Phillipsburg Union Station is an inactive railroad station in

Phillipsburg, New Jersey Phillipsburg is a town located along the Delaware River in Warren County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located across the river directly east from Easton, Pennsylvania. Phillipsburg is the most populous municipality in Warren County w ...

, United States, at 178 South Main Street. Opened in 1914, Union Station was built by the

Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (also known as the DL&W or Lackawanna Railroad) was a U.S. Class 1 railroad that connected Buffalo, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey (and by ferry with New York City), a distance of . Incorporated in ...

(DL&W) and shared with the

Central Railroad of New Jersey The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...

(CNJ) and was situated where the lines merged before the bridge crossing the

Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock (village), New York, Hancock, New York, the river flows for along the borders of N ...

. Designed by Frank J. Nies, the architect who produced many of DL&W stations now listed state and federal registers of historic places, the 2 1/2 story, 3 bay brick building is unusual example of a

union station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...

and a representation of early 20th century

Prairie style Prairie School is a late 19th- and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hip roof, hipped roofs with broad Overhang (architecture), ove ...

architecture. The Phillipsburg Union Signal Tower, or PU Tower, is nearby.

History

Situated at the confluence of the

and the

Lehigh River The Lehigh River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 tributary of the Delaware River in eastern Pennsylvania. The river flows in a generally southward pat ...

, Phillipsburg has historically been a major transportation hub. From the 1820s to 1920s, it was the western terminus of the

Morris Canal The Morris Canal (1829–1924) was a common carrier anthracite coal canal across northern New Jersey that connected the two industrial canals at Easton, Pennsylvania across the Delaware River from its western terminus at Phillipsburg, New Jers ...

, which connected it by water eastward to the

Port of New York and New Jersey The Port of New York and New Jersey is the port district of the New York-Newark metropolitan area, encompassing the region within approximately a radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. It includes the system of navigable water ...

and westward via the

Lehigh Canal The Lehigh Canal, or the Lehigh Navigation Canal, is a navigable canal that begins at the mouth of Nesquehoning Creek on the Lehigh River in eastern Pennsylvania. It was built in two sections over a span of twenty years, beginning in 1818. The low ...

across the

. Five major railroads converged in Phillipsburg: the

(CNJ), which first ran in 1852, the DL&W's

Morris and Essex Railroad The Morris and Essex Railroad was a railroad across northern New Jersey, later part of the main line of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. History The M&E was incorporated January 29, 1835, to build a line from Newark in Essex Coun ...

, the Lehigh & Hudson River Railroad (L&HR),

Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, w ...

(LVRR), and the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

's (PRR)

Belvidere Delaware Railroad The Belvidere-Delaware Railroad (Bel-Del, 1851–1871) was a railroad running along the eastern shore of the Delaware River from Trenton, New Jersey north via Phillipsburg, New Jersey to the small village of Manunka Chunk, New Jersey. It becam ...

. The South Easton and Phillipsburg Railroad of New Jersey, and the South Easton and Phillipsburg Railroad of Pennsylvania was organized on July 25, 1889 to build a bridge over the

between

Easton, Pennsylvania Easton is a city in, and the county seat of, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city's population was 28,127 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Easton is located at the confluence of the Lehigh River, a river tha ...

and Phillipsburg. The former built 460' on the New Jersey side, while the latter built 850' on the Pennsylvania side. Bridge construction began on November 19, 1889, and concluded the following year on October 2.Lehigh Valley Chapter, National Railway Historical Society; ''Railroads In the Lehigh River Valley''; 1956;1962; 1979; Pps. 37–40. Subsequently, the L&HR obtained

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may con ...

over 13 miles of the

's (PRR)

between Phillipsburg and Belvidere; once the bridge was completed, the L&HR had a continuous line from

Maybrook, New York Maybrook is a village in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 3,150 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Poughkeepsie– Newburgh– Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Ne ...

to Easton. At Easton, an interchange could be made with the

and

, while interchange with the PRR was at Phillipsburg. In 1908, L&HR lost the trackage rights from Phillipsburg to Belvidere as PRR took them back. After the 1911 opening of the Lackawanna Cut-Off, the DL&W ran services on the Phillipsburg Branch of what became known as the

Lackawanna Old Road The Lackawanna Old Road was part of the original mainline of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad (DL&W). Opened in 1856, it was for a half-century a part of the line connecting the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In 1911, the DL&W ...

