Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City is the second most populous city in the U. S. state of New Jersey, after Newark. It is the seat of Hudson County as well as the county's largest city; as of 2017, the Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that Jersey City's population was 270,753, with the largest population increase of any municipality in New Jersey since 2010, an increase of about 9.4% from the 2010 United States Census, when the city's population was at 247,597. Ranking the city the 75th-most-populous in the nation. Part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City is bounded on the east by the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay and on the west by the Hackensack River and Newark Bay. A port of entry, with 30.7 miles of waterfront and extensive rail infrastructure and connectivity, the city is an important transportation terminus and distribution and manufacturing center for the Port of New York and New Jersey. Jersey City shares significant mass transit connections with Manhattan. Redevelopment of the Jersey City waterfront has made the city one of the largest centers of banking and finance in the United States and has led to the district being nicknamed Wall Street West.
After a peak population of 316,715 measured in the 1930 Census, the city's population saw a half-century-long decline to a nadir of 223,532 in the 1980 Census. Since the city's population has rebounded, with the 2010 population reflecting an increase of 7,542 from the 240,055 counted in the 2000 Census, which had in turn increased by 11,518 from the 228,537 counted in the 1990 Census; the land comprising what is now Jersey City was inhabited by a collection of tribes. In 1609, Henry Hudson, seeking an alternate route to East Asia, anchored his small vessel Halve Maen at Sandy Hook, Harsimus Cove and Weehawken Cove, elsewhere along what was named the North River. After spending nine days surveying the area and meeting its inhabitants, he sailed as far north as Albany. By 1621, the Dutch West India Company was organized to manage this new territory and in June 1623, New Netherland became a Dutch province, with headquarters in New Amsterdam. Michael Reyniersz Pauw received a land grant as patroon on the condition that he would establish a settlement of not fewer than fifty persons within four years.
He purchased the land from the Lenape. This grant is dated November 22, 1630 and is the earliest known conveyance for what are now Hoboken and Jersey City. Pauw, was an absentee landlord who neglected to populate the area and was obliged to sell his holdings back to the Company in 1633; that year, a house was built at Communipaw for Jan Evertsen Bout, superintendent of the colony, named Pavonia. Shortly after, another house was built at Harsimus Cove and became the home of Cornelius Van Vorst, who had succeeded Bout as superintendent, whose family would become influential in the development of the city. Relations with the Lenape deteriorated, in part because of the colonialist's mismanagement and misunderstanding of the indigenous people, led to series of raids and reprisals and the virtual destruction of the settlement on the west bank. During Kieft's War eighty Lenapes were killed by the Dutch in a massacre at Pavonia on the night of February 25, 1643. Scattered communities of farmsteads characterized the Dutch settlements at Pavonia: Communipaw, Paulus Hook, Hoebuck and other lands "behind Kill van Kull".
The first village established on what is now Bergen Square in 1660, is considered to be the oldest town in what would become the state of New Jersey. The flag of the city is a variation on the Prince's Flag from the Netherlands. Among the oldest surviving houses in Jersey City are the Newkirk House, the Van Vorst Farmhouse, the Van Wagenen House. During the American Revolutionary War, the area was in the hands of the British who controlled New York. In the Battle of Paulus Hook Major Light Horse Harry Lee attacked a British fortification on August 19, 1779. After this war, Alexander Hamilton and other prominent New Yorkers and New Jerseyeans attempted to develop the area that would become historic downtown Jersey City and laid out the city squares and streets that still characterize the neighborhood, giving them names seen in Lower Manhattan or after war heroes. During the 19th century, former slaves reached Jersey City on one of the four routes of the Underground Railroad that led to the city.
The City of Jersey was incorporated by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on January 28, 1820, from portions of Bergen Township, while the area was still a part of Bergen County. The city was reincorporated on January 23, 1829, again on February 22, 1838, at which time it became independent of North Bergen and was given its present name. On February 22, 1840, it became part of the newly created Hudson County. Soon after the Civil War, the idea arose of uniting all of the towns of Hudson County east of the Hackensack River into one municipality. A bill was approved by the state legislature on April 2, 1869, with a special election to be held October 5, 1869. An element of the bill provide. While a majority of the voters across the county approved the merger, the only municipalities that had approved the consolidation plan and that adjoined Jersey City were Hudson City and Bergen City; the consolidation began on March 17, 1870, taking effect on May 3, 1870. Three years the present outline of Jersey City was completed when Greenville agreed to m
Warminster Line
The Warminster Line is a route of the SEPTA Regional Rail commuter rail system. It serves stations between its namesake town and Center City, Philadelphia. Half of the route is shared by other lines, including the Lansdale/Doylestown Line, West Trenton Line, Fox Chase Line, Chestnut Hill East Line, Manayunk/Norristown Line; the great majority of trains continue as part of the Airport Line. The Warminster Line uses the SEPTA Main Line between Center City and Glenside, where it branches off onto its own line to Hatboro and Warminster; the tracks continue past Warminster to Ivyland and to New Hope, where the New Hope & Ivyland Railroad runs heritage excursion trains. The Warminster Line becomes a single-track line just north of Ardsley, but was once double-tracked as far north as Roslyn, the original northbound track being removed in 2010. A passing siding exists north of Willow Grove; the North Pennsylvania Railroad formed the North East Pennsylvania Railroad in 1870 to construct a branch from its line at Abington to Hatboro.
