History of Commuter Rail Service Divestiture by Conrail

[jis]

I believe and someone can correct me if I'm wrong but even after the Aldene Plan the Central Railway of New Jersey still ran a commuter service to Bayone, NJ. But even though I've read about it I can't find any reference in the Official Guide from 1970 about it and I think it lasted up until the mid to late 70s.

The so called "Bayonne Scoot" ran till some time in 1978. It was an RDC service between Bayonne and Cranford. It ran across the Newark Bay Drawbridge, which was taken out of service soon thereafter and dismantled by 1982.

Given that Conrail took over CNJ in 1976, it would appear that the Bayonne Scoot ran under Conrail for the last two years. Eventually of course NJTransit took over all passenger operation from Conrail within NJ that was not already under Amtrak.

Incidentally the CNJ trackage between Aldene and Elizabethport remained in operation to provide access to the CNJ Elizabethport Shops that continued to be used by NJT. That finally ended when the Meadows Maintenance Complex came on line in 1992 and all NJT maintenance and major storage was consolidated there, thus rendering Elizabethport redundant and thus shut down. Most of the Elizabethport Shops buildings were demolished, but a few including the 1901 locomotive shops survived. Incidentally the CNJ Mainline ROW at least upto Elizabethport was apparently placed on the National Historic Register in 1995, thus saving it from encroachment by real estate development and preserving it for possible future use.

The CNJ ROW from Bayonne to CNJ Jersey City Terminal (now Liberty State Park) is substantially used by the HBLRT system today. HBLRT then continues on a mix of exclusive and shared with roads routing to Exchange Place, Pavonia and then on to Hoboken Terminal and beyond to its northern terminus at Tonnelle Ave, soon to be extended into Bergen County.

 

[dlagrua]

It appears that commuter rail is ready for expansion. I would not be surprised if service across Central NJ in the next few years is again extended by NJT to Phillipsburgh on the Western end. This leads me to my next question. What is the crossover point between commuter and regional rail? Commuter rail now reaches out to the suburbs, in some case 100 miles from the big cities. We can guess that "intercity rail"is what Amtrak wants to go after but the states and/or private industry ( as in Florida , Texas and California) may go after it as well. Amtrak serves a need for a National Network and I believe that it should stay that way.

 

[jis]

It appears that commuter rail is ready for expansion. I would not be surprised if service across Central NJ in the next few years is again extended by NJT to Phillipsburgh on the Western end. This leads me to my next question. What is the crossover point between commuter and regional rail? Commuter rail now reaches out to the suburbs, in some case 100 miles from the big cities. We can guess that "intercity rail"is what Amtrak wants to go after but the states and/or private industry ( as in Florida , Texas and California) may go after it as well. Amtrak serves a need for a National Network and I believe that it should stay that way.

Why bring Amtrak into a thread where we are trying to concentrate on discussing the History of PC and Conrail and divestiture of Commuter Rail service from it. Aren't there other places where Amtrak and National Network can be discussed? Or better still could you not start your own thread to discuss the admittedly interesting issue brought up instead of planting Amtrak in the middle of a thread focused on a specific subject?