New Jersey 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 ...

Morris & Essex Lines The Morris & Essex Lines are a group of former Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad (DL&W) railroad lines in New Jersey now owned and operated by NJ Transit. The lines include service offered on the Morristown Line and the Gladstone Branch. P ...

Montclair Branch The Montclair-Boonton Line is a commuter rail line of New Jersey Transit Rail Operations in the United States. It is part of the Hoboken Division. The line is a consolidation of three individual lines: the former Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R ...

Morristown Line The Morristown Line is an NJ Transit commuter rail line connecting Morris and Essex counties to New York City, via either New York Penn Station or Hoboken Terminal. Out of 60 inbound and 58 outbound daily weekday trains, 28 inbound and 26 outbou ...

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad in 1903 as part of a project to lower the tracks below the road surface to eliminate grade crossings. It serviced Newark's Roseville neighborhood. It once had two tracks (one each eastbound and westbound) on the Lackawanna mainline and two low-wall platforms, with an additional platform along the

Montclair Branch The Montclair-Boonton Line is a commuter rail line of New Jersey Transit Rail Operations in the United States. It is part of the Hoboken Division. The line is a consolidation of three individual lines: the former Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R ...

. The station remained in service during most of the 20th century, until New Jersey Transit closed the station on September 16, 1984. Today, the only landmarks that mark the former station site are a metal utility box labeled "Roseville," and several flights of concrete stairs in the sides of the concrete-lined depression in which the track of the Morristown Line runs between the

East Orange East Orange is a city in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 69,612. The city was the state's 20th most-populous municipality in 2010, after having been the state's 14th most-po ...

and Newark Broad Street stations. Shortly east of this structure, the Montclair-Boonton Line splits from the Morristown Line on its way to Montclair, Boonton, and Denville.

Station structure

Roseville Avenue station consisted of two different sets of double track to serve passenger trains for the

Delaware, Lackawanna, and 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 ...

's

Montclair Branch The Montclair-Boonton Line is a commuter rail line of New Jersey Transit Rail Operations in the United States. It is part of the Hoboken Division. The line is a consolidation of three individual lines: the former Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R ...

(now the

Montclair-Boonton Line The Montclair-Boonton Line is a commuter rail line of New Jersey Transit Rail Operations in the United States. It is part of the Hoboken Division. The line is a consolidation of three individual lines: the former Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R ...

) and the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad's

Morris & Essex Lines The Morris & Essex Lines are a group of former Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad (DL&W) railroad lines in New Jersey now owned and operated by NJ Transit. The lines include service offered on the Morristown Line and the Gladstone Branch. P ...

(now the

Morristown Line The Morristown Line is an NJ Transit commuter rail line connecting Morris and Essex counties to New York City, via either New York Penn Station or Hoboken Terminal. Out of 60 inbound and 58 outbound daily weekday trains, 28 inbound and 26 outbou ...

and the Gladstone Branch). The tracks were below the street level, and the station below street level was a brick passenger station extending to the Roseville Avenue bridge at Seventh Avenue. The other structure stood on street level, above the cut, served the Morris and Essex Line just north of the fork at Roseville. The station had four platforms, two for the Montclair Branch and two for the Morristown/Gladstone Lines in both direction. Roseville Tower was the interlocking tower at street-level in Roseville that handled the nearby fork of the three lines (Montclair, Morristown and Gladstone). The tower was used on limited services, with only three different shifts, two of which were staffed. The tower was run from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. staffed. The rest of the time, the tower was set on automatic.

History

Original station and track depression

The original Roseville Avenue station dates back to the opening of the Morris & Essex Railroad Station in 1856, when tracks were constructed through the Roseville district of Newark. These tracks ran between Orange Street and Seventh Avenue, until the Morris & Essex line branched off at Roseville Avenue and continued northwest, the original station serving both branches. The station was designed with two platforms, one along each line, the Morris & Essex first made use of the Montclair Branch property in April 1868 after buying the Newark and Bloomfield Railroad. In April 1901, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad announced track depression and raising throughout portions of the line through Newark and the

Oranges An orange is a fruit of various citrus species in the family Rutaceae (see list of plants known as orange); it primarily refers to ''Citrus'' × ''sinensis'', which is also called sweet orange, to distinguish it from the related ''Citrus × ...