The line opened on December 18, 1872. The line was further extended to Hartsville on November 9, 1874; the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, forerunner of the Reading Company, leased the parent North Pennsylvania Railroad in 1879, gaining control of the line. It extended the line to its final terminus at New Hope on April 29, 1891; the Reading electrified the line, which it called the New Hope Branch, as far as Hatboro on July 26, 1931. In 1952, all passenger service ceased north of Hatboro to New Hope, with every station except Rushland, Wycombe and New Hope being demolished in 1954. Between 1952 and 1966, only freight trains traveled north of Hatboro to serve customers in Warminster, Rushland and New Hope. In 1966, the New Hope & Ivyland Railroad was launched and purchased 16 miles of track from Ivyland to New Hope. After 1966, Ivyland served as a freight interchange between RDG and NHIR and the RDG relabeled their remaining ownership of the line as the Warminster Branch. Not only did they transport freight, but run scenic heritage excursions from New Hope to Buckingham, but has been cutback to Lahaska in the 1980s.
However, passenger service between Warminster and Hatboro was still inactive. In 1971, RDG filed for bankruptcy after a variety of misfortunes; the court issued a bankruptcy protection. On July 29, 1974, passenger service was reinstated after RDG completed an extension of the electrification from Hatboro to Warminster. Willow Grove and Warminster stations were rebuilt in the same year. By that time, executives of RDG didn't see their debt becoming any better. Less than two years RDG's rolling stock, right-of-ways and stock were in the hands of Conrail known as the Consolidated Rail Corporation, which launched operations on April 1, 1976. In 1983, SEPTA took control of the Warminster Branch. Beginning in 1984 the route was designated R2 Warminster as part of SEPTA's diametrical reorganization of its lines. Warminster Line trains operated through the city center to the Wilmington/Newark Line on the ex-Pennsylvania side of the system; the R-number naming system was dropped on July 25, 2010. As of 2018 the majority of Warminster trains continue on to the Airport Line, though some peak hour weekday trains terminate at 30th Street Station.
On April 18, 2016, SEPTA launched positive train control on the Warminster Line, the first Regional Rail line to use the signal system which will enhance safety. The Warminster Line includes the following stations north of the Center City Commuter Connection. Between FY 2008–FY 2014 yearly ridership on the Warminster Line has remained steady around 2.5 million. "SEPTA – Warminster line schedule". The Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society
Reading Company
The Reading Company was a company, involved in the railroad industry in southeast Pennsylvania and neighboring states from 1924 until 1976. Called the Reading Railroad and logotyped as Reading Lines, the Reading Company was a railroad holding company for the majority of its existence and was a railroad during its years, it was a successor to the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company founded in 1833. Until the decline in anthracite loadings in the Coal Region after World War II, it was one of the most prosperous corporations in the United States. Competition with the modern trucking industry that used the Interstate highway system for short distance transportation of goods known as short hauls, compounded the company's problems, forcing it into bankruptcy in the 1970s, its railroad operations were merged into Conrail in 1976, but the corporation lasted into 2000, disposing of valuable real estate holdings. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad was one of the first railroads in the United States.
Along with the Little Schuylkill, a horse-drawn railroad in the Schuylkill River Valley, it formed the earliest components of what became the Reading Company. The P&R was constructed to haul anthracite coal from the mines in northeastern Pennsylvania's Coal Region to Philadelphia; the original P&R mainline extended south from the mining town of Pottsville to Reading and onward to Philadelphia, following the graded banks of the Schuylkill River for nearly all of the 93-mile journey. The line contained double track upon its completion in 1843; the P&R became profitable immediately. Energy-dense coal had been replacing scarce wood as fuel in businesses and homes since the 1810s, P&R-delivered coal was one of the first alternatives to the near-monopoly held by Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company since the 1820s. Soon the P&R bought or leased many of the railroads in the Schuylkill River Valley and extended westward and north along the Susquehanna into the southern end of the Coal Region. In Philadelphia, the Reading built Port Richmond, the self-proclaimed "Largest owned railroad tidewater terminal in the world", which burnished the P&R's bottom lines by allowing coal to be loaded onto ships and barges for export.
