Tuesday's New Jersey Trip (Installment 4 of 6).

Hey everyone,
Sorry, I'd have posted this last night, but unfortunatly the Railroad.net servers were down again and I was unable to. Some of you may have already seen this report, on SJRA.

This is part 4 of 6 in the series: "Summer 2004 Railfanning in New
Jersey with Mike DiMunno and Dave Halbert". This segment is
titled "Dover NJ and Penn Station Railfanning".

Our day started out once again at 0630 (bright and early, we don't
mess around when it comes to getting an early start). After a quick
sprint up to Dover (which actually ended up being longer than
necessary thanks to a goof on the GPS navigation system in the SUV),
we met up with Steve P. there at the Dover station to start out the
day. He took us on a tour of the ex-CNJ trackage now operated by
M&E, which included the following highlights:

As we walked down the M&E, we were able to clearly see the recent
track work done by the company on this line, effectively restoring it
to FRA class II status (25MPH), much better than it's former Conrail
status of excepted track. This bridge can serve as evidence of this
track work:

http://members.aol.com/jjmdimunno/ME_Trestle.jpg

As we moved along, we came across some cobblestone, ancient brick
still lying in the guage of the M&E at a grade crossing close to the
end of track. Similar stuff can be found in few places any more:

http://members.aol.com/jjmdimunno/ME_Cobblestone.jpg

Once on the other side of this road, we came across some M&E
industrial spurs, the reason that this line is in service today. In
the process, we came across some ancient CNJ switch stands, one of
which was controlling the switch leading to a spur that obviously
hadn't seen trains in quite some time:

http://members.aol.com/jjmdimunno/ME_SwitchStand.jpg

After we were finished here, we walked back to where our car was
parked and headed out for lunch. After eating at a nice little diner
(something a little different than our usual Wawa only diet), we
moved on to some more ex-CNJ historical artifacts. We found out that
the CNJ passenger station for Dover (the only passenger building
still in existance on this line), was still standing and intact, and
so we went to see it, as seen in this view of the plaque and sign on
the building:

http://members.aol.com/jjmdimunno/CNJ_D ... senger.jpg

Just beyond the passenger station, is the old freight house for the
CNJ at Dover. Several tracks were obviously at this location at one
time, as ties and cinders abound here:

http://members.aol.com/jjmdimunno/CNJ_DoverFreight.jpg

Taking a stroll down the line a little more, we came across this
ancient switch stand (ex-CNJ again, obviously), dated 1897! This is
the oldest switch stand I've come across yet. It was the stand that
used to control the switch into an old steel plant or something of
the sort along the M&E. The date can be seen in this close up view:

http://members.aol.com/jjmdimunno/ME_1897Switch.jpg

At this time, it was getting close to our time to catch our 3:00PM
train to Penn Station, so we headed back to the car and proceeded
back to the Dover station on the Morristown Line. BUT...not before
we spotted what appeared to be at one time, another railroad building
across the street from the Dover CNJ passenger station. Railroad, or
not? You decide:

http://members.aol.com/jjmdimunno/Railroad_Or_Not.jpg

And last but not least, while waiting for our Dover to Penn Station
train, we happened to get lucky as the NS local drilling the Dover
Yard came up to the station to clear the interlocking at DOVER and
proceed back to the yard. NS GP38-2 5343 was on the point today, and
can be seen here:

http://members.aol.com/jjmdimunno/NS_Local.jpg

The ride up to Penn Station was very nice over the Morristown Line,
and we arrived on time at the terminal. On the way home, I was
introduced to another railroad friend of David's, Scott, who is a
conductor for NJT, who just happened to be the conductor on this
train back to Dover. This makes two people that I have talked to
before at some time or another online, that I met today in person in
North Jersey (one by luck, the other by plan).

A nice day again out today in New Jersey, the rain held up all day,
so the weather was good. Check in here again soon for information on
our next railroad expedition this Saturday to Lakehurst,
etc...details to come. I hope some others will decide to come along
on this one...

Take care.

Mike DiMunno
www.SJRail.com: All about South Jersey Railroads!

Hi Mike,
Thanks for the report. A couple of clarifications on the photo captions:

First off, all of the "cnj" shots appear to be taken on what today is known as the D&R or Dover & Rockaway Branch of the Morristown & Erie. This line was acquired by Morris County from Conrail in 1986 and has been leased to and operated by the M&E ever since.

Very brief historical overview:

Historically the line was made up of portions of a few different predecessor lines. From Wharton to the area near Route 46 in Rockaway this was the Dover & Rockaway line. geographically north of this point the line was the Hibernia Mine Railway. (or railroad?). The HMR was actually built first to connect the iron ore mines in Hibernia with the Morris Canal (did Steve take you to the Morris Canal bridge?) and the DL&W line through Rockaway (abandoned in 1948). The D&R came along later to connect the HMR to the other CNJ lines at Wharton.

