The Paterson and Hudson River Railroad was a

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

that operated in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

and connected the cities of Jersey City and southeast Paterson. The railroad was started in 1833. The company was the first in the United States to build

moveable bridge A moveable bridge, or movable bridge, is a bridge that moves to allow passage for boats or barges. In American English, the term is synonymous with , and the latter is the common term, but drawbridge can be limited to the narrower, historical d ...

s for rail, crossing the Passaic River and

Hackensack River The Hackensack River is a river, approximately 45 miles (72 km) long, in the U.S. states of New York (state), New York and New Jersey, emptying into Newark Bay, a back chamber of New York Harbor. The drainage basin, watershed of the ri ...

. Originally the Paterson and Hudson River Railroad used a troop of

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...

s to pull the cars along the rails. The first steam locomotive to operate on the line was called the ''McNeil'' and manufactured by

Robert Stephenson and Company Robert Stephenson and Company was a locomotive manufacturing company founded in 1823 in Forth Street, Newcastle upon Tyne in England. It was the first company in the world created specifically to build railway engines. Famous early locomoti ...

then assembled by

Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works was a 19th-century manufacturer of railroad steam locomotives based in Paterson, in Passaic County, New Jersey, in the United States. It built more than six thousand steam locomotives for railroads around the ...

. A decade after opening, the railroad's importance increased when the Paterson and Ramapo Railroad was built connecting north Paterson to

Suffern, New York Suffern is a village that was incorporated in 1796 in the town of Ramapo in Rockland County, New York. Suffern is located 31 miles northwest of Manhattan. As of the 2010 census, Suffern's population was 10,723.New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

faster than the

New York and Erie Railroad The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in the northeastern United States, originally connecting New York City — more specifically Jersey City, New Jersey, where Erie's Pavonia Terminal, long demolished, used to stand — with Lake Erie ...

. The lines were eventually connected. In 1852, the New York and Erie Railroad leased the track rights of the P&HR and P&R and combined their lines into the "Union Railroad", which soon became the new New York and Erie Railroad mainline. Erie took ownership in 1953. The first stations west of Bergen Junction along the line included "Germantown", "Hackensack" along the

(close to the present-day

Secaucus Junction Secaucus Junction (known as Secaucus Transfer during planning stages and signed simply as Secaucus) is a NJ Transit Rail Operations commuter rail hub in Secaucus, New Jersey. The $450 million, station opened on December 15, 2003, and was ded ...

and the former

Harmon Cove station Harmon Cove is an abandoned train station in the Harmon Cove section of Secaucus, New Jersey. The station was a former stop on the Bergen County Line which runs from Hoboken Terminal to Suffern. Train service was discontinued in 2003 when Secauc ...

) and "Boiling Spring" (at the site of the present-day

Rutherford station Rutherford is a New Jersey Transit railroad station served by the Bergen County Line. The station straddles the border between Rutherford and East Rutherford in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. The station building and Hoboken Termi ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paterson Hudson River Railroad Defunct New Jersey railroads Railway companies established in 1833 Railway companies disestablished in 1852 Defunct public transport operators in the United States Predecessors of the Erie Railroad American companies established in 1833

See also

References