The Edgewater Branch was a branch of the

New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway The New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway (or New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad and also known as the Susie-Q or the Susquehanna) is a Class II American freight railway operating over 400 miles (645 km) of track in th ...

(NYS&W) that ran about through eastern Bergen County, New Jersey in the United States. Starting from a

rail junction A junction, in the context of rail transport, is a place at which two or more rail routes converge or diverge. This implies a physical connection between the tracks of the two routes (assuming they are of the same gauge), provided by ''points'' ( ...

at the

Little Ferry Yard Little Ferry Yard is a railyard and intermodal terminal in the Port of New York and New Jersey served by the CSX River Subdivision (CSXT), New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway (NYSW), Norfolk Southern Railway and Conrail Shared Assets Operati ...

(in Ridgefield), it went east through the

Edgewater Tunnel The Edgewater Branch was a branch of the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway (NYS&W) that ran about through eastern Bergen County, New Jersey in the United States. Starting from a rail junction at the Little Ferry Yard (in Ridgefield), it ...

to Undercliff (as Edgewater was once known) to the

Hudson Waterfront The Hudson Waterfront is an urban area of northeastern New Jersey along the lower reaches of the Hudson River, the Upper New York Bay and the Kill van Kull. Though the term can specifically mean the shoreline, it is often used to mean the contigu ...

History

The New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway handled passenger and freight traffic from the

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

region in the

Lackawanna Valley The Lackawanna River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed August 8, 2011 tributary of the Susquehanna River in Northeastern Pennsylvania. It flows through a region of t ...

in and around

Scranton, Pennsylvania Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 U.S. census, Scranton is the largest city in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Wyoming V ...

through northern New Jersey. While it had a line running along the foot of the western slope of

Hudson Palisades The Palisades, also called the New Jersey Palisades or the Hudson River Palisades, are a line of steep cliffs along the west side of the lower Hudson River in Northeastern New Jersey and Southeastern New York in the United States. The cliffs s ...

that terminated in

Jersey City Jersey City is the second-most populous city (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark, New Jersey, Newark.

north of Marion Junction it owned no

right of way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

through

Bergen Hill Bergen Hill refers to the lower Hudson Palisades in New Jersey, where they emerge on Bergen Neck, which in turn is the peninsula between the Hackensack and Hudson Rivers, and their bays. In Hudson County, it reaches a height of 260 feet. Rail ...

. The railroad paid substantial fees to both the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

(PRR) (for passenger trains) and the

Delaware, Lackawanna and Western 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 . Incorporated in ...

(DL&W) (for freight service) to use their lines to terminals on the North River. The Hudson River Railroad and Terminal Company was incorporated as a New York Susquehanna and Western Railway subsidiary in 1892. The NYSW developed a terminal on what had once been a coal yard for oceangoing ships along the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...

shore. At the time the

Erie Railroad The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in the northeastern United States, originally connecting New York City — more specifically Jersey City, New Jersey, where Erie's Pavonia Terminal, long demolished, used to stand — with Lake ...

held a controlling interest in the line. In 1907, Erie Terminals Railroad took control of the Edgewater and Fort Lee Railroad which ran to the

Hudson County Hudson County is the most densely populated county in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It lies west of the lower Hudson River, which was named for Henry Hudson, the sea captain who explored the area in 1609. Part of New Jersey's Gateway Region in ...

line and connected with the

New Jersey Shore Line Railroad The New Jersey Shore Line Railroad was part of the New York Central Railroad and ran along the Hudson River in New Jersey, from the West Shore Railroad (NYCRR) yards at Guttenberg, New Jersey, Guttenberg north to the Erie Terminals Railroad at t ...

, eventually becoming part of a Belt Line along the shore. Extensive

railyard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or ...

s and

car float A railroad car float or rail barge is a specialised form of lighter with railway tracks mounted on its deck used to move rolling stock across water obstacles, or to locations they could not otherwise go. An unpowered barge, it is towed by a ...

operations supported the development of industries which dominated the shoreline for much of the 20th century. Among them were Alcoa Aluminum,

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobiles ...

Lever Brothers Lever Brothers was a British manufacturing company founded in 1885 by two brothers: William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925), and James Darcy Lever (1854–1916). They invested in and successfully promoted a new soap-making p ...

Valvoline Valvoline Inc. is an American manufacturer and distributor of Valvoline-brand automotive oil, additives, and lubricants. It also owns the Valvoline Instant Oil Change and Valvoline Express Care chains of car repair centers. , it is the second ...

