The Roselle and South Plainfield Railway was a railroad built by the
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) in 1888 to connect the LVRR's
Easton and Amboy Railroad
Easton and Amboy Railroad was a railroad built across central New Jersey by the Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR) in the 1870s. The line was built to connect the Lehigh Valley Railroad coal hauling operations in Pennsylvania with the Port of New York ...
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
waterfront in
Jersey City
Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.Perth Amboy when it built the Easton and Amboy in the 1870s, but it desired a terminal on the Hudson River close to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
The LVRR strove throughout the 1880s to acquire a route to the Jersey City waterfront. The first leg of that project was the Roselle and South Plainfied. Initially, the LVRR contracted with the CNJ for rights from Roselle to Jersey City, but the LVRR eventually constructed its own route to its terminal in Jersey City over the
Newark and Roselle Railway
The Newark and Roselle Railway was incorporated on Aug 28, 1889 by the Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR) to advance tracks from the terminus of the Roselle and South Plainfield Railway at Roselle, New Jersey to Pennsylvania Avenue in Newark. It for ...
, the
Newark and Passaic Railway
The Newark and Passaic Railway was incorporated on Nov 22, 1889 by the Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR). It was chartered as a short line in Newark, New Jersey from the Passaic River to a connection with the LVRR's Newark and Roselle Railway near ...
, the
Jersey City, Newark, and Western Railway
The Jersey City, Newark and Western Railway was incorporated on July 6, 1889, and acquired by the Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR). Construction was completed in 1893. It started in Jersey City, New Jersey at a connection with the National Docks Ra ...
, and the
Jersey City Terminal Railway
Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label= Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west France. It is the l ...
.
The railroad was incorporated on November 30, 1885 to build a railroad between a point on the Easton and Amboy Railroad near South Plainfield to a point at or near Roselle. Work began in 1887, and was completed on December 17, 1888.
In 1891, the LVRR consolidated the company into the Lehigh Valley Terminal Railway, along with the other companies which formed the route from South Plainfield to the Jersey City terminal.