In 1871, the Reading established a subsidiary called the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company, which set about buying anthracite coal mines in the Coal Region. This vertical expansion gave the P&R full control of coal from mining through to market, allowing it to compete with like-organized competitors such as Lehigh Coal & Navigation and the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company; the heavy investment in coal paid off quickly. By 1871, the Reading was the largest company in the world, with $170,000,000 in gross value, may have been the first conglomerate in the world. In 1879, the Reading gained control of the North Pennsylvania Railroad and gained access to the burgeoning steel industry in the Lehigh Valley; the Reading further expanded its coal empire by reaching New York City by gaining control of the Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad in 1879, building the Port Reading Railroad in 1892 with a line from Port Reading Junction to the Port Reading on the Arthur Kill. This allowed direct delivery of coal to industries in the Port of New York and New Jersey in northeastern New Jersey and New York City by rail and barge instead of the longer trip by ships from Port Richmond around Cape May.
Instead of broadening its rail network, the Reading invested its vast wealth in anthracite and its transport in the mid-19th century. This led to financial trouble in the 1870s. In 1890, Reading president Archibald A. McLeod saw that more riches could be earned by expanding its rail network and becoming a trunk railroad. McLeod went about trying to control neighboring railroads in 1891, he was able to gain control of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Boston and Maine Railroad. The Reading achieved its goal of becoming a trunk road, but the deal was scuttled by J. P. Morgan and other rail barons, who did not want more competition in the northeastern railroad business; the Reading was relegated to a regional railroad for the rest of its history. The Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road was chartered April 4, 1833, to build a line between Philadelphia and Reading, along the Schuylkill River; the portion from Reading to Norristown opened July 16, 1838, the full line December 9, 1839.
Its Philadelphia terminus was at the state-owned Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad on the west side of the Schuylkill River, from which it ran east on the P&C over the Columbia Bridge and onto the city-owned City Railroad to a depot at the southeast corner of Broad and Cherry Streets. An extension northwest from Reading to Mount Carbon on the Schuylkill River, opened on January 13, 1842, allowing the railroad to compete with the Schuylkill Canal. At Mount Carbon, it connected with the earlier Mount Carbon Railroad, continuing through Pottsville to several mines, would be extended to Williamsport. On May 17, 1842, a freight branch from West Falls to Port Richmond on the Delaware River north of downtown Philadelphia opened. Port Richmond became a large coal terminal. On January 1, 1851, the Belmont Plane on the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, just west of the Reading's connection, was abandoned in favor of a new bypass, the portion of the line east of it was sold to the Reading, the only company that continued using the old route.
The Lebanon Valley Railroad was chartered in 1836 to build from Reading west to Harrisburg. Reading financed the construction of the Rutherford Yard to compete with the PRR's nearby Enola Yard; the Reading took it over and began construction in 1854, opening the line in 1856. This
Elkins Park station
Elkins Park station is a SEPTA Regional Rail station located in the Elkins Park neighborhood of Cheltenham Township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The station building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its notable architecture; the station is located at the intersection of Spring Avenue. Elkins Park station is served by the Warminster Line, West Trenton Line, Lansdale/Doylestown Line; the station was constructed in 1898 by Cope & Stewardson, at a cost of $40,000. It was known as the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Elkins Railroad station, but has been known as Elkins Park station and Ashbourne station; the Queen Anne Style architecture of the station resulted in the station being added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. The station has low-level, non-handicapped accessible, railway platforms. In FY 2013, Elkins Park station had a weekday average of 599 alightings. Elkins Park station is located along one of SEPTA's main rail lines; the station is served by most weekday and weekend trains on the Warminster Line, limited weekday trains and no weekend trains on the West Trenton Line, limited weekday trains and all weekend trains on the Lansdale/Doylestown Line.