Oil Company, and

Archer-Daniels-Midland The Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, commonly known as ADM, is an American multinational food processing and commodities trading corporation founded in 1902 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The company operates more than 270 plants and 42 ...

. Eventually the factories closed as industry globalized, facilities became obsolete, and shipping in the

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as ...

shifted to trucking and containerization. The closure of Ford's Edgewater Assembly Plant in 1955 saw the loss of one of the line's biggest clients.

Edgewater Tunnel

The Edgewater Tunnel is a former railroad tunnel through

, the

. Originally opened in 1894, it was built to gain access to the Hudson River waterfront. About underground and about long, its western

cut Cut may refer to: Common uses * The act of cutting, the separation of an object into two through acutely-directed force ** A type of wound ** Cut (archaeology), a hole dug in the past ** Cut (clothing), the style or shape of a garment ** Cut (ea ...

and

portal Portal often refers to: *Portal (architecture), an opening in a wall of a building, gate or fortification, or the extremities (ends) of a tunnel Portal may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Gaming * ''Portal'' (series), two video games ...

is located in the Fairview Cemetery in

Fairview Fairview may refer to: Places Canada * Fairview, Alberta (disambiguation) * Fairview, British Columbia * Fairview, Nova Scotia * Fairview, Kenyon Township, North Glengarry, Ontario * Fairview, Vancouver, British Columbia New Zealand * Fairview, ...

and the eastern portal is located in Edgewater. The right-of-way was removed from service in about 1992 and the track was removed shortly thereafter. A

pipeline Pipeline may refer to: Electronics, computers and computing * Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on ** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...

now runs through the tunnel between

Hess Hess or Heß may refer to: * Hess (surname), also ''Heß'' in German, people with the surname Hess * Hess, Oklahoma, a community in the United States * Hess Educational Organization, the largest private provider of English instruction in the Rep ...

facilities in Bogota and Edgewater. A power cable, part of the

Hudson Project The Hudson Project is a 345 kV AC powerline for the power supply of New York City from PSEG's Bergen Generating Station, in Ridgefield, New Jersey. It was laid by Anbaric Development Partners. Overview It consists of a HVDC back-to-back station ...

, running from a

Bergen Generating Station Bergen Generating Station is a gas-fired power plant owned and operated by Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G).http://www.pjm.com/pub/planning/project-queues/facilities/a05_fac.pdf It located on the banks of Overpeck Creek near its ...

substation through the tunnel and under the Hudson to

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildin ...

, was completed in 2013.

Status

The

branch line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industr ...

remains in partial use between Undercliff Junction in Ridgefield and the bridge at US Route 1/9 in Fairview east of Route 1/9, but trackage through the cut and tunnel was removed in October 1992. The right-of-way itself has not been

abandoned Abandon, abandoned, or abandonment may refer to: Common uses * Abandonment (emotional), a subjective emotional state in which people feel undesired, left behind, insecure, or discarded * Abandonment (legal), a legal term regarding property ** Chi ...

. During the 1980s and early 1990s, planners and government officials realized that alternative transportation systems needed to be put in place to relieve increasing congestion along the

It was decided that the most efficient and cost-effective system to meet the growing demands of the area would be a light rail system. When a new transportation network was proposed, it was suggested that the tunnel be used for what became the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, but that idea was ultimately rejected in favor of the

Weehawken Tunnel Weehawken is a township in the northern part of Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located largely on the Hudson Palisades overlooking the Hudson River. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 17,197.

. The Hudson Waterfront/River Road corridor has seen extensive residential and commercial development and subsequent congestion since that time, and further studies of a more comprehensive transportation strategy have been conducted. A station along the line at the

Vince Lombardi Park & Ride The Vince Lombardi Park & Ride is located on the New Jersey Turnpike in the Meadowlands in Ridgefield, Bergen County, New Jersey. The park and ride and separate service area to south of it are dedicated to and named after Vince Lombardi. Locat ...

is part of the proposed

Passaic–Bergen–Hudson Transit Project The Passaic–Bergen–Hudson Transit Project is a project under study by NJ Transit to reintroduce passenger service on a portion of the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway (NYSW) right-of-way (ROW) in Passaic, Bergen and Hudson counties c ...

Notes

References

* * * * * * {{cite book , last=Tupaczewski , first=Paul R. , title=New York, Susquehanna and Western in color , location=Scotch Plains, NJ , publisher=Morning Sun Books , year=2002 , isbn=1-5824-8070-2

External links