New Jersey West Line Railroad - Completed Section: Gladstone Branch

Completed Section: Gladstone Branch

The operating segment of the New Jersey West Line did not have enough income to pay its costs, as it served small farms and an undeveloped region, and the company fell into receivership in 1878. The property was foreclosed on and sold on August 3, 1878 an official of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, its only connection, for $51,580. The new company was called the Passaic and Delaware Railroad. For many years the Gladstone Branch was known to railroad employees as the "P and D", but it was operated by the DL&W from 1878 onward as a branch of the Morris and Essex. The DL&W formally leased the line on November 1, 1882.

The DL&W obtained a charter in 1890 for the Passaic and Delaware Extension Railroad, intended to continue the branch to Gladstone. The extension was built in only six months, opening in October. The extension includes a very short tunnel west of Far Hills. Despite the grand company title, the DL&W never tried to extend the line farther west to the Delaware River.

(This was the second railroad to reach Peapack and Gladstone, the Rockaway Valley Railroad having opened in April the same year built its line north from White House on the CNJ. It is indicative of the railroad fever of the 1890s that such a small village would be the object of two railroads, and that a wealthy carrier like the DL&W would react so quickly to the plans of a small and financially shaky "competitor". The RV was abandoned in 1913.)

The Gladstone Branch was converted to electric passenger operation in January 1931, but freights continued to run on steam until dieselization in March, 1953. Passenger trains ran to the terminal at Hoboken. The usual off-peak service for about six decades in the mid-20th Century consisted of a pair of Gladstone cars that were cut in and out of mainline Morris and Essex trains at Summit. The line was amazingly rural in nature, consisting of a single main track with passing sidings and hand-thrown switches worked by train crews. After New Jersey Transit took over operations in 1983 some of the sidings were removed, severely limiting reverse-peak services, and the practice of cutting cars in and out of trains ended, requiring passengers to change trains, usually at Summit. Beginning in June 1996 some peak trains were operated directly to and from Penn Station, as part of the Midtown Direct service. Any expansion of current service levels is problematical due to lack of storage space at Gladstone.