Great Notch station
Great Notch | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Caldwell Branch service began[10] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
February 18, 1966 | Station agency closed[11] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
April 17, 1988 | Depot caught fire[12] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Passengers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2009 | 2286[13] 87% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Former services | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Great Notch station was a small
Train service at Great Notch originated in 1873, as part of the
History
Train service at Great Notch originated with the introduction of the Caldwell Railway, a service that went from the community of Caldwell, New Jersey to the New York & Greenwood Lake Railway. Twelve trains a day served Caldwell, Verona and Overbrook Hospital. The station at Great Notch was deemed Caldwell Junction, inferring the junction between the two railways.[9] The branch was extended the following year to the municipality of Essex Fells, where it connected with the Morristown & Erie Railroad after the latter was extended to that point in 1903.
The Great Notch station depot was built in 1905 for the New York & Greenwood Lake Railway, a subsidiary of the Erie Railroad. The station was built as a green-red "type five" frame structure. While the main building was 12' × 28' × 18' in size, the station also included an old boxcar used as a tool house. The box car was only 12' × 45' and served the station for several decades. The station (telegraph call "GA") was just west of the Great Notch interlocking signal tower (telegraph call "GN"), which was built in 1900 to serve the junction of the Greenwood Lake Railway and its
By the early 1970s, the Great Notch station, which was falling into disrepair, received a new paint job, changed from the red-green-cream colors for the Erie Railroad to a new all red
During the construction of the Montclair Connection in 2001, the adjacent Great Notch Yard received a major upgrade, becoming a new state-of-the-art yard with new trains storage facilities.[18]
Closure
The opening of the
In January 2008, without knowledge of the township council, New Jersey Transit announced further and drastic service cuts at Great Notch. The only train to serve outbound customers was a train leaving for Hoboken Terminal in the morning, and two trains from Hoboken would serve the station at night.[21]
The future of the 103-year-old station was placed into further jeopardy on August 12, 2008, when New Jersey Transit announced to the community of Little Falls that it might close the station as early as October 2008.[22] A few days after the announcement, rebuttal by the community began to appear; a public hearing was announced for September 3 to work on plans for Great Notch.[23] The service with only one inbound train (to Hoboken) and two outbound trains (from Hoboken) was canceled on April 1, 2009. On that day, New Jersey Transit announced it would add two more trains in each direction on April 16 as a "one-year trial" for station ridership. The town hoped to get the then 67-person a day average to 100 people using the station by April 1, 2010, when the trial was set to expire. The mayor of Little Falls, Michael DeFrancisci, urged people to use the station more.[24] However, by December 2009, ridership had declined to nine riders per day.[13]
On December 18, 2009, New Jersey Transit contacted Little Falls and said that the station would close in January 2010, three months before the year-long trial period was set to end. It cited continued low ridership, as on average of nine passengers a day boarded the train at Great Notch.[7] On December 21, 2009, New Jersey Transit announced the closure, stating that "anemic" ridership continued at Great Notch, with an average of only nine riders a day, compared to 203 at the Little Falls station and 597 at the Montclair State University Station.[13] The last train to depart Great Notch was the 6:51 pm train from Hoboken Terminal on January 15, 2010, leaving Great Notch at 7:41 pm.[3]
See also
- Caldwell Branch to Essex Fells
Bibliography
- Baxter, Raymond J.; Adams, Arthur G. (1999). Railroad Ferries of the Hudson: And Stories of a Deckhand. ISBN 9780823219544.
- Catlin, George L. (1873). Homes on the Montclair Railway, for New York Business Men. A Description of the Country Adjacent to the Montclair Railway, Between Jersey City and Greenwood Lake. New York, New York: Montclair Railway Company.
- Whittemore, Henry (1894). History of Montclair Township, State of New Jersey: Including the History of Families who Have Been Identified with Its Growth and Prosperity. New York, New York: The Suburban Publishing Company. Retrieved February 6, 2020.
References
- ProQuest 426660189.
- ^ "List of Station Names and Numbers". Jersey City, New Jersey: Erie Railroad. May 1, 1916. Retrieved November 23, 2010.
- ^ New Jersey Transit. November 8, 2009. p. 2. Archived from the original(PDF) on July 28, 2010. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
- ^ Catlin 1873, p. 33.
- ^ Whittemore 1894, p. 47.
- ^ Baxter & Adams 1999, p. 147.
- ^ a b "Today's News". Little Falls, New Jersey: Township of Little Falls. 2009. Retrieved December 19, 2009.
- ^ ISBN 1-58248-183-0.
- ^ ISBN 9780738504520. Retrieved August 31, 2010.
- ^ Hordiuk, Bohdan (February 21, 1966). "End of Another Era". The Herald-News. Passaic, New Jersey. pp. 35–36. Retrieved March 15, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b "Going Down [Photo]". The Bergen Record. Hackensack, New Jersey. April 21, 1988. p. B3. Retrieved January 29, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b c "New Jersey Transit Announces Closure of Great Notch Station". Newark, New Jersey: New Jersey Transit. December 21, 2009. Retrieved December 21, 2009.
- ^ Map of Erie Railroad Stations (Map). Cartography by Erie Railroad. Erie Railroad. 1920.
- ^ "Historic Little Falls" (PDF). Little Falls, New Jersey: Little Falls, New Jersey. January 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 9, 2011. Retrieved December 21, 2009.
- OCLC 246668407.
- New York Times. June 10, 1979. pp. NJ25. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
- ^ "Introducing The Midtown Direct Montclair" (PDF). Trenton, New Jersey: New Jersey Transit. September 2002. Retrieved October 11, 2009.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Montclair State University Station and 1,500-Spot Parking Deck Officially Opens: "See More Spots" marketing campaign begins". New Jersey Transit. October 20, 2004. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
- ^ "New Wayne/Route 23 Transit Center Opens January 12, 2008". New Jersey Transit. January 2008. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
- ^ "Letter To The Editor". The Record. January 20, 2008.
- ^ "Save Great Notch". Little Falls, New Jersey: Little Falls Transportation Committee. August 25, 2008. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
- ^ "Public Hearing Notice - Proposed Closing of Great Notch Rail Station". New Jersey Transit. August 25, 2008. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
- ^ Cunningham, Jennifer H. (April 1, 2009). "Great Notch Riders Get Wish: More Trains". The Herald News. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
External links