Opened on July 23, 1869 and operated by the
Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ), the railroad provided a direct route between
Newark and its
Jersey City terminal, where passengers could transfer to
ferries to New York. The line cost $300,000 per mile, unprecedented at the time, earning it the sobriquet "the country's costliest railroad". The route travelled west from the Hudson and crossed
Bergen Hill where a
cut had been excavated for a
right of way (ROW). It then crossed the Hackensack to
Kearny Point, the tip of a larger peninsula formally known as
New Barbadoes Neck, to the
Passaic River. The bridges across the rivers were raised in 1913 to accommodate shipping. Upon crossing the Passaic River, it entered the
Ironbound Section of Newark at Ferry and St. Francis Streets, traveling parallel to and south of Market Street until it crossed Ferry Street again between Union and Prospect Streets. From there, the line crossed over the
Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) tracks and terminated at Broad Street. At its peak over 100 passenger trains used the route daily. the through line was discontinued, and the bridge was dismantled. The
piers of the Hackensack bridge are still visible (at ) from the shoreline along the proposed
Hackensack River Greenway. Several open-deck spans of the
Passaic River swing bridge, and its main pier (though not the swing span itself), remain (at ). While the Newark terminal building is still standing and is part of the
Four Corners Historic District the trackage and train shed which served it are now the site of the
Prudential Center. The rail yard is site of
Mulberry Commons. The bridges from the yard over
McCarter Highway, the PRR tracks now used by
Amtrak/
New Jersey Transit (NJT) to
Newark Penn Station, and New Jersey Railroad Avenue still exist. The right of way through the Ironbound was developed as commercial space and housing. A station house at the
Jackson Avenue station survived until at least 2007. The ROW through
Bergen Hill and
West Side in Jersey City has become part of the
Hudson Bergen Light Rail. NJT has announced plans for 0.7 mile extension of the West Side Branch from its current terminus at
West Side Avenue station over
Route 440 to a redevelopment area known as
Bayfront, where a new station would be constructed. ==Service==