North Hawthorne station

Passenger service and site description North Hawthorne was located on the NYS&W's Main Line, which during the years of Erie Railroad control (1898–1937) stretched from Croxton in Jersey City, New Jersey, to Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. At Croxton, the NYS&W's tracks met the Erie Railroad's Main Line. Through this junction, passenger trains on the NYS&W's Main Line originating as far away as Pennsylvania were able to connect to Erie's Pavonia Terminal. Midland Park station once existed between North Hawthorne and Wortendyke, but no trace of it survives. In 1941, the NYS&W's Main Line had shrunk as the railroad abandoned the line between Hainesburg Junction (Blairstown, New Jersey) and Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Though the railroad extended to Blairstown until 1962, passenger service by 1939 continued only between Butler and Jersey City, with trains originating in Butler and North Hawthorne. Trains originating at North Hawthorne offered one of two options, a rapid transit ‘streamliner’ servicing locales west of Maywood, primarily Paterson with direct service to Susquehanna Transfer in North Bergen, or a local service (ten trains per week) which made frequent stops between North Hawthorne and the Susquehanna Transfer before continuing on to Jersey City's Pavonia Terminal. In 1958, the NYS&W cut its rapid transit service, leaving only its slower local trains to operate from North Hawthorne. By 1959, Pavonia Terminal ceased to operate, ending passenger service south of the Susquehanna Transfer. Local trains to the Susquehanna Transfer from North Hawthorne eventually ended in 1966. As of mid–2012, all that remains of North Hawthorne is one siding running parallel to where the car shop used to be. The NYS&W refers to this siding as one its runarounds. The yard's roundhouse, which was sold in 1946, still stands, although it has undergone extensive modifications. Some of the surrounding industrial buildings also retain old rail freight platforms, although these are either sealed up or in a state of disrepair. Connections Starting in 1911, North Hawthorne served as the northern terminus of Public Service Railway's Lakeview trolley line, with service between Hawthorne and Paterson. The trolley tracks closely paralleled to the NYS&W's Main Line in Hawthorne, following the alignment of (from south to north) Lincoln Street, Grand Avenue, and 4th Avenue. In 1912, the name Lakeview was dropped and changed to State Line. This was changed again in 1913 to simply Hawthorne. North Hawthorne continued to act as the northern terminus of line until 1914, when trolley service was extended along a mostly private right-of-way to Ridgewood. North Hawthorne remained a transfer point to the Hawthorne trolley line until 1926, when the line was abandoned. After 1926, the trolley service was bustituted, with Public Service Coordinated Transport retaining the name Hawthorne on the bus line, which it numbered route P22. Bus service ran along Lafayette Avenue instead of 4th Avenue, one block west of the original alignment of the trolley route. Later in the 20th century, after the closing of North Hawthorne, the P22 route would evolve into New Jersey Transit's bus route 722. ==History==

Early years and Erie control The creation of the North Hawthorne yard stemmed from a fire which destroyed repair shops, as well as some locomotives, at NYS&W's Wortendyke facility in 1891. In 1892, a new, replacement yard with car and engine shops was opened a few miles to the south of Wortendyke. The new yard at North Paterson (the Borough of Hawthorne was not established for another eight years, and the yard would not be renamed North Hawthorne until 1923) featured a roundhouse, turntable, and a passenger station with a single platform. These improvements phased out the need for passenger trains servicing the city of Paterson to reverse. The car shops during this time employed two hundred workers. Reorganization and streamliner era In 1937, after declaring bankruptcy, the NYS&W reorganized as an independent company under the leadership of a court-appointed trustee, Walter Kidde. Under Kidde's guidance, the railroad developed a plan to capture the market on travel to Midtown Manhattan. At the time, buses had an almost exclusive connection to Midtown due to the then newly completed Lincoln Tunnel. The NYS&W sought to compete directly with buses by offering a new passenger service to just outside the tunnel, and then using a contracted bus service to ferry passengers into Midtown. the Morningstar-Paisley plant just north of the station house exploded, spreading debris and scorching heat through the disused yard. Just before the incident, an NYS&W crew had placed a fully loaded boxcar along the plant's siding. As the crew moved its locomotive in front of the station house, the plant was leveled by a blast delivering enough power to throw the loaded boxcar across two sets of tracks. By 2008, the last industry using a siding linked to the former North Hawthorne yard (Delawanna Plastics) was gone, and the siding, which crossed Utter Avenue, was scheduled to be removed. In 2009, the remnants of the corridor used by the largest spur were provided as an easement to local industry to expand a driveway. == Bibliography ==