. In April 1970, its successor

Erie Lackawanna Railway The Erie Lackawanna Railway , known as the Erie Lackawanna Railroad until 1968, was formed from the 1960 merger of the Erie Railroad and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. The official motto of the line was "The Friendly Service Route" ...

(EL) abandoned the line. CNJ passenger service ran until the 1960s, its final named train being the Harrisburg-Jersey City ''

Queen of the Valley The ''Queen of the Valley'' was a named train of the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) that ran between Jersey City, New Jersey, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, via the Lehigh Valley and Reading. The train took about 4 hours to traverse the ...

.'' Passenger service ended in 1970, only to resume in 1976 under

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busin ...

as part of the

Raritan Valley Line The Raritan Valley Line is a commuter rail service operated by New Jersey Transit (NJT) which serves passengers in municipalities in Union, Somerset, and Hunterdon counties in the Raritan Valley region in central New Jersey, United States. Th ...

NJ Transit New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit, and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey, along with portions of New York State and Pennsylvania. It operates bu ...

, successor to Conrail as operator, discontinued service between Phillipsburg and High Bridge on December 30, 1983. The physical connection of the Raritan Valley Line to Phillipsburg was severed in 1989. The CNJ line and bridge, owned by

, became part of Norfolk Southern's Lehigh Line.

Status, rail trail and service restoration studies

Union Station received of certificate of eligibility for listing on state and national registers of historic places from the

State Historic Preservation Office The State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) is a state governmental function created by the United States federal government in 1966 under Section 101 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). The purposes of a SHPO include surveying an ...

in November 2003 (ID#4228). The New Jersey Transportation Heritage Center operated a mini museum and information center, performed some renovations, and built a collection. The Phillipsburg Union Signal Tower, which controlled movement to the station and was taken out of service by New Jersey Transit in 1983, has also undergone some restoration. An extension of

New Jersey Transit Rail Operations NJ Transit Rail Operations is the rail division of NJ Transit. It operates commuter rail service in New Jersey, with most service centered on transportation to and from New York City, Hoboken, and Newark. NJ Transit also operates rail service i ...

from

High Bridge station High Bridge is a railway station in High Bridge, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, United States. The station is the western terminus of the New Jersey Transit's Raritan Valley Line. The next station eastward is Annandale. The parking lot for the s ...

through Glen Gardner,

Hampton Hampton may refer to: Places Australia *Hampton bioregion, an IBRA biogeographic region in Western Australia *Hampton, New South Wales *Hampton, Queensland, a town in the Toowoomba Region * Hampton, Victoria Canada * Hampton, New Brunswick *Ha ...

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

/ Bethlehem, NJ and Phillipsburg, in connection with the

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway (U.S.), Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the ...

Lehigh Line into Northampton County Pennsylvania, has been considered. In 2010, Easton Mayor Sal Panto Jr. promoted the restoration of rail service to Easton or Phillipsburg and possibly

Allentown Allentown may refer to several places in the United States and topics related to them: * Allentown, California, now called Toadtown, California * Allentown, Georgia, a town in Wilkinson County * Allentown, Illinois, an unincorporated community in T ...

or Bethlehem. Studies have also been conducted to connect the station to rail trails. The freight line, the Washington Secondary, passes the station, but is limited in what traffic it can carry due to height restrictions presented by the bridge at the station.

References

External links

NJ TRANSPORTATION HERITAGE CENTER
* *
Flicker
* * * * * {{Lackawanna Railroad New Jersey stations Former railway stations in New Jersey Former Central Railroad of New Jersey stations Former Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad stations Former NJ Transit stations Union stations in the United States Phillipsburg, New Jersey Railway stations closed in 1983 Railway stations in the United States opened in 1914 Repurposed railway stations in the United States

History

Status, rail trail and service restoration studies

See also

References

External links