After a LONG absence that nice young Mister North Jersey Aerial Rail is back, and he’s back with a vengeance!
Here’s his newest work, an aerial tour of the old Erie’s Northern Branch RR, running from North Bergen NJ to the New York State border. Interesting to say the least! And sadly depressing as well, considering what was.
Here’s the link:
(I’ve watched it at least a half-dozen times already! And for a surprise take a GOOD look at Granton Tower!)
I had no clue Erie had a Northern Branch
Thanks for posting this. I really enjoyed this and I know I’ll watch it again. Once more, the skilled use of drones made this an amazing video to watch. I saw stations and depots that until now I’d only known through Erie schedules. And those depots! How on earth did little Tenafly qualify for such a grand one made from stone? The depot at Demarest is impressive, too!
My admiration for and interest in the Erie Railroad continues to grow.
Thanks, Flintlock!
It began as an independent line but was absorbed into the Erie later on.
Here’s a VERY interesting map of the Northern Railroad as completed in 1859. You can zoom into it for some interesting details. Zoom in on Tappantown for some really notable landmarks!
So glad you enjoyed it! Believe it or not the stations were built mostly with private subscription money donated by the upper-class residents of Tenafly and Demarest who wanted grand stations for their towns. The Northern/Erie made up the balance. The stone was quarried locally as well, there’s a number of houses in Bergen County dating back to the Colonial and Federal Periods built of the same locally quarried sandstone.
Do you know the dates of those two depots?
Thanks for the info
Good question
Certainly! Tenafly 1873, Demarest 1874.
Here’s some Northern Branch film YouTube threw at me!
It’s from the late 1950s, 8mm color, but no soundtrack except for a “projector.”
The quality’s not the best but still interesting. Click on the “more” portion of the intro for the full information of what you’ll be seeing.
Thanks for the information about the depots and their dates. I wonder if you’d consider the following a coincidence or maybe standard corporate thinking on the Erie in the 1870’s: Farther west, on the Erie’s partner Atlantic & Great Western RR, the town of Kent, Ohio petitioned the railroad for a new and much better depot in 1874. Kent was a railroad town with shops and yards and a good relationship with the A&GW. The railroad asked the town for $4,000 towards the cost (total cost unclear; some sources say 10K, others 20K); in the event, the citizens over-subscribed the goal and raised $4,400.
The result was the second-largest depot in Northern Ohio, described in the 1970’s by Architectural Forum as “one of the most perfectly proportioned [depots] in the Midwest, romantically poised above an embankment.” The red-brick structure remains Kent’s most recognizable landmark. On June 1st there will be a big to-do at the depot to celebrate its 150th anniversary. Several hundred people are expected to turn out for the event; the ABC Ry (owners of the former Erie tracks in Kent) will have a display train, etc.
So I wonder, Flintlock, how common it was in the 1870’s for railroads and towns on the Erie or elsewhere, for rich individuals, or for that matter, to share the cost of new depots?
The classic photo is by classic photographer Herbert H. Harwood, Jr. The plaque will be placed during the celebration.
That’s a VERY good question! Unfortunately I have no idea. But it’s probably a safe bet if a town/city along the Erie has an out-of-the-norm depot, that is one not of generic railroad architecture we may be justified in assuming there was local fundraising involved in the construction.
Having read “The Nickel Plate Story”, among other railroad histories, I get the idea that many communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries actively competed, sometimes violently, for the railroads to come through their town with shops and roundhouses being “the holy grail” because of all the jobs they would bring. Citizens often raised cash offers (bribes) to get the railroads to see things their way. So it’s not surprising that an established community would assist in the effort of building the railroad.
Out west in undeveloped or under developed land where the railroad was establishing the locations of towns based on the needs of the railroad it was different. In those places the railroads usually absorbed 100% of the construction costs. But if they were being subsidized, think Union Pacific, AND selling the land adjacent to the rails as they went, then it wasn’t entirely up to the railroad’s backers to foot the bill for construction.
VERY good observation Becky!
