let me know what customers are active on the branch?
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There's a pretty good book on the line, with lots of historical pics, available from Amazon (look up New Jersey and New York Railroad).I will check that out, thanks.
The line is still active, operated by NJ Transit. The Lederle Labs in Nanuet was one of the biggest freight customers on the north end of the line well into the late 1960s. Lederle was also a great place for sledding during those heavy snowfall winters of the late 50s-early 60s.The line I'm referring to no longer exists - the tracks near my mom's house are all gone (Blauvelt Rd in Nanuet). I used to follow those tracks across Blauvelt Rd, then across Townline Rd to Pearl River. The tracks across Townline Rd are also gone, although in my last visit to the area, it looks like a walking trail now.
There was another line going west from Orangeburg to Nanuet, which was little used by the 1960s and was pulled up in the early 70s. This was the Piermont Branch and started at Piermont on the Hudson River and went west through Nanuet (the NJ&NY shared the track from that point, going behind the Nanuet Mall) to Spring Valley (where the NJ&NY cut away and headed north to Haverstraw) and on through Monsey to Suffern. This line was the original Erie RR from 1841.Maybe this is it - although the tracks I'm thinking of were all still in place when I left Nanuet for good in 1977.
So, more that you probably wanted to know, eh?I'm a local history sponge; it's never enough!
It was a different time back then; being considered OK to walk the tracks, if a train came the crew waved and we waved back, the station agent in Pearl River was friendly as was the mid-day freight train crew.Believe it or not, walking the tracks was the only way i was permitted to go! Only a few roads had sidewalks, so the tracks were considered safer. Times certainly have changed
The abandoned line might be the original Erie tracks that once ran down to Piermont. This line came from Suffern, through Spring Valley and Nanuet, continuing through Blauvelt and Sparkill.Perhaps you are right; I do have a vague recollection of some kind of junction (behind a lumber place on Middletown Rd ? Huttons?) That would explain why there is still something running through Nanuet, yet not the vicinity that I once played in.
Nanuet is where the commuter line turns south on the old NJ&NY
Try here:Thanks for the link; I didn't find what I was looking for in that post, but now that I know I should be searching for "Piermont" rather than Nanuet, I'm sure more searching will uncover the answer!
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=46523
The Piermont Branch gets a lot of queries about every six months... sometimes the questions just start on the NJ side of the border.
I vaguely remember the rails still being in place crossing Middletown Road near the Red Rail in the early '70's, but I don't believe a train ran east to Sparkill or Piermont since that late sixties...
Any useful information here?Actually, I had found that page before, but it did not have what I was looking for. Thanks for the link, though!
http://raildata.railfan.net/erie/homeerr.html
Here's a 1945 map of the area showing your street (called Ehrhardt Rd at that time) and the Piermont branch.Awesome! That confirms for me that it is indeed the Piermont branch that I've been thinking about, and it shows the junction on the west side of Middletown Rd to what is now the active line. So I was wrong in speculating that it ended somewhere in NJ.