Whose tracks? Englewood, Tenafly, Cresskill etc.

I seem to recall that one customer, Weyerhauser, had a catastrophic fire that ended the need for rail service there. I also recall there being a smaller lumber firm along the line that stopped shipping for a reason I do not recall at the moment.

Weyerhauser had a major fire in about 2007, and it closed then. It was the major shipper north of Englewood. It received inbound scrap paper to make boxes, etc. In Northvale there was a firm that received inbound large spools of paper (to be made also into boxes, etc.) which were then resold and went out by truck. This firm has been gone since about 2009. Dykes Lumber (originally Demarest Lumber) received inbound lumber in Closter. It was the last shipper north of Englewood, but it has not received any cars for several years. So there have been no trains north of Palisade Ave in Englewood. But since the line is not officially abandoned, CSX (I have noticed) still does periodic testing of the grade xing signals and some minimal maintenance even north of Englewood. Note the new silver paint on the equipment relay boxes in Closter! Supreme Oil in Englewood gets inbound tank cars of food grade oil M-F altho I have the feeling that the City of Englewood would not be too unhappy if this company left town so the city could build more upscale condos. So far as light rail rail to Englewood, it is a good thing that nobody said to take your time on this project! I realistically do not see this happening very soon even tho I am still keeping my fingers crossed. BTW the Northern Branch was originally built as 6 foot gauge like the Erie and was double track to Sparkill. Until about 1940 the Northern Branch had passenger service throughout the day, but buses had cut heavily into the ridership by then. The double track to Tenafly was pulled up in about 1952.

There is some left over (and disconnected) double trackage in Closter. Someone said that was a team track? Was that part of an original double track and then cut back to a long siding? Anyway, I believe that both ends of that 2nd track are still connected to the main with operational switches, but I know at all the crossings csx removed the rails. Why did csx take out the 2nd track thru Closter? I do know that at the time of their doing so, 3 customers still remained. Two in Closter and one in Northvale.

Removal of one track could have been for a few different reasons:

Taxes. Fewer improvements on a property equate to a lower rate of taxation and (I'm saying this as a very proud socialist) New Jersey's taxation rates for railroad property are pretty onerous.

Maintenance. If one doesn't need two tracks, why would one want to maintain two?

Scrap or relay. Get money for it or use it elsewhere. IIRC, the rail was old and light so if it was reused, it was probably so,ewhere almg the same branch.

Double track wasn't a team track, it was a runaround/passing track. There were several sidings that through the years were removed... going north, there was a pocket siding for quarry stone across from the station, a public siding just north of Main Street, a siding into J.J. Demarest (the lumber yard), a siding for Reuten Windows, the long siding into Weyerhauser, and another parallel siding just south of Blanch Avenue that served the other millworking/machine shop company.

Closter was a busy place up until the mid-60's.

BigDell wrote:

CSX C777 goes to Englewood monday to friday on those tracks.

I remember seeing the train run through Englewood SO MANY YEARS AGO... Nice to know it's still running daily - that means a nice weekday trip for me to visit the area and hopefully catch lunch after photographing the train... Thanks for the info! Also glad to hear the light rail will make it's way through there, makes total sense. I wonder if they can/should share the line with CSX? That's not done anywhere else on the light rail line is it? I thought the light rail cars, due to their construction, couldn't share railway with freight etc? I'm speaking from WAY OUTSIDE as a fan, of course, so I'd love to know more.

Dell,

Light Rail and freight share tracks on THE River Line in South Jersey. Trains are timetable separated. Freight runs when light rail is done for the day and finishes before the start of commuter service in the morning. If Conrail doesn't finish their work, they tie down on a siding and start from there the next night.

That siding for stone was right next to the old Erie freight house? It still exists. Partially buried under overgrowth and disconnected from the main, but still there. Incidentally it has two pipes sticking out from it, like exhaust pipes but there capped. Remnant trackage from at least one other siding still exists also. (Aside from the two intact sidings that do remain.) I also noticed that it appears at some point the mainline/row was realigned? You'll notice it in several spots in Closter.

Airman, it may still be there, it was directly across the tracks from the passenger station, very sharp curve in, ultimately the siding was perpendicular to the main line. I only saw it being serviced once as a kid, it required an idler car and it was very close clearance as the transfer dock was very close to the tracks and immediately at the tangent of the curve.

I think the alignment through Closter was straight line, but about 15 years ago I'm guessing CSX decided the runaround rails were in better shape than the traditional main, that's why the squiggle.

Like everyone else, I wish I had photos from the early sixties. There are three of us here on Railroad.net that grew up in Norwood and Closter, one of whom went to work for the railroad... Good gap filling in information.

Haha. I remember switching that siding. Pascack Valley stone used the siding, not the small factory that was actually next to the siding. They got about a have dozen flat cars of large cut stone a year. It was a 2 car siding, and I actually remember we had 2 cars at one in there at one time. I have pix of the northern fromn the 1960's. Just have to figure out how to scan them,, Also have the closter station signs here
As for the CSX using part of the passing siding for the main, that was done during the conrail days, typical conrail lazyness in the track dept.
There was a switchback move into the the demarest lumber siding, that dated back prob to the 1930's. The tail track was in deplorable condition, so rather than fix it, the CR idiots used the north (west) end runaround switch as the demarest siding switch, and diverted the main into the siding. Then the main was diverted to run on the passing siding for a short stretch, and then s curved back to the main row. It was typical CR poor engineering. CR was the worst thing that happen to NE railroading, IMHO . 100% short term, we have to show a profit thinking. Ruined a lot of RR. Drove away a lot of customers, not the any of the class 1s are any better.

Ah, PD reminds me that we discussed this several years ago on here someplace, there may be a similar thread on the New York or DLW/Erie/EL forum about the Northern Railroad of NJ.

Rich