The Newark Light Rail (NLR) is a light rail system serving Newark, New Jersey, and surrounding areas, owned by New Jersey Transit and operated by its bus operations division. The service consists of two segments, the original Newark City Subway (NCS), and the extension to Broad Street station. A separate tunnel serviced the Public Service Terminal. The Cedar Street subway opened in 1916, the City Subway opened on May 26, 1935, and the combined Newark Light Rail service was officially inaugurated on July 17, 2006.
Newark City Subway
The Newark City Subway is the longer and older of the two segments.See Riley, John Harrington, "The Newark City Subway Lines," (1987). This scarce book, which covers the history of the subway lines and the predecessor horse and trolley lines, is occasionally available on Amazon. It is a "subway–surface" line which runs underground from Penn Station to Warren Street, and above-ground north of Warren Street. Before becoming a part of the Newark Light Rail service, it was also known as the #7-City Subway line, an NJT Bus Operations route number carried over from its days when it was part of Public Service's Transport of New Jersey subsidiary. The number still applies internally. During subway system closures, replacement buses would also bear the route number "7 City Subway".
The segment is long and runs between Grove Street in Bloomfield and Newark Penn Station, a major transportation hub with connections to the PATH rapid transit system to Manhattan, multiple bus routes, and both Amtrak and New Jersey Transit Rail Operations trains.
History
The line opened in 1935 along the old Morris Canal right-of-way, from Broad Street (now known as Military Park) to Heller Parkway (now replaced by the nearby Branch Brook Park station). Works Progress Administration artists decorated the underground stations with Art Deco scenes from life on the defunct Morris Canal. The southernmost part, south of Warren Street, was capped with a new road, known as Raymond Boulevard. Only one grade crossing was present on the original subway; the line crosses Orange Street at grade so it can pass over the below-grade Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (now NJT Morristown Line) immediately to the north. The original Newark City Subway line had its own right-of-way and did not share city streets with local traffic, except at the Orange Street grade crossing.
Operation of the complete subway to the newly built Penn Station was delayed until 1937. The terminal below Penn Station has five tracks, two incoming and three outgoing, connected by two loop tracks. This part of the subway included a grade-separated junction with a connection to the lower level of the Newark Public Service Terminal that was used for only a few months (June to September).
An extension to a wooden station at North 6th Street or Franklin Avenue was opened in 1940, located north of the present Branch Brook Park station. In 1953 the line was cut back about one block to accommodate construction of a turning loop, and a new station, still called Franklin Avenue, was opened adjacent to Anthony Street. The station was enlarged in 2002 and renamed Branch Brook Park.
The subway was operated by Transport of New Jersey (formerly Public Service Coordinated Transport) as its No. 7 line. Other streetcar routes used parts of the subway, reaching street trackage at the locations shown below, ending as each route was closed and replaced by bus service: Public Service Terminal connection (and Cedar Street Subway), 1937 only: #13 Broad, #17 Paterson, #27 Mount Prospect, #43 Jersey City Warren Street ramp, 1935–1951: #21 Orange—West Orange via Market Street Central Avenue ramp, 1935–1947: #23 Central Orange Street crossing, 1935–1952: #21 Orange—West Orange via Orange Street Bloomfield Avenue ramp, 1935–1952: #29 Bloomfield
Until June 5, 1952, the Roseville Car House, on the south side of Main Street (on the No. 21 line) near the eastern city line of East Orange, was used for the No. 7 line. From that time until 2002, Newark Penn Station was used for storage and maintenance. A new shops and yard complex opened at the end of the extension to Grove Street.
Starting in January 1954, 30 PCC streetcars bought from Twin City Rapid Transit provided all service on the route. They were single-ended, requiring construction of a new turning loop at the Franklin Avenue terminal. The cars had been built 1946–1949 by the St. Louis Car Company and were sold by TCRT when that system went through a conversion to buses. Four cars were scrapped over the years, and two were sold to Shaker Heights Rapid Transit in 1978.
In the 1970s, several extensions were proposed but never built. Plans included a $116 million tunnel under Springfield Avenue from Washington Street station to the Irvington Bus Terminal. The line would've featured seven new stations with high-level platforms able to accommodate long trains. Other proposed extensions would've been to Paterson along the former Erie Railroad right-of-way in the North Ward, the Meadowlands Sports Complex and to Port Newark and Elizabeth through the Ironbound along the former Newark and New York Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey.
New Jersey Transit took over operations in 1980.
In 2001, new light rail cars built by Kinki Sharyo in Japan in 1999 replaced the PCCs. The last day of PCC service was August 24, 2001."Farewell to Newark PCCs" (October 2001). Tramways & Urban Transit, p. 386. Ian Allan Publishing.
Some of the PCCs are stored in the Newark City Subway shop. Eleven were sold in 2004 to the San Francisco Municipal Railway for use on its F Market heritage streetcar line. One PCC, #15, was delivered to the Connecticut Trolley Museum in 2013 for restoration and display. One of the Shaker Heights cars has been restored by the Minnesota Transportation Museum, which operates it on a short stretch of track in western Minneapolis.
