The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central, Jersey Central Lines or New Jersey Central , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of the northeastern United States.

The CNJ's main line had a major presence in New Jersey. Most of the main line is now used by the Raritan Valley Line passenger service. CNJ main line trackage in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, became part of the Lehigh Line under Conrail.

History

19th century

thumb|CNJ's [[Liberty Street Ferry Terminal in New York City, ]]

thumb|A 1915 CNJ advertisement for service from New York City to [[Philadelphia]]

The earliest railroad ancestor of the CNJ was the Elizabethtown & Somerville Railroad, incorporated in 1831 and opened from Elizabethport to Elizabeth, New Jersey, in 1836. Horses gave way to steam in 1839, and the railroad was extended west, reaching Somerville at the beginning of 1842. The Somerville and Easton Railroad was incorporated in 1847 and began building westward. Originally laid to a track gauge of , it was changed to standard gauge in 1847.

In 1849, it purchased the Elizabethtown & Somerville and adopted a new name: Central Railroad Company of New Jersey. The line reached Phillipsburg, on the east bank of the Delaware River, in 1852. It was extended east across Newark Bay to Jersey City in 1864, and it gradually acquired branches to Flemington, Newark, Perth Amboy, Chester, and Wharton.

The New Jersey Southern (NJS) began construction in 1860 at Port Monmouth. The railroad worked its way southwest across lower New Jersey and reached Bayside, New Jersey, on the Delaware River west of Bridgeton, New Jersey in 1871. The NJS came under control of the CNJ in 1879. CNJ's influence briefly extended across the Delaware River in the form of the Baltimore & Delaware Bay Railroad, from Bombay Hook, Delaware, east of Townsend, to Chestertown, Maryland. That line became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) family in 1901.

20th century

thumb|CNJ train at [[Plainfield station in 1910]]

In 1901, the Reading Company (RDG), successor to the Philadelphia & Reading, acquired control of the CNJ through purchase of a majority of its stock, and at about the same time Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) acquired control of the RDG, gaining access to New York over RDG and CNJ rails.

In 1929, CNJ inaugurated the Blue Comet, a deluxe coach train operating twice daily between Jersey City and Atlantic City. It was painted blue from the pilot of its 4-6-2 to the rear bulkhead of its observation car, and its refurbished cars offered a level of comfort much higher than the usual day coach of the era. The train was the forerunner of the coach streamliners that blossomed nationwide in the late 1930s and the 1940s. It succumbed to automobile competition in 1941. Also in 1929 CNJ purchased a 30 percent interest in the Raritan River Railroad, a 12-mile (19 km) short line from South Amboy to New Brunswick. In 1931 it acquired total ownership of the Wharton & Northern Railroad and a partial interest in the Mount Hope Mineral Railroad from Warren Foundry & Pipe Corporation.

From Elizabethport, trains went to different corridors. One headed towards Elizabeth and Plainfield and points west and southwest. The second went south towards Perth Amboy and today's North Jersey Coast Line and different southern New Jersey destinations. CNJ operated several trains into Pennsylvania and other points west or south, in association with the RDG. B&O also used CNJ tracks for the final approach to Jersey City.

Portions still operated

  • Aldene-High Bridge (Main Line): New Jersey Transit (NJT) Raritan Valley Line
  • Jersey City-Bayonne (Main Line and Newark and New York Branch): NJT Hudson-Bergen Light Rail
  • Perth Amboy-Bay Head: NJT North Jersey Coast Line
  • Elizabethport-Aldene; Elizabethport-Perth Amboy; Red Bank-Lakehurst: Conrail Shared Assets Operations
  • Lakehurst-Woodmansie: Cape May Seashore Lines
  • Winslow Junction – Vineland, NJ: Southern Railroad of New Jersey – Mostly abandoned, sporadically paved over, buried, and or removed between Williamstown and Vineland, NJ following damaged sustained to the line in 2003. Remnant of CNJ Southern Division Main line.
  • Dover & Rockaway Branch (Wharton-Rockaway); High Bridge Branch (Kenvil-Flanders): Morristown & Erie Railway
  • White Haven PA – Laurel Run PA: Reading Blue Mountain and Northern – remnant of the joint operation with the Lehigh Valley post-1965
  • Vineland – Bridgeton, NJ: Winchester and Western Railroad – Remnant of CNJ Southern Division Main line.
  • Bridgeton – Port Norris, NJ :: Winchester and Western Railroad – Bridgeton – Bivalve, NJ branch line torn up East of Whitehead Rd, in Port Norris, remainder operational.

<gallery mode="packed" heights="150">

File:CRRNJ Terminal, Liberty State Park, Jersey City NJ.jpg|Communipaw Terminal, Jersey City

File:CRR NJ back.JPG|Communipaw Terminal, rear

File:New York City Railroads ca 1900.png|Map of CNJ and other terminals in New York region, circa 1900

File:CRR NJ signs10.JPG|Reproduction of a tablet designator for the Blue Comet

File:Camelback.jpg|CNJ camelback locomotive built by Baldwin in 1912.

File:Elizabeth, NJ-1.jpg|Elizabeth Station

File:CRRNJ Newark Lafayette Broad jeh.jpg|Broad Street station, Newark

</gallery>

Predecessor railroads

  • Buena Vista Railroad
  • Carteret & Sewaren Railroad
  • Carteret Extension Railroad
  • Cumberland & Maurice River Railroad
  • Cumberland & Maurice River Extension Railroad
  • Elizabeth Extension Railroad
  • Freehold & Atlantic Highlands Railroad
  • Lafayette Railroad
  • Manufacturers' Extension Railroad
  • Middle Brook Railroad
  • New Jersey Terminal Railroad
  • New Jersey Southern Railroad
  • Navesink Railroad
  • Passaic River Extension Railroad
  • Raritan North Shore Railroad
  • Sound Shore Railroad
  • Toms River Railroad
  • Toms River & Barnegat Railroad
  • Vineland Railroad
  • Vineland Branch Railway
  • West Side Connecting Railroad
  • West End Railroad

Named passenger trains

CNJ operated several named trains, most of which were interstate operations:

  • Blue Comet: Jersey City, New Jersey-Atlantic City, New Jersey
  • Bullet: Jersey City-Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania via Allentown, Pennsylvania
  • Crusader: Jersey City-Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (with RDG)
  • Interstate Express: Syracuse, New York-Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (with the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad and RDG)
  • Mermaid: Sandy Hook, New Jersey-Scranton, Pennsylvania
  • Queen of the Valley: Jersey City-Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (with RDG)
  • Wall Street: Jersey City-Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (with RDG)
  • Williamsporter: Jersey City, New Jersey-Williamsport, Pennsylvania

Several non-CNJ trains operated over CNJ trackage north of Bound Brook, New Jersey to the Jersey City terminal:

  • Capitol Limited: Jersey City, New Jersey-Chicago, Illinois (B&O)
  • National Limited: Jersey City, New Jersey-St. Louis, Missouri (B&O)
  • Royal Blue: Jersey City, New Jersey-Washington, D.C. (B&O)

Heritage units

thumb | 220x124px | right | GP40PH-2 4109 enters Maplewood Station

To celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2012, Norfolk Southern painted 20 new locomotives with predecessor schemes. NS #1071, an EMD SD70ACe locomotive, was painted with the CNJ orange and blue.

In 2019, NJ Transit painted locomotive 4109 in a heritage scheme based on that of the CNJ GP40P.

See also

  • Central Railroad of Pennsylvania
  • SS Asbury Park, a crack coastal steamer built for the CNJ in 1903, and subsequently rebuilt and operated as a car ferry in San Francisco Bay (1919 to 1940), Puget Sound (1943 to 1951), and the Strait of Georgia (1952 to 1976)

References

Further reading

  • "Bronx Terminal and Railroad, Central Railroad of New Jersey" by Philip M. Goldstein