. Although the depression went into Newark, most of the debate over localities of stations was basically into the Oranges. In 1903, the track depression reached the Roseville Avenue Station, and the lines were depressed through Roseville. The new station built during the track depression was of similar style, with the station in the middle of the five-track interlocking, with one platform servicing the Montclair Branch's two tracks and one for the Main Line's two tracks. Rather than crossing at-grade, Roseville Avenue was bridged over the tracks with a brand new street-level interlocking tower present at the intersection of Roseville and Seventh Avenues.

Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, and Erie–Lackawanna ownership

During the ownership of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, Roseville Avenue prospered, soon receiving sixty-eight stops by trains daily. This caught attention during a 1913 complaint to the

New Jersey Board of Public Utilities The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) is a regulatory authority in New Jersey "with authority to oversee the regulated utilities, which in turn provide critical services such as natural gas, electricity, water, telecommunications and ca ...

by Charles McCausland. The major complaint from McCausland cited that the Lackawanna was not providing quality seating service on trains that stop at Roseville, and several which led to overcrowding, while several bypassing trains did not suffer from such effects. The plaintiff, McCausland, cited that the need for the sixty-eight trains was "additional but unnecessary". The Board of Public Utility Commissioners did not justify any changes or wrongdoing by the railroad, and as a result, no changes to service were made at Roseville Avenue. The station continued receiving major service over the next five decades, but by 1966, fewer trains stopped at the station, with limited daily service to the station past the 4:33 p.m. train from

Hoboken Terminal Hoboken Terminal is a commuter-oriented intermodal passenger station in Hoboken, Hudson County, New Jersey. One of the New York metropolitan area's major transportation hubs, it is served by nine NJ Transit (NJT) commuter rail lines, one Metr ...

. Six years later, on June 24, 1972, the Erie–Lackawanna Railroad, who now maintained the station, announced further cutbacks on station service, axing twenty-three train stops at Roseville Avenue for both directions of service. The changes were made as part of major commuter service appropriations and the lack of patronage at the station. From that point, Roseville Avenue went from 37 westbound trains to 14, while eastbound was cut from 37 to 16. Service on Saturdays were cut to

flag stop In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a stop or station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or dropped off. In this way, s ...

s only, while the station received no Sunday service at all. On April 1, 1976, the Erie–Lackawanna Railroad became defunct, and merged into

Consolidated Rail Corporation 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 ...

(Conrail), with service sponsored by the

New Jersey Department of Transportation The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) is the agency responsible for transportation issues and policy in New Jersey, including maintaining and operating the state's highway and public road system, planning and developing transporta ...

.

New Jersey Transit use and eventual closure

Roseville Avenue Station - September 2014

After the takeover of service along the former Morris & Essex Lines by

New Jersey 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 ...

from Conrail in 1982, the service at the Roseville Avenue station remained minimal. Many trains bypassed the station in favor of going to the nearby Newark Broad Street Station. Trains continued to serve the Roseville Avenue station throughout 1982 and 1983, and service continued to be condensed during 1984. However, as of the official September 1984 timetables, service was cut from Roseville Avenue in favor of Newark Broad Street to Grove Street, East Orange (on the Morris & Essex) or Ampere (on the

Montclair Branch The Montclair-Boonton Line is a commuter rail line of New Jersey Transit Rail Operations in the United States. It is part of the Hoboken Division. The line is a consolidation of three individual lines: the former Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R ...

), both of which closed in April 1991. On September 16, 1984, trains began bypassing Roseville Avenue, and the station was closed permanently. Although the station was closed, Roseville Tower, for the interlocking between the Montclair Branch and Morris & Essex Lines, remained in service for almost two more decades. In 2002, during construction of the

Montclair Connection The Montclair Connection is a short section of double-track railroad on the NJ Transit Rail Operations system in New Jersey, United States, connecting the former end of the Montclair Branch at Bay Street station to the old Boonton Line southeast ...

, the tower was demolished in favor of expanding the cut in Roseville for a second track of the new Montclair-Boonton Line.

Notes

References

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External links

The Roseville Train Stations
– Pictorial narrative of the Newark, NJ Roseville Train Station.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roseville Avenue (Njt Station) Former NJ Transit stations Former Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad stations Transportation in Newark, New Jersey Former railway stations in New Jersey Railway stations in the United States opened in 1905 Railway stations closed in 1984 1905 establishments in New Jersey 1984 disestablishments in New Jersey Railway stations in Essex County, New Jersey