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The Next Station Will be Vol 3 Erie Greenwood Lake Division Orange Caldwell Bran
The Next Station Will be Vol 3 Erie Greenwood Lake Division Orange Branch Caldwell Branch An Album of photographs of Railroad depots in 1910 Railroadians of America 1975
Midway in the Railroadian "The Next Station Will Be . . ." series comes the New York and Greenwood Lake Railway. This road was sparked in 1867 by Julius Pratt of Montclair and completed for its slightly over 40-mile length to the New York state line in 1874 as the Montclair Railway Company. It was operated with four "American" type locomotives - two built by Danforth-Cooke and two by Rogers. The Montclair's bonds were guaranteed by the New York and Oswego Midland. The latter line controlled the New Jersey Midland (Susquehanna), which arrangement allowed the Montclair access to the Pennsylvania's Jersey City terminal to which the Midland operated. The hard times of the 1870's brought down the Oswego Midland in 1873 and the New Jersey Midland two years after. The Montclair line was sold in foreclosure too, and reorganized as the Montclair and Greenwood Lake in October 1876. A year later, it went under again, reappearing as the New York and Greenwood Lake Railway Company in October 1878. In this guise its stock control was taken by the New York, Lake Erie & Western, and its Hudson River terminal operations switched to the Erie's Jersey City station.
The Greenwood Lake slowly upgraded its right of way and its trains ran regularly, using Erie motive power and rolling stock for the most part, but its finances continued hand-to-mouth. Its accumulated deficit at the end of fiscal 189495 was $270,000. The Erie came out of one of its reorganizations at this time and a 999-year lease was negotiated for the Greenwood Lake effective May 1, 1896, ending the short line's separate financial reporting.
When the photographer, J. E. Bailey, preserved the Erie's stations for posterity on his glass plates in 1909-10, the Greenwood Lake's route mileage was 53.3, of which the main line totalled 40.9. Its junction with the Erie proper was Croxton, near the west portal of the Bergen Tunnel, less than 2.5 miles from "0" Mile Post in Jersey City.
Its commuter branches were the Watchung Railroad, four miles built in 1880 to serve the Oranges, and the 4.5 mile Caldwell Railway, opened in 1891. The Roseland Railway extended the Caldwell line just about a mile to Essex Fells and connected with the Morristown and Erie. To the north the last few miles of the main line skirted the eastern shore of Greenwood Lake to the end of track at Sterling Forest on the New Jersey-New York border from where steamboats served the settlements and resort communities on both sides of the long, narrow lake. Much of the road's freight traffic passed over the line's entire length. Natural ice which regenerated itself rapidly in the area's cold winters was cut from the lake and shipped to the metropolitan area. Iron ore from the Cooper and Hewitt mines at Ringwood moved south, starting its trip on the 2.8 mile branch that joined the main line thirteen miles below its Greenwood Lake terminal.
As there are no published figures, whether the Greenwood Lake was making money at this time is a moot point. However, its guardian, the Erie, was prospering with a system net operating income of $1.5 million for the year ending June 30, 1910. And it will be noted in these hitherto unreproduced pictures that the track is in generally good condition and the stations appear well maintained.
Twenty-five years later there was no question of the turn in the Greenwood Lake's fortunes. Mechanical refrigeration had doomed the ice business and the iron ore could no longer be extracted and processed economically. The last passenger train north of Midvale ran in 1939. There was interest in reopening the mines during the second World War, but nothing came of it. The merger of the Erie and the Lackawanna in 1960 and the removal of the Boonton line from around Garrett Mountain to provide a roadbed for Interstate 80 affected the Greenwood Lake. Now, the latter's track extends only to Pompton Junction to serve a stone and gravel operation. There no longer are true Greenwood Lake line passenger trains. Instead, its morning and evening commuter service combines its own runs east of Mountain View with those on the remaining trackage of the Boonton line to the west. And, of course, Hoboken is now the Hudson River terminal.
The latter brings up an interesting puzzle on which to close this sketch. The Montclair Railway Company was planned and built to offer the Lackawanna's Morris and Essex some competition. All published directories show the Montclair's eastern terminus as Jersey City. Yet, its Employees' Timetable No. 1, dated January 1, 1872, and showing two Midvale trains daily in each direction, carries as its Hudson River depot the Lackawanna Station at Hoboken! Was this merely an error or did the New York and Greenwood Lake's forerunner actually operate from Hoboken, for how long, and under what circumstances?
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