Elkins Park has two low-level side platforms. Media related to Elkins Park at Wikimedia Commons SEPTA – Elkins Park Station Historic and more recent Elkins Park Station images Park Avenue entrance from Google Maps Street View
Airport Line (SEPTA)
The Airport Line is a route of the SEPTA Regional Rail commuter rail system in Philadelphia, which runs between Philadelphia International Airport through Center City to Temple University station. In practice, only a few trains originate or terminate at Temple; the line between Center City and the airport runs seven days a week from 5:00 AM to midnight with trains every 30 minutes. The trip length from Suburban Station to the airport is 19 to 24 minutes. While geographically on the former Pennsylvania Railroad side of the Regional Rail System, the route consists of new construction, a reconstructed industrial branch of the former Pennsylvania Railroad, a shared Conrail freight branch; the Airport Line opened on April 28, 1985, as SEPTA R1, providing service from Center City to the Philadelphia International Airport. By its twentieth anniversary in 2005, the line had carried over 20 million passengers to and from the airport; the line splits from Amtrak's Northeast Corridor north of Darby and passes over it via a flying junction.
West of the airport, the line breaks from the old right-of-way and a new bridge carries it over I-95 and into the airport terminals between the baggage claim and the check-in counters. The line stops at four stations which are directly connected to each airport terminal by escalators and elevators which rise one level to the walkways between the arrival and departure areas. All airport stations feature high-level platforms to make it easier to board and alight from the train with luggage; some stations can be accessed directly from the arrivals concourse by crossing Commercial Vehicles Road. The line ends between Terminals F at their combined station; as of 2018, most weekday Airport Line trains are through routed with the Warminster Line and alternate between terminating in Glenside and Warminster. Most weekend trains either terminate at Temple University; the Airport Line makes the following station stops, after leaving the Center City Commuter Connection. All stations are in the County of Philadelphia.
The line south of the Northeast Corridor was part of the Philadelphia and Baltimore Railroad main line, opened on January 17, 1838. The connection between the NEC and the original PW&B is made however by the 60th Street Branch. A new alignment of the PW&B opened November 18, 1872, on July 1, 1873, the Philadelphia and Reading Railway the Reading Company, leased the old line for 999 years. Connection was made over the PRR's Junction Railroad and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Baltimore and Philadelphia Railroad. However, as a condition of the sale, no passenger service was provided; the line passed into Conrail in 1976 and SEPTA in 1983, with passenger service to the Airport beginning on April 28, 1985. Infill stations were planned from the beginning of service, two of which were on the Airport Line proper: one at 70th Street, the other one at 84th Street; the latter station was opened in 1997 as Eastwick, while 70th Street was never built, has since disappeared from maps. Additionally, University City station opened in April 1995 to serve all R1, R2 and R3 trains passing it.
All these stations appeared on 1984 SEPTA informational maps, the first ones to show the Center City Commuter Connection and the Airport Line. SEPTA activated positive train control on the Airport Line on October 10, 2016. Ridership by fiscal year: Railroad History Database PRR Chronology "SEPTA – Airport Line schedule"
SEPTA Regional Rail
The SEPTA Regional Rail system is a commuter rail network serving the Philadelphia Metropolitan area. The system has 13 branches and more than 150 active stations in Philadelphia, its suburbs and satellite towns and cities, it is the fifth-busiest commuter railroad in the United States, the busiest outside of the New York and Chicago metropolitan areas. In 2016, the Regional Rail system had an average of 132,000 daily riders; the core of the Regional Rail system is the Center City Commuter Connection, an underground tunnel linking three Center City stations: the above-ground upper level of 30th Street Station, the underground Suburban Station, Jefferson Station. All trains stop at these Center City stations. Operations are handled by the SEPTA Railroad Division. Of the 13 branches, seven were owned and operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad, six by the Reading Company; the PRR lines terminated at Suburban Station. The Center City Commuter Connection opened in November 1984 to unite the two systems, turning the two terminal stations into through-stations.
Most inbound trains from one line continue on as outbound trains on another line. Service on most lines operates from 5:30 a.m. to midnight. Each PRR line was once paired with a Reading branch and numbered from R1 to R8, so that one route number described two lines, one on the PRR side and one on the Reading side; this was deemed more confusing than helpful, so on July 25, 2010, SEPTA dropped the R-number and color-coded route designators and changed dispatching patterns so fewer trains follow both sides of the same route. Former Pennsylvania Railroad linesAirport Line: terminates at the Philadelphia International Airport. Chestnut Hill West Line: terminates in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia. Cynwyd Line: operates weekdays only; until 1986, trains continued on to Ivy Ridge station in northwestern Philadelphia. Media/Elwyn Line: terminates in Elwyn; until 1986, trains continued on to West Chester. SEPTA is in the process of restoring service to Wawa three miles west of Elwyn by 2020. Paoli/Thorndale Line: trains terminate at Malvern or Thorndale.
