Marion Junction is a

railroad junction A junction, in the context of rail transport, is a place at which two or more rail routes converge or diverge. The physical connection between the tracks of the two routes (assuming they are of the same gauge) is provided by turnouts (US: switc ...

in western

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, second-most populous

. Currently, it connects

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of trac ...

River Line The River Line (stylized as River LINE) is a hybrid rail (light rail with some features similar to commuter rail) service in South Jersey, southern New Jersey that connects the cities of Camden, New Jersey, Camden and Trenton, New Jersey, Trento ...

(via

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 busine ...

Northern Branch The Northern Branch is a railroad line that runs from Jersey City to Northvale in northeastern New Jersey, and formerly extended further into New York State. The line was constructed in 1859 by the Northern Railroad of New Jersey to connect ...

) to

Passaic and Harsimus Line The Passaic and Harsimus Line, part of Conrail Shared Assets Operations, serves freight in Gateway Region, northeastern New Jersey. It takes trains from the Northeast Corridor and Lehigh Line (Conrail), Lehigh Line near Newark Liberty Interna ...

. The two lines merge towards the west, allowing through trains from upstate New York to continue towards the rest of the country. The track actually making the connection is known as the Marion Running Track.

History

The

New Jersey Railroad The New Jersey Rail Road and Transportation Company was an early railroad company in the state of New Jersey. It was incorporated in 1832 and opened its first line in 1834, making it one of the oldest railroads in North America. It was consolidat ...

(NJRR; later part of the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as 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. At its ...

, PRR) and Paterson and Hudson River Railroad (later part of the

Erie Railroad The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Northeastern United States, originally connecting Pavonia Terminal in Jersey City, New Jersey, with Lake Erie at Dunkirk, New York. The railroad expanded west to Chicago following its 1865 ...

) both built their lines to this point in 1834 and November 28, 1833, respectively. It took four more years for the NJRR to cut through

Bergen Hill Bergen Hill refers to the lower Hudson Palisades in New Jersey, where they emerge on Bergen Neck, which in turn is the peninsula between the Hackensack and Hudson Rivers, and their bays. In Hudson County, it reaches a height of 260 feet. Rai ...

, or the lower

New Jersey Palisades The Palisades, also called the New Jersey Palisades or the Hudson River Palisades, are a line of steep cliffs along the west side of the lower Hudson River in Northeastern New Jersey and Southeastern New York in the United States. The cliffs s ...

; prior to that, passengers and freight transferred to horse-drawn carriages over the hill. The junction was a simple one, with both lines merging towards the east, allowing both railroads to access the east side of the Palisades and the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

. In 1861, due to congestion on the PRR cut, the Erie built the

Long Dock Tunnel The Long Dock Tunnel is a freight rail tunnel in Jersey City, New Jersey that is part of the North Jersey Shared Assets Area and used by CSX Transportation on the National Docks Secondary. The single track (formerly dual track) tunnel runs thro ...

through

and Marion Junction became a minor transfer point. In 1873 the newly opened

New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway The New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway , also referred to as the Susie-Q or the Susquehanna, and formerly the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad, is an American Railroad classes#Class II, Class II Rail freight transport, freight r ...

(NYS&W) and Montclair Railway (later New York and Greenwood Lake Railway, NY&GL) began using

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 c ...

over the Erie route to Marion Junction in order to reach the PRR cut. NY&GL rerouted passenger trains to the Erie's

Pavonia Terminal Pavonia Terminal was the Erie Railroad terminal station, terminal on the North River (Hudson River), Hudson River located in the Harsimus section of Jersey City, New Jersey. The station opened in 1861 and closed in 1958 when the Erie Railroad ...

about 1890, and NYS&W did the same in 1911. NYS&W continued to maintain a freight house at Marion Junction. With the decline of the passenger railroads in the mid-20th century, Marion Junction lost much traffic. Facing east, it was not in the best alignment for freight traffic between upstate

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

and points south. Around 1994,

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

paid to modify the junction to point west, as part of moving the

to the west side of the Palisades, clearing the east side for the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail. This made the junction the preferred (and in some cases the only) route for freight traffic.

References

{{Reflist Rail infrastructure in New Jersey Transportation in Hudson County, New Jersey Rail junctions in the United States

History

See also

References