Roseville tunnel
Encyclopedia
Port Morris Junction
Port Morris Junction is the former railroad connection between NJ Transit's Montclair-Boonton Line and the Lackawanna Cut-Off. Built by the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western railroad, it sits in the Port Morris section of Roxbury Township, New Jersey, south of Lake Hopatcong.Soon after rail...
. Financed by the Lackawanna Railroad, the tunnel was completed in 1911 by Waltz & Reese Construction Companies.
Initial plans for the Cut-Off's Roseville section had called for a deep cut, rather than a tunnel. But when construction crews encountered unstable rock the consistency of "Roquefort cheese", engineers determined that a tunnel
Tunnel
A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...
was the only alternative. During the final summer of construction, Waltz & Reese fell behind schedule and put crews to work at night by torchlight, since no electricity was available.
The Cut-Off, and the Roseville Tunnel, opened on December 24, 1911. The tunnel permitted a 70 mph (113 km/hr) speed limit.
Several modifications were eventually made. Doors were installed on the west end of the tunnel to keep ice from building up, and snow drifts from working their way inside from the deep cut to the west. The doors were opened and closed by a watchman
Watchman
Watchman or Watchmen may refer to:*Watchman , a member of a group who provided law enforcement**Security guard or watchman, a person who watches over and protects property, assets, or people...
who worked out of a nearby shanty
Shanty
Shanty may refer to:* Ice shanty, a portable shed placed on a frozen lake* Sea shanty, shipboard working songs* Shanty Hogan , Major League Baseball catcher* Shanty town, unit of irregular, low-cost dwellings...
. The watchman also kept an eye on rockslide
Rockslide
A rockslide is a type of landslide caused by rock failure in which part of the plane of failure passes through intact rock and where material collapses en masse and not in individual blocks.The mode of failure is different from that of a rock-fall....
s that could cause a derailment
Derailment
A derailment is an accident on a railway or tramway in which a rail vehicle, or part or all of a train, leaves the tracks on which it is travelling, with consequent damage and in many cases injury and/or death....
, and set trackside signals
Railway signal
A signal is a mechanical or electrical device erected beside a railway line to pass information relating to the state of the line ahead to train/engine drivers. The driver interprets the signal's indication and acts accordingly...
to red to stop trains from passing. The doors were eventually removed, and the shantyman replaced by electronic rockslide detectors. A concrete lining was applied to the western half of the tunnel to prevent rockfalls inside.
The westbound track was removed in 1958, when the Cut-Off was single-tracked by the Lackawanna Railroad in anticipation of a merger with the Erie Railroad
Erie Railroad
The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in New York State, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, originally connecting New York City with Lake Erie...
to form the Erie Lackawanna Railroad.
In 1984, the tracks were removed from the Cut-Off by Conrail, which had abandoned the route the year before.
As of 2011, plans are to reactivate rail service westbound to Andover, NJ, about two miles (3 km) west of Roseville Tunnel. Additional concrete lining for the interior tunnel walls will be applied before tracks are relaid.
External links
Sources
- The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad in the Nineteenth Century (1 volume) and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad in the Twentieth Century (2 volumes) by Thomas Townsend Taber III, Lycoming Printing Company, 1977, 1980, 1981.
- The Lackawanna Railroad in Northwestern New Jersey by Larry Lowenthal and William T. Greenberg, Jr., Tri-State Railway Historical Society, Inc., 1987.
- Farewell to the Lackawanna Cut-Off (Parts I-IV), by Don Dorflinger, published in the Block Line, Tri-State Railway Historical Society, Inc., 1984-1985.