Weehawken Terminal - Railroad Lines

Railroad Lines

The West Shore Railroad maintained extensive routes to the north and west. The New York Central bought the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway on November 24, 1885 and reorganized their new acquisition as the West Shore Railroad on December 5, immediately leasing it for 475 years from January 1, 1886. Trains departed the terminal and travelled under Bergen Hill, as the southern portion of the Hudson Palisades is known, in a tunnel that had been built in the three preceding years. They travelled inland and north along the Palisade ridge between the competing Erie Railroad Northern Branch and Pascack Valley Line. At Haverstraw the route returned to the river proceeding north to Kingston and Albany and eventually to Buffalo. Suburban service to the Northern Valley in Bergen County and Rockland County included stops at Bogota, Dumont, Tappan, and Nyack. In the early 1990s there were studies made to consider the revival of service along the right-of-way to Nyack. The NYO&W mainline ran to Oswego, a port city on Lake Ontario. It had branch lines to Scranton, Pennsylvania and to Kingston; Port Jervis; Dehli; Utica and Rome in New York. Using the same tunnel, the New York Central also operated the New Jersey Junction Railroad south to Jersey City and the New Jersey Shore Line Railroad north to Edgewater. Portions of those rights-of-way became part of Conrail's River Line and subsequently the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail.