Chatham is a

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

in Chatham,

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

. A commuter rail station, Chatham receives rail service from statewide provider

NJ Transit New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit or NJTransit and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey and portions of the states of New York and Pennsylvania. I ...

on its

Morristown Line The Morristown Line is an NJ Transit commuter rail line connecting Morris and Essex counties to New York City, via New York Penn Station or Hoboken Terminal. It is one of the two routes that make up the Morris & Essex Lines, alongside the Gl ...

, a branch of the

Morris & Essex Lines The Morris & Essex Lines are a group of former Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W) railroad lines in New Jersey now owned and operated by NJ Transit. The lines include service offered on the Morristown Line and the Gladstone Branch. Pr ...

. Trains on the

go to both

Hoboken Terminal Hoboken Terminal is a commuter-oriented intermodal passenger station in Hoboken, Hudson County, New Jersey. One of the New York metropolitan area's major transportation hubs, it is served by eight NJ Transit (NJT) commuter rail lines, an NJ T ...

and

New York Penn Station Pennsylvania Station (also known as New York Penn Station or simply Penn Station) is the main intercity railroad station in New York City and the busiest transportation facility in the Western Hemisphere, serving more than 600,000 passengers ...

History

Chatham station opened on September 28, 1837 along with other stations on the

Morris and Essex Railroad The Morris and Essex Railroad was a railroad across northern New Jersey, later part of the Main line (railway), main line of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. History The M&E was incorporated January 29, 1835, to build a line from ...

between

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower ** Orange juice *Orange (colour), the color of an orange fruit, occurs between red and yellow in the vi ...

(at one time the western terminus of the line) and Morristown. During the beginnings of the rail in the area, Chatham was the home of a relatively well-utilised and large rail yard because of the steep grades in the surrounding area. In the early 1900s, the station was mainly used by vacationers from

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

who came to Chatham to experience what was then considered a beautiful town away from the bustling city. A number of hotels on Main Street served this vacation interest. A new elevated station was built in 1914 with a tunnel connecting the two platforms. The station was located at Fairmount Avenue, one block from Main Street. Distinctive weeping

Mulberry ''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of 19 species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 subordinat ...

trees were planted to enhance the station and the area of its two plazas. The railroad razed the old station in August 1914. The presence of a train station in Chatham Borough would later prove a vital role in population increases following World War II in adjacent Chatham Township, when rural lands in the township began to be developed for residential use, because of the easy commute to

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. In 1929, the

Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, also known as the DL&W or Lackawanna Railroad, was a U.S. Class 1 railroad that connected Buffalo, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey, and by ferry with New York City, a distance of . The railroad was ...

, the owners of the railway at the time, spent $100 million to electrify the Morris & Essex lines. This meant that Chatham station would be electrified and would be served by electric trains, some of the first in the United States. During summer 2007, operator New Jersey Transit replaced the tracks at Chatham along with those on the rest of the Morristown Line, upgrading them to have more advanced and reliable concrete ties rather than older wooden types. The exterior of the station recently went under renovation. Some of the renovations the station received included a new paint job and a new roof.

Station layout and service

Chatham is located on New Jersey Transit's

of the

. The station receives traffic bound for and coming from both of New Jersey Transit's main terminals:

and

. Trains bound eastward toward these two nodes arrive in an alternating fashion at Chatham, so that a Hoboken bound train will be followed by a New York bound train. Service is relatively frequent, with morning

rush hour A rush hour (American English, British English) or peak hour (Australian English, Indian English) is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice e ...

trains arriving at intervals of as little as six minutes. During off-peak hours, trains heading toward each node come at hourly gaps, meaning a train arrives at Chatham almost every thirty minutes during non-rush hour times. This amount of service is only comparable to that of the

Northeast Corridor Line The Northeast Corridor Line is a commuter rail service operated by NJ Transit between the Trenton Transit Center and New York Penn Station on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor in the United States. The service is the successor to Pennsylvania Railroad ...

.Northeast Corridor Line timetable
''New Jersey Transit official site'' Retrieved 2007-08-17

Bibliography

* *

References

External links

{{Lackawanna Railroad New Jersey stations Railway stations in the United States opened in 1837 NJ Transit Rail Operations stations Former Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad stations 1837 establishments in New Jersey