Eastern portal above which are three engraved stones. The first lists the officers and engineers of the company. The seconds reads "Long Dock Company founded 1856". The third reads "Bergen Tunnel completed 1861".
Western portal above which is "Erie", the name of the railroad that owned the tunnel. To the south was the 1910 Erie Cut which traveled under the
Bergen Arches .
The Long Dock Tunnel is a freight rail tunnel in
Jersey City, New Jersey that is part of the
North Jersey Shared Assets Area and used by
CSX Transportation on the
National Docks Secondary . The single track (formerly dual track) tunnel runs through
Bergen Hill , a section of the lower
New Jersey Palisades in
Hudson County .
[1]
History
The busiest tunnel point in the world in 1911, six Erie Railroad tracks below four Lackawanna tracks all emerging from tunnels under Bergen Hill
The tunnel was built under the oversight of engineer
James P. Kirkwood and was started in 1856 and opened in 1861,
[2] costing 57 lives to build.
[3] The new tunnel formed became route for both the
Erie and
Delaware-Lackawanna railroads to reach their respective stations, the
Pavonia Terminal and
Hoboken Terminal , located on the
North River (Hudson River) .
[4]
[5]
[6]
The tunnel runs 4,311 feet (1,314 m) long, 23 feet (7.0 m) high, and 30 feet (9.1 m) wide. Eight shafts, 70–90 feet (21–27 m) in depth were sunk down from atop the Palisades to reach the tunnel.
[7]
In 1910 the Erie Railroad replaced the Long Dock Tunnel with the
Erie Cut , though primarily for use by passenger trains. Erie freight trains continued to use the tunnel as do freight railroads to this day.
A 2005 map of the active railroads of northern
Hudson County . The Long Dock Tunnel is the part of the blue line marked Conrail
National Docks Branch which runs between the tunnel portal just east of the West End Junction (bottom center) and the tunnel portal just west of the connection with the
Conrail River Line stub.
The northwestern portal is just northwest of where
Kennedy Boulevard passes over
New Jersey State Route 139 . The southeastern portal is near State Route 139 between where it intersects
Palisade Avenue and passes over
Interstate 78 . Part of the viaduct which carried trains to the yards and the terminals is parallel to Boyle Plaza (the entrance and exit roads for the
Holland Tunnel ) and now serves as an access road to
Newport as the current 11th Street.
See also
References
^
"Bergen Hill Tunnel and the Waldo Yard Tunnel: Introduction" . bergenwaldo.blogspot.nl .
^
"OPENING OF THE BERGEN TUNNEL.; Journey into the Bowels of New-Jersey" . The New York Times . 8 February 1861.
^ Adams, A.G. (1996).
The Hudson Through the Years . Fordham University Press. p.
159 .
ISBN
9780823216772 . Retrieved 2015-04-13 .
^
"Opening of the Bergen Tunnel Journey in to the Bowels of New Jersey" , The New York Times , February 8, 1861, retrieved 2012-01-15
^ Adams, A.G. (1996).
The Hudson River Guidebook . Fordham University Press. p.
88 .
ISBN
9780823216796 . Retrieved 2015-04-13 .
^
"NEW-JERSEY RAILROADS.; The Northern Railroad Some of the Projected and Completed Improvements Emigrant Travel and Its Peculiarities" (PDF) . The New York Times . September 5, 1871.
^
Ripley, George ; and
Dana, Charles Anderson .
"The New American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge" , via
Google Books , 1861,
D. Appleton & Company . p. 738.
External links
40°44′08″N 74°03′27″W / 40.7355°N 74.0574°W / 40.7355; -74.0574 (Long Dock Tunnel center )