Until 1996, trains continued on to Parkesburg. In March 2019, SEPTA announced a plan to extend service to Coatesville three miles west of Thorndale, once a new train station is constructed. Trenton Line: terminates in Trenton, New Jersey; this line uses Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, offers a connection at Trenton to New Jersey Transit's Northeast Corridor Line for continued service to New York City. Wilmington/Newark Line: terminates in Wilmington, with some weekday trains continuing to Newark, Delaware; the Delaware Department of Transportation subsidizes Delaware service. This line runs on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. Former Reading Company linesChestnut Hill East Line: terminates in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia. Fox Chase Line: terminates in the Fox Chase section of Philadelphia; until 1983, connecting diesel trains continued to Newtown, Pennsylvania. Lansdale/Doylestown Line: terminates at Doylestown. On weekdays half of the local trains terminate at Lansdale while the remainder of the local trains, some expresses, continue on to Doylestown.
Manayunk/Norristown Line: terminates at Elm Street in Norristown. Warminster Line: terminates in Warminster. West Trenton Line: terminates at the West Trenton station in Ewing, New Jersey. There are 154 active stations on the Regional Rail system, including 51 in the city of Philadelphia, 42 in Montgomery County, 29 in Delaware County, 16 in Bucks County, 10 in Chester County, six outside the state of Pennsylvania. In 2003, passengers boarding in Philadelphia accounted for 61% of trips on a typical weekday, with 45% from the three Center City stations and Temple University station. SEPTA uses a mixed fleet of General Electric and Hyundai Rotem "Silverliner" electric multiple unit cars, used on all Regional Rail lines. SEPTA uses push-pull equipment: coaches built by Bombardier and Pullman Standard, hauled by ACS-64 electric locomotives similar to those used by Amtrak; the push-pull equipment is used for peak express service because it accelerates slower than EMU equipment, making it less suitable for local service with close station spacing and frequent stops and starts.
As of 2012, all cars have a blended red-and-blue SEPTA window logo and "ditch lights" that flash at grade crossings and when "deadheading" through stations, as required by Amtrak for operations on the Northeast and Keystone Corridors. SEPTA's railroad reporting mark SEPA is the official mark for their revenue equipment, though it is seen on external markings. SPAX can be seen on non-revenue work equipment, including boxcars, diesel locomotives, other rolling stock; the Silverliner coaches, built by Budd in Philadelphia and first used by the PRR in 1958 as the Pioneer III for a prototype intercity EMU alternative to the GG1-hauled trains, were purchased by SEPTA in 1963 as Silverliner II units. In 1967, the PRR took delivery of the St. Louis-built Silverliner III cars, which featured left-hand side controls and flush toilets, were used for Harrisb
Bethlehem Union Station
Bethlehem Union Station is a former train station located in the South Side neighborhood of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1924 by the Lehigh Valley Railroad and the Reading Company, replacing an earlier station built in 1867. Passenger service to Philadelphia on the SEPTA Regional Rail Bethlehem Line lasted until 1981; the station was renovated in 2002 and used for medical clinics beginning in 2003. It is owned by St. Luke's Hospital. In 1745, the Crown Inn was established as Bethlehem's first public house to serve stagecoach travelers, it soon became an important meeting point in the city after the nearby ferry was replaced with a bridge in 1794. The Lehigh Valley Railroad and North Pennsylvania Railroad both reached Bethlehem by 1855; the two railroads built Bethlehem Union Depot, which opened on November 18, 1867. A two-story building with a pointed tower, it was not well liked. In 1924, it was replaced by a larger modern brick building. Lehigh Valley passenger service ended on February 4, 1961.
In 1962, the two railroads attempted to auction off the station building. However, it was not sold, the property passed to Conrail when the Reading folded in 1976. Conrail continued to provide commuter service to Allentown under contract to SEPTA, subsidizing service since 1966; as SEPTA discontinued its diesel service in favor of shorter electric lines, the line was cut back to Bethlehem in 1979. In April 1981, SEPTA announced its intentions to discontinue service on the line on July 1. PennDOT attempted to operate service but a last-minute deal with the Berks Area Regional Transportation Authority to operate the trains fell through during contract negotiations. Service was cut back to Quakertown on July 1 to Lansdale in August; some restoration work was performed on the derelict station in the 1980s, but it was unused until Ashley Development Corporation refurbished it in 2002. St. Luke's Hospital moved clinics into Union Station in 2003, bought the building outright in 2008. However, St. Luke's moved most of its services to a nearby building in 2011 and 2013.
Bethlehem station St. Luke's Union Station Station from Riverside Drive on Google Maps Street View
SEPTA City Bus: 77
Media related to Jenkintown-Wyncote (SEPTA station) at Wikimedia Commons
