# Why was the old boonton line closed?



## Nexis4Jersey (May 27, 2011)

Why was it , the line itself passes through Urban areas.....ridership couldn't be that low. Was it a shortsighted move? The Montclair connected adds to the commute instead of making it faster. I know it was before NJT got serious about Transit Villages becuz the line itself is ripe for that. I know there trying to convert it to Light Rail or restore it to back to commuter rail , idk which one i'm for both are good. Its unlikely that the full line will be converted Trail due to NS wanting to keep it open for Transportation.


----------



## AlanB (May 27, 2011)

Multiple reasons really, although simply being shortsighted was one of them too. There were some who argued for leaving the line active and providing multiple choices.

Reasons however included lower ridership than other lines and the lowest ridership on the segment closed, lack of a one seat ride to NY, missing Secaucus Junction, and perhaps the biggest was needing to spend Millions to fix the bridge right on the Newark/Belleville line over the Passaic River.

By the way, the Newark Light rail line (the original line) does join with the old Boonton line for a short distance and then takes an old short branch ROW off the main line to reach its terminumus in Bloomfield near Bloomfield Avenue. So it wouldn't all that hard to restore service to some of the old Boonton line stations by splitting the existing LRT service and running on the old ROW to Montclair. Of course that also takes money & vision.


----------



## reefgeek (May 27, 2011)

AlanB said:


> perhaps the biggest was needing to spend Millions to fix the bridge right on the Newark/Belleville line over the Passaic River.


That's what I remember being the biggest "decider."



AlanB said:


> By the way, the Newark Light rail line (the original line) does join with the old Boonton line for a short distance and then takes an old short branch ROW off the main line to reach its terminumus in Bloomfield near Bloomfield Avenue. So it wouldn't all that hard to restore service to some of the old Boonton line stations by splitting the existing LRT service and running on the old ROW to Montclair. Of course that also takes money & vision.


That would be brilliant! Has there been ANY discussion of this?


----------



## AlanB (May 27, 2011)

reefgeek said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > By the way, the Newark Light rail line (the original line) does join with the old Boonton line for a short distance and then takes an old short branch ROW off the main line to reach its terminumus in Bloomfield near Bloomfield Avenue. So it wouldn't all that hard to restore service to some of the old Boonton line stations by splitting the existing LRT service and running on the old ROW to Montclair. Of course that also takes money & vision.
> ...


Not that I'm aware of, but then I'm a bit more removed from the situation since I moved to Queens from Belleville over 20 years ago.

Perhaps Jishnu or GML has heard something as they're more in the thick of things back in NJ.


----------



## jis (May 30, 2011)

AlanB said:


> reefgeek said:
> 
> 
> > AlanB said:
> ...


Actually the Newark Light Rail does not join the Boonton Line at any point. It joins the Bellville Industrial Track which comes off of what used to be the Boonton Line. To get to the Boonton Line from Newark LRT coming from Newark, you'd have to make a backup move along the Bellville Industrial Track onto the Boonton Line and then move forward again to head towards Montclair.

And no, there are no plans to do anything like running LRT on that line yet, not that segment anyway.

BTW, the real problematic bridge was the Hackensack River Bridge, with the Passaic River Bridge coming in a second.  The Hackensack River Bridge sits disused in the open position at present.


----------



## AlanB (May 31, 2011)

jis said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > reefgeek said:
> ...


You're quite right and I can even picture exactly where that Industrial track comes off the Boonton line now; just past Union Street in Belleville which turns to Mt. Prospect in Newark. But somehow I couldn't remember that the other day when I wrote that post. 

And I've only driven under both bridges a few hundred times on Franklin Avenue, where they're separated by maybe a mile, if that. In fact, I drove under the Boonton line bridge on Franklin every day going to college in Newark, parked in a lot near what was the end of the Newark Subway and then walked under the Industrial bridge.



jis said:


> BTW, the real problematic bridge was the Hackensack River Bridge, with the Passaic River Bridge coming in a second.  The Hackensack River Bridge sits disused in the open position at present.


Interesting, I had always heard that it was the Newark bridge that was in worse shape.

And yes, the Hack bridge is now left open, you can even see it from the NEC just after leaving Secaucus Junction on the way to Newark. But from what I recall they leave it open not because of problems, but because they don't want to pay people to sit there and open the bridge when ships need to go by. Especially since there is no traffic on the rail line anymore.

While I don't believe that NS has yet filed to abandon the line, they did file to discontinue service on the line in 2004 citing no customers asking for deliveries in over 2 years.


----------

