The Pascack Valley Line is a

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...

line operated by the Hoboken Division of

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 ...

, in the United States. The line runs north 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 ...

, through

Hudson County Hudson County is the most densely populated county in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It lies west of the lower Hudson River, which was named for Henry Hudson, the sea captain who explored the area in 1609. Part of New Jersey's Gateway Region in ...

and

Bergen County Bergen County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of New Jersey.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 Delawa ...

, and into

Rockland County Rockland County is the southernmost county on the west side of the Hudson River in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. It is about from the Bronx at their closest points. The county's population, as of t ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, terminating at Spring Valley. Service within New York State is operated under contract with

Metro-North Railroad Metro-North Railroad , trading as MTA Metro-North Railroad, is a suburban commuter rail service run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a public authority of the U.S. state of New York and under contract with the Connectic ...

. The line is named for the

Pascack Valley The Pascack Valley is the name for a region of New Jersey, United States, contained within Bergen County. It is named for the Pascack Brook. The region consists of eight municipalities: Montvale, Park Ridge, Woodcliff Lake, Hillsdale, Westwood ...

region that it passes through in northern Bergen County. The line parallels the

Pascack Brook Pascack Brook is a tributary of the Hackensack River in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. History At least one late 18th-century map calls the brook "Great Pascack River." Its tributary Musquapsink Brook is shown as "Little Pascack River. ...

for some distance. The line is colored purple on system maps, and its symbol is a

pine tree A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden ac ...

Description

The Pascack Valley Line runs between

Spring Valley, New York Spring Valley is a village in the towns of Ramapo and Clarkstown in Rockland County, New York, United States. It is located north of Chestnut Ridge, east of Airmont and Monsey, south of Hillcrest, and west of Nanuet. The population was 33, ...

, and

. The line is long, of which the northernmost are in

New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. sta ...

. The entire line is owned by

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 ...

, but the Pearl River, Nanuet and Spring Valley stations are leased to Metro-North Railroad. The line is single tracked, but sidings at points along the line, including the Meadowlands, Hackensack and

Nanuet Nanuet is a hamlet and census-designated place in the town of Clarkstown, Rockland County, New York, United States. The third largest hamlet in Clarkstown, it is located north of Pearl River, south of New City, east of Spring Valley, and west o ...

, permit bi-directional off-peak service. 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 The Hackensack and New York Railroad was a New Jersey railroad company which was chartered in 1856. The railway ran from Rutherford, New Jersey to Hackensack, New Jersey and service started in 1858. Construction along a northward extension of ...

in 1856. It later became the

New Jersey and New York Railroad The New Jersey and New York Railroad (NJ&NY) was a railroad company that operated north from Rutherford, New Jersey, to Haverstraw, New York beginning in the mid-to-late 19th century.Please see the 1891 maps of West Haverstraw and Haverstraw ...

, which was bought by the

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 ...

in 1896. The New Jersey and New York Railroad continued to exist as an Erie subsidiary until October 17, 1960 merger that created the

Erie Lackawanna Railroad 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" ...

On April 1, 1976 the Erie Lackawanna was merged with several other railroads to create

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 bus ...

. 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 Haverstraw is a town in Rockland County, New York, United States, located north of the Town of Clarkstown and the Town of Ramapo; east of Orange County; south of the Town of Stony Point; and west of the Hudson River. The town runs from the w ...

. This portion of the line has been abandoned and most of the

right-of-way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

has been sold off. Part of the line (between Spring Valley and Nanuet) was once part of the main

line from

Piermont, New York Piermont is a village incorporated in 1847 in Rockland County, New York, United States. Piermont is in the town of Orangetown, located north of the hamlet of Palisades, east of Sparkill, and south of Grand View-on-Hudson, on the west bank of th ...

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

. Into the 1930s there had been Erie passenger service from Spring Valley at the end of the Pascack line to

Suffern station Suffern is an active commuter railroad station in the village of Suffern, Rockland County, New York. The station, located on Ramapo Avenue in Suffern, services trains of New Jersey Transit's Main Line and Metro-North Railroad's Port Jervis Line. ...

on the newer Erie Main Line. By 1941, this was reduced to a single weekday trip in each direction. In August 2020, amidst the financial repercussions of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said that it would shut down service on the line in Rockland County if federal bailout money were not available.

September 2016 crash

On September 29, 2016, Pascack Valley Line Train 1614 crashed into Hoboken Terminal injuring 108 and killing one.A New Jersey Train Crash Has Left at Least 100 People Injured
''

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentlema ...

'' By Associated Press; September 29, 2016

Rolling stock

All service on this line is diesel, using either

GP40PH-2 The passenger locomotives derivatives of the General Motors EMD GP40 diesel-electric locomotive have been, and continue to be, used by multiple passenger railroads in North America. For passenger service, the locomotives required extra compone ...

, F40PH, PL42AC, or

ALP-45DP The Bombardier ALP-45DP is a type of single cab dual-mode locomotive built by Bombardier Transportation (later Alstom) and operated by New Jersey Transit and Exo. Operators New Jersey Transit New Jersey Transit (NJT) purchased 26 ALP-45DP ...

locomotives. Most trains on the line use

Comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ...

series passenger cars, although Bombardier MultiLevel coaches are sometimes used on this line. Some train sets use equipment owned by Metro-North, which are so marked.

Stations

Bibliography

References

External links

Pascack Valley Line History
{{Metro-North Erie Railroad lines Metro-North Railroad NJ Transit Rail Operations Pascack Valley Rail infrastructure in New Jersey Rail infrastructure in New York (state) Transportation in Bergen County, New Jersey Transportation in Rockland County, New York Rail lines in Rockland County, New York