I see no reason why these Arrows need to be replaced. Nobody cares about these classic trains, do they? 😭 I grew up with these cars, and knowing that these will be replaced by those ugly double dickers...err...deckers is too painful for a nostalgic person like me. Call me "old-fashioned" all you like. I hate progress. I hate what NJ Transit did to the classic Comet-car trains. The Arrows are the last of the vintage trains. Screw you, NJ Transit! 🤬
Unpopular opinion but the Uboats sound terrible lol. Rough like its about to throw pistons and rods. Ive always been partial to NJT GPs, which are fantastic sounding engines. Like the old E/F EMDs and Alco FAs.
Your footage of the Gladstone Branch certainly brought back memories. Students from Peapack and Gladstone were issued rail passes in order to commute to Bernard's High School, and those of us who lived in Bedminster or Far Hills also took the train when coming home from after-school sports and other activities. I remember running from the school to catch the train while laden with bags of athletic equipment and school books, all the while desperately praying that I wouldn't miss it. It was a half-mile run or walk from the school to the station. After arriving in Far Hills, I had over a mile walk back to our house. It's no wonder that I never weighed more than 130 pounds!
Not unusual to get 50+ years out of rails cars. Staten Island Railway still uses R44 cars from 1973 in daily service. I am surprised these cars still have Erie Lackawanna livery and not NJT or Conrail.
NJ Transit trains of today don't hold a candle to the trains of yesteryear. The trains in this video were, in my opinion, far better than the modern trains they have today. I may sound like a sentimental old fool, but I really miss the earlier trains from the #GoodOldDays. I keep wishing to go back to when these trains were in operation. The 1980s were my childhood, and so were these trains.
In the early 80's I would commute to Hoboken and then take the PATH trains to Manhattan. My dad rode these for years from Maplewood NJ and I remember going to Hoboken and then taking a ferry boat to lower Manhattan.
Great video from back in a bygone era. I've witnessed several steam trips over NJT over the years, from C&O 614 and NYSW 142, but never saw this one. Thanks for sharing.
I wish there was a video shot when the line power was DC. with those great EL&W mu’s but this one is fantastic. He points out the Montclair single track and remarks there are plans to tie it into the Booton line which was completed Sept 30,2002.
The heavyweight Pullman private car on MO-1 is DOVER HARBOR, owned and operated by the Washington DC Chapter, National Railway Historical Society (DCNRHS).
Considering that Pullman and General Electric built these in 1929 and 1930 and that they are shown in this video 54 years later in 1984 is a testament to their build quality.
My favorite NJ Transit locomotives are the F-40PH-2CAT, GP-40PH-2B, GP40-2, ALP-44 (even though they’re retired) and the ALP-45DP and ALP-45A. Gotta love Diesels of New Jersey Transit or Jersey Diesels, thanks for this historic footage man. Everyone gets to see the locomotives that once ruled New Jersey Transit rails.
No, absolutely not. I wouldn’t advise anyone to do this since this is technically illegal and dangerous. I used a camcorder for this shot, so with something light like an iPhone or smartphone in general, you could end up spending another grand and a half on a new one.
Thanks to their repaints in the early 50s, when EL (the worst thing to ever happen) was created in 1960, they stuck a erie next to the true name. The 2's became 3's on the sides but many headlights remained unchanged. So even in the 80s that crisp DL&W stayed true even if a false 4 letter monocoque was tagged on
When I was a kid in NJ, I used to cut school in high school, catch the train in Spring Lake and spend the whole day walking around southern Manhattan. Greenwich Village, Manny’s Music Emporium, talking to the ladies on 42nd street etc.
Great shots. Nice to see the FP-7 engines--I qualified on that engine. BTW, the first part of the video is on the Morris & Essex Line. NJT's Main Line is the former Lackawanna Boonton Line from Hoboken to South Paterson, where it follows the Erie Newark Branch to Paterson, where it joins the old Erie Main Line to Suffern, Port Jervis, and west.
That's just the bells though, the signals were probably taken to the closest yard and chucked onto a scrap pile with old rails, signals and other metal the company doesn't care about. That stuff later gets sold to a junkyard for them to deal with. I looked at this line with Google earth, NS stripped every signal except one at 90 Orchard St. But even the standing one had all of the lights and bell removed. At that same crossing, half of another signal's mast and attached gate mechanism (probably a ped gate..) is laying in a bunch of weeds. You thoroughly disappoint me NS.
