Pascack Valley Line

Pascack Valley Line
#4109 pushes Train #1628 out of Essex Street in Hackensack, en route to Hoboken Terminal.
Overview
Type	Commuter rail line
System	New Jersey Transit and Metro-North Railroad
Locale	North Jersey, Hudson Valley
Termini	Hoboken Terminal Spring Valley
Stations	18
Operation
Owner	New Jersey Transit
Operator(s)	New Jersey Transit
Rolling stock	F40PH-2CAT/GP40PH-2/GP40FH-2/PL42AC locomotives Comet coaches
Technical
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in)
Route map Legend Hudson River 0.0 Hoboken Terminal Hoboken Yard Bergen Tunnels Morris & Essex Lines diverge Secaucus Junction Northeast Corridor NJ Turnpike E Spur Main Line diverges 5.6 Hackensack River via HX Draw NJ Turnpike W Spur NJ Route 3 7.6 Bergen County Line diverges Carlstadt Meadowlands Rail Line diverges 9.6 Wood-Ridge Hasbrouck Heights 11.2 Teterboro Interstate 80 12.4 Essex St. Hackensack NYS&W mainline Center Street 13.5 Anderson St. Hackensack Fairmount Avenue NJ Route 4 14.7 New Bridge Landing 16.4 River Edge New Milford 17.8 Oradell 19.3 Emerson 20.5 Westwood 21.4 Hillsdale Hillsdale Manor 22.7 Woodcliff Lake 23.6 Park Ridge 24.2 Montvale New Jersey/New York border 25.4 Pearl River 27.9 Nanuet New York State Thruway 30.6 Spring Valley 31.2 Woodbine

The Pascack Valley Line is a commuter rail line operated by the Hoboken Division of New Jersey Transit. The line runs north from Hoboken, New Jersey through Bergen County and into Rockland County, New York, terminating at Spring Valley. Service within New York is operated under contract with Metro-North Railroad. The line is named for the Pascack Valley region that it passes through in northern Bergen County. The line parallels the Pascack Brook for some distance.

The line is colored purple on system maps, and its symbol is a pine tree.

Current operations

The Pascack Valley Line runs between Spring Valley, New York and Hoboken Terminal. The line is 31 miles (50 km) long, of which the northernmost 6 miles (9.7 km) are in New York State. The entire line is owned by NJ Transit, but the Pearl River and Nanuet Stations are leased to Metro-North Railroad. Metro-North Railroad owns the Spring Valley station. The line is single tracked, but sidings at points along the line, including the Meadowlands, Hackensack and Nanuet permit bidirectional service on the line. A siding in Oradell was also planned for increased service and reliability, but the project was halted due to local opposition. Service on this line operates seven days a week.

History

The line was originally chartered as the Hackensack and New York Railroad in 1856. It later became the New Jersey and New York Railroad, which was bought by the Erie Railroad in 1896. The New Jersey and New York Railroad 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 NJ Transit Rail Operations.

The line used to continue north of Spring Valley to Haverstraw, New York. This portion of the line has been abandoned and most of the right-of-way has been sold off. Part of the line (between Spring Valley and Nanuet) was once part of the main Erie Railroad line from Piermont, New York to Buffalo, New York.

Rolling stock

All service on this line is diesel, using either GP40PH-2s built in 1968 for the Central Railroad of New Jersey or EMD F40PH locomotives. These either have been or soon will be refurbished. Modern Alstom PL42ACs are also in use, and Comet series passenger cars are used on this line.

Source

• The Pascack Valley Line: A History of the New Jersey and New York Railroad, Wilson E. Jones; ISBN 0-941652-14-9

External links

• Pascack Valley Line History
• Some additional history