Pearl River station in Pearl River, New York in 1910.
(Southeastern New York Library Resources Council, Highland, NY, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
NEW JERSEY AND NEW YORK RAILROAD
The New Jersey and New York Railroad (NJ&NY) was a railroad company that operated north from Rutherford, New Jersey, to Haverstraw, New York beginning in the mid-to-late 19th century.
History
The line was originally chartered as the Hackensack and New York Railroad (H&NY) in 1856. The H&NY would eventually run from Rutherford to Hackensack, New Jersey. In 1866 under the leadership of David P. Patterson the company was chartered as the Hackensack and New York Extension Railroad and it extended its line north of Hackensack. It later reorganized as the New Jersey and New York Railroad. The line reached the town of Hillsdale, New Jersey, by 1870, the village of West Haverstraw by 1873, and the village of Haverstraw by 1887.
The NJ&NY was leased for 99 years by the Erie Railroad in 1896. The NJ&NY continued to exist as an Erie subsidiary until the 1960 merger that created the Erie Lackawanna Railroad. In 1976, the Erie Lackawanna was merged with several other railroads to create Conrail. In 1983, after several years under operation by Conrail, operations of the Pascack Valley Line were transferred to New Jersey Transit Rail Operations. The segments of the two former railroad lines in New York – north of Spring Valley to Haverstraw and north of Nanuet to New City – are no longer in service.
In 1956, NJ&NY reported 4.4 million net ton-miles of revenue freight and 21 million passenger-miles on 39 miles of railroad.
Stations
A typical New Jersey and New York Railroad station in the 1900s or 1910s featured a gable or hip roof and often had board and batten siding. The larger and more elaborate station at Hillsdale served as the company headquarters and was built in a mixture of the Second Empire and Stick-Eastlake architectural styles.
Photographs of stations along the New Jersey and New York Railroad line include:
Essex Street station in Hackensack, New Jersey in 1907. (Maywood Station, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
The Hillsdale station house (1872) was the company headquarters. (J, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Anderson Street station in Hackensack, New Jersey in 1910. (Hackensack now, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Fairmount Depot in Hackensack, New Jersey in 1911. (Maywood Station, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Overview
Headquarters: Hillsdale, New Jersey, U.S.
Locale: Bergen County, New Jersey & Rockland County, New York
Dates of operation: 1896
Predecessor: Hackensack and New York Extension Railroad
Successor: Erie Railroad
Technical
Track gauge: 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