OK, so then the "trestle" picture appears to be the long bridge over the Rockaway River - this would be on the HMR segment of the line.

There is still a station in Rockaway a few hundred yards geographically south of this bridge - it is used by a lumber company.

"Cobblestone" is at Morris Avenue on the Denville/Rockaway border, it is the last grade crossing on the line. All of the business on this line today is on the dead-end track beyond this crossing.

"1897 switch" - 1897 Looks like a patent date, I'm not sure that you can infer that this particular switch stand itself is really that old.

"Railroad or Not" - link doesn't work

There is an awesome book on all these lines, but it is long out of print. Iron Mine Railroads of Norhtern NJ or something like that. Tri-State NRHS published it in the early 1980's, and I understand they are working towards reprinting it soon.

Thanks again, I enjoy your reports.

Mike,

Nice story as usual. I really wanted to show you guys the old DL&W Rockaway loop in depth, but the limited time I had to work with wouldn't constitute this....I did show you the location of where the original DL&W station was which was burned in the 1970's..However, the original foundation has an office building...


I thought I was told that the original CNJ station in Rockaway Boro (used by lumber co.) was actually the frieght station and NOT passenger//?...Could someone please support this? If so, where was the old CNJ passenger station located? I am pretty sure the only CNJ passenger station left on the line was the one with the plaque on Sussex st.
Anyway Mike, going back to the loop, if you have more time in the future we could walk most of the original alignment of the DL&W Rockaway Branch loop. Most of the line is intact however some of it has been built on and around Route 80 and by McWilliams forge..This branchline was abandoned in October 1948 and the tracks were subsequently ripped out in the late 40's to early 1950's... Another thing that should be noted is that the DL&W Rockaway loop served as the Mainline from Denville to Dover from 1870 to around 1902. The present alignment which NJT uses today was built in the early 1900's at which time the loop became a secondary branch line...
I hope all this clarifies any question you might have brought across. I am happy to see that you were able to catch the NS local before you got on the train for NY...

SteveP.

Oh man I really missed out on this one. I live five minutes away from those pictures in Rockaway.
~IIRC I saw a picture in the PNC Bank on Main St in Rockaway of a CNJ train stoping at the station where the current lumber yard is located. i could be wrong, but I remeber someone telling me it was not used for freight.

Mike or David let me know if you ever venture back up this way

Mike...Will you be walking the entire stretch between Lakehurst and Winslow? Cant wait for your report and pics from that area!

CRRNJ878 wrote:Mike...Will you be walking the entire stretch between Lakehurst and Winslow? Cant wait for your report and pics from that area!

Be careful on where you park at Lakehurst. If you park near the tracks where the gate is you will receive a summons as I witnessed last week. I had originally thought about parking there but changed my mind and decided to move to the parking lot right next door.

If anyone else is going to hike this and wants company, please let me know as I'm very interested.

I've been at Sandy Ride (Carranza, Harris Station, Atsion, Winslow junction, Woodmansie/Pasadena (Check out the Terra Cotta ruins there) and Lakehurst. I still have Parkdale and some others to go.

Also, there's a grocery store in the area and the owner has pictures of when there was that terrible train wreck many years ago. I'm sorry but I don't recall the name or location of the store as I found it asking for directions on my first visit there.

Ken

Also, for what its worth, if you look in the picture of the NS H02, you can see the Sperry car (SRS 125) tied up on track two in Dover Yard. It has been testing the Morristown and Boonton Lines at night this past week.

Some cobblestone crossings can stiil be found in Brooklyn, along the former trolley lines in that borough, and many more can be found in Europe, especially in Brussels, Belgium.

CRRNJ878 wrote:Mike...Will you be walking the entire stretch between Lakehurst and Winslow? Cant wait for your report and pics from that area!

Ah, well I can definitly tell you that we're not hiking the whole thing from Lakehurst to Winslow...but we'll hit up all the key spots by vehicle. Fear not, the report will be detailed as always...

Anyone that wants to come along can email me for details or just show up down at Lakehurst if you want around 10AM or 10:30AM or something like that...we should be up there by then.

Take care.

Mike DiMunno

JJMDiMunno wrote:

CRRNJ878 wrote:Mike...Will you be walking the entire stretch between Lakehurst and Winslow? Cant wait for your report and pics from that area!

Ah, well I can definitely tell you that we're not hiking the whole thing from Lakehurst to Winslow...but we'll hit up all the key spots by vehicle. Fear not, the report will be detailed as always...

Anyone that wants to come along can email me for details or just show up down at Lakehurst if you want around 10AM or 10:30AM or something like that...we should be up there by then.

Take care.

Mike DiMunno

Good thing as the wood are filled with ticks and chiggers which makes for many uncomfortable nights