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From: "Paul R DOT Tupaczewski" paultup AT optonline DOT net
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 16:33:49 -0500
Subject: Boonton Line East End Discovery Day - REPORT
"Newark_Branch_looking_south.jpg" - image/jpeg, 224737 bytes, 768x1024 (24bit)

Well, the Discovery Day yesterday turned out to be great! The weather
was sunny (but ferociously windy and cold!)

Our intrepid group met at the site of the former Erie Forest Hill
station, at "OJ" (the junction with the Orange Branch. Our group of
adventurers :) included my wife (she's as warped as I am, I suppose ;),
Matt Klemchalk, Tom Schmieder, George Tomczyk, Steve Wencil, Bob
Fischer, and Stan Sweatt, who gets the distance award (he flew out from
Huntington Beach, CA with his wife!). We were very fortunate to have Bob
along on this little tour, since he hired out on the Erie and worked the
Greenwood Lake Branch drills for a good part of his Erie/EL career. Bob
is a treasure trove of knowledge on this line, and was quick to point
out where all the consignees were located, who they were, and what they
shipped. We are all indebted to Bob for his excellent insights!

We started our hike right at the station site, and noted that the
westbound rails were rusty, while the eastbound rails seemed recently
polished. This struck us as odd, considering the "new connection" to
allow freights to continue to venture down this portion of the Boonton
Line is to the WESTBOUND main. Bob surmises that the crews must use the
crossover at Belwood Park to get to the eastbound track. I thought that
was an odd thing to do, considering there's a crossover right here at
OJ, but after some hiking, it the reason became apparent: About 2
carlenghts east of the crossover, BOTH mains had one of their rails
turned over and ties places across the tracks prohibiting any further
eastbound movement :( A sad sight.

One of the other things that Tom pointed out was the sight of many
broken coconut shells, scattered all along the tracks. Bob immediately
picked up on this and noted that while on the EL, the crews would often
see items like this, plus chickens with broken necks and plates with
coins in them. He said it's apparently a ritual of some of the folks in
the area. Very freaky!

Continuing east, we crossed Mt. Pleasant Avenue and were between two
industrial areas. The buildings were primarily abandoned, and the former
sidings along each main were long gone. Crossing Summer Avenue, we hit
upon the old Pantasote factory (which was another consignee prior to
that owner, name escapes me), which is now a Superfund site (sigh!). The
North Newark yard site was fairly well obliterated, but the LCL platform
was still there, decaying. One of the far yard tracks was visible under
some dirt, but everything else was long gone. Moving on, we found the
base of a former transmission tower right next to the station platform.
The station was obviously pretty nice once, as the entrance staircase
appeared to be nicely landscaped, once upon a time.

Proceeding east, we crossed over a ballasted deck (!) Erie
through-girder bridge over a street. I've never seen an Erie BALLASTED
deck bridge like this before, and it was pretty interesting! We then
crossed over the bridge over the former Newark Branch, then rounded a
curve to another bridge over another street, and then WR Drawbridge over
the Passaic River. Approaching WR, you can see that it is in a "dip",
with the tracks coming down to it from either side. On the other side of
WR, we found the site of the old tower/waiting room (see before/after
pictures), and Tom found another odd "ritual" type item - a plate with
something that looks like bread or a breaded piece of chicken, some
coins, and an empty Mexican beer, all in the gauge of the tracks. Like I
said, WEIRD!

From this point, the tracks climb towards Arlington in a very deep cut.
With the absence of train traffic, the autumn leaves really started to
cover the ties here. There's even a small tree across the westbound
track at this point! The deep cut is bridged by a street, and several
water pipelines high up. Oddly, there were two "platforms" on either
side of the fill (see photos), braced by some I-beams, but whose purpose
was a mystery to us.

After the cut, we got to Arlington station. NJT wasted no time here
after the abandonment; the bus-stop-style shelter and schedule boards
were all removed. Another odd thing: All the signals on this line were
still active, most showing red boards in both directions, but the
eastbound signal here showed a blinking yellow (I assume the Newark
Branch interlocking up ahead was set for the branch?). A little creepy,
knowing that there was no physical way for an eastbound to be coming
here at that time!

We turned around and walked back to Forest Hill, taking in what we had
just seen again. On the return trip, we got a good look at the
rollercoaster profile of the NY&GL here - it's a pretty steady climb
west from WR, with the track briefly leveling off for the North Newark
station, and leveling off again just west of Forest Hill. All in all, a
good 3 hour hike, and I think we all certainly learned a lot more about
operations on this part of the line (particularly the operationally-rich
North Newark area), thanks to Bob.

Check out the attached photos by clicking on the link at the top of this
message. Note two "before and after" shots (they have "before" and
"after" in their titles).

The group photo show (from left to right) Stan Sweatt, Gina Tupaczewski,
Tom Schmieder, Bob Fischer, Steve Wencil, Matt Klemchalk and George
Tomczyk.

- Paul


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