The area on the Northeast Corridor from the route 35 (St Georges Ave) in Rahway to Linden train station was and is still known as the Six Roads. I did research and found out that up to 1912 the St Georges Ave overpass was a 4 or six track grade crossing with gatemen. The grade crosssing was probable world famous at the time but sadly is now forgotten. The term Six Roads is still used today by some people to point out the area.
Interesting history - thanks for sharing. But which roads were the “Six Roads” ? Looks like the PRR’s bridge over St. Georges Ave./ NJ Rts. 27 - 35 is at about these Lat./ Long. coords. (per the ACME Mapper 2.0 application): N 40.59401 W 74.29081 But then the next roads to the northeast towards and just past the Rahway station (now at ) which now have bridges under the railroad would have been (today’s names):
- Inman Ave.
- Hazelwood Ave.
- Emerson Ave.
- Milton Ave. - note that the Rahway station is between this one and Cherry St. (below);
- Cherry St. and Irving St. - looks like both are spanned by the same bridge, since they’re close together;
- Poplar St.
- Main St.
If Campbell St. had also crossed the railroad and intersected Milton Ave. at or near the Rahway station site back then, I could see the 6 roads having then consisted of those 2 plus the last 4 in the list above, as they’re all within a block or two of the Rahway station. But St. Georges Ave. is about 1.2 miles southwesterly from Rahway, and the others are spaced along that distance from 0.2 to 0.4 miles apart.
Then after the bridge over the Rahway River, there are these bridges over major roads up to and just past the Linden station (now at N 40.62946 W 74.25172), which is about 1.6 miles further northeast:
- Grand Ave./ S.R. 514
- Scott Ave.
- Stiles St.
- Wood Ave.
The first 2 are within about 1/2 mile of the Rahway station; then there’s a gap of almost a mile to the next of the last 2 roads, which are both pretty close to the Linden station.
So depending on how and which roads are counted, I get anywhere from 6 to 10 to 12 to a possible 14 roads that crossed the PRR in the distance from St. Georges Ave. to the Linden station back then !
- Paul North.
I think that area from that from Rahway at St Georges Ave and Linden Wood Av that I mentioned were called the six roads because they had six lanes of tracks. t goes back to four at Elizabeth train station I don’t know why. It should have been six tracks all the way to NYC with 4 freaking tunnels leading to Penn Station NYC instead of two. Now projects have started and cancelled regarding the extra tunnels.