In 2005, eight PCCs were given to the City of Bayonne to be rehabilitated and operated along a proposed loop to serve the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, formerly Military Ocean Terminal at Bayonne (MOTBY). The proposed line would be connected to the 34th Street station of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail., page 17, accessed July 25, 2006
On September 4, 2004, Broad Street Station was renamed Military Park Station, to avoid confusion with the terminal of the new route to the Newark Broad Street Station at University Avenue, operated by New Jersey Transit.
Bloomfield extension
On June 22, 2002, the Newark City Subway was extended to the suburbs of Belleville and Bloomfield along what had been the former Erie Railroad Orange Branch, now under Norfolk Southern ownership. The extension was built to accommodate a new vehicle maintenance facility for the system's new light-rail vehicles. New stations were opened at Silver Lake and Grove Street, and the Heller Parkway and Franklin Avenue stations were combined into a new Branch Brook Park station. The loop at Franklin Avenue was removed, since the new vehicles are bidirectional, unlike the old PCCs. A new loop, however, is in place at the Grove Street maintenance facility. All the street crossings on the extension are at-grade.Staff. "Subway extension to open in summer, Newark officials hope that the $207.7 million downtown project will help spur a renaissance.", The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 13, 2006. Accessed July 18, 2011. "The last major expansion of the 4.3 mile subway in 2002 brought the service into the neighboring cities of Belleville and Bloomfield."
The original agreement gave sole operating privileges to Norfolk Southern between 11 pm and 5 am daily, but a new agreement allowed passenger service to operate at all hours, with late-night service commencing on January 8, 2005. In exchange, Norfolk Southern was allowed to operate during all off-peak hours, when passenger trains are infrequent. Norfolk Southern has since ended freight service along the tracks, leaving the NLR as the sole user.
Broad Street Extension
The Broad Street Extension is the second segment of the Newark Light Rail. It was planned as the first phase of the unbuilt Newark-Elizabeth Rail Link. The line is long and connects Newark Penn Station to Broad Street Station. It branches off the older City Subway using the existing junction that had led to the Public Service terminal.
A new tunnel leads from the junction to a portal about two blocks north. The remaining section runs above ground. For a few blocks, the two tracks run on different streets a block or two apart. Both tracks serve the New Jersey Performing Arts Center at Center Street. The outbound track makes stops at Atlantic Street and at the Riverfront Square development (formerly a baseball stadium) at the Riverfront Stadium station. The inbound track makes a stop at Washington Park. The extension opened on July 17, 2006. Press Release 323.
Construction began in 2002 with an estimated cost of $207.7 million, or about $40,000 per foot of track; Project 005. it was completed within budget. Press Release NJT-06-092, ID 2246. Projections were for 4,000 average weekday boardings after one year, growing to about 7,000 in 2010. Actual weekday boardings in 2010 for both Newark Light Rail lines combined were reported at 9,000.New Jersey Transit . Njtransit.com. Retrieved on June 23, 2014.
The art work at the new stations has a common theme, "Riding with Sarah and Wayne". It is a tribute to Newark-born jazz greats Sarah Vaughan and Wayne Shorter, and includes the lyrics to Vaughan's signature song, "Send in the Clowns", and colored bricks representing the music notes.
The Broad Street Extension was intended to ease connections between Newark's two rail stations. The two separate stations are a legacy of their roots in two separate railroads. Broad Street Station was once owned by the Lackawanna Railroad and its successor, the Erie Lackawanna Railway, while Penn Station was built and owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Previously, passengers wanting to transfer between Amtrak and the former PRR/Conrail commuter lines and the former (Erie) Lackawanna commuter lines had to make their own way (usually by taxi or bus) between the two stations.
Cedar Street subway
The Cedar Street subway was a rail tunnel that allowed streetcar (and later bus) access to the subterranean level of the Newark Public Service Terminal. It was built by the Public Service Corporation in 1916, as part of the terminal building, to reduce streetcar congestion at nearby Broad and Market streets, and provided access for a number of surface lines. The tunnel starts at street level at Washington Street and extends two blocks under Cedar Street and across Broad Street.
The subway line opened on April 30, 1916.Riley, John Harrington. The Newark City Subway Lines. J.H. Riley, 1987 At that time, four street car lines served Central Avenue, Orange, South Orange and Springfield. At its height in 1927, fourteen lines used the subway. An inbound station stop was added inside the tunnel under Cedar Street and Broad Street in January 1927, serving Kresge's Department Store. In August 1929, across the tracks, an outbound platform was added serving McCrory's 5 & 10 store. In 1937, the Cedar Street subway was extended to a junction with the newly opened Newark City Subway, allowing service to Newark Penn Station. The extension closed later that year.On May 8, 1966, the last three bus lines using the Cedar Street subway, Line 62 to Perth Amboy, Line 128 to Paterson and Line 134 to New Brunswick, operated final service through the tunnel. Since the demolition of the Public Service Terminal in 1981, it has ended at a wall under Broad Street.