Middletown & New Jersey Railway Historical Society
  Dedicated to Preserving the Heritage of the Middletown Unionville & Water Gap, Middletown & Unionville, Middletown & New Jersey
and Other Area Railroads.
 

A Condensed History of the Middletown and New Jersey Railway Company and Predecessors

by Peter Brill

     The first railroad to reach Middletown, NY was the New York & Erie Railroad, an Erie predecessor, which entered the hamlet on June 1, 1843 and would remain the only railroad in the region for over two decades. In the early 1840's, the NY&E fostered the growth of the Orange County dairy industry by developing the capacity to ship fluid milk to New York City, a far more profitable business opportunity for area farmers previously limited to butter.

    On January 11, 1866, the New York & Oswego Midland RR was incorporated with the goal of linking Oswego, NY, on Lake Ontario, with the Hudson River, opposite New York City.

    That same year, meetings were held in Westtown, Unionville and Middletown to discuss the viability of a railroad via these hamlets to Deckertown (Sussex), NJ. A route was surveyed from Middletown to Deckertown but as built, the Middletown, Unionville & Water Gap RR, only extended from a connection with the Erie in Middletown to Unionville, where it arrived on December 6, 1867 after 14 months of construction. Freight cars received from the Erie made the 14 mile trip to Unionville as early as January 13, 1868. The broad gauge MU&WG was leased to the Erie and began regular operations as its Unionville Branch on May 15, 1868.

    The NY&OM reached Middletown and hoped to connect with three companies in New Jersey to form a route to New York harbor. The three New Jersey roads merged in 1870 to form the New Jersey Midland RR which built west from Two Bridges (Beaver Lake) to the state line (Hanford) in 1871. The link between the NY&OM and the NJM would be the MU&WG which was leased/by the NY&OM effective April 1, 1872 and standard gauged. The NY&OM built one mile of track to bridge the MU&WG over the Erie and connect it to the NY&OM at East Main St., Middletown.

    The NY&OM went bankrupt and dropped the lease on the MU&WG which was then leased by the NJM in 1873. The NJM reorganized into the Midland RR of NJ in 1880 and in 1881 merged with several other roads to form the New York, Susquehanna & Western RR. Meanwhile the NY&OM reorganized into the New York, Ontario & Western in 1879 and the Erie Railway reorganized as the New York, Lake Erie & Western in 1878.

    The MU&WG wound up in a very favorable situation with connections to three major carriers, the Erie and O&W in Middletown and the NYS&W at Hanford. The MU&WG was the west end of the NYS&W until the NYS&W built west from Two Bridges to Shops (East Stroudsburg) and a connection with subsidiary Wilkes Barre & Eastern, its link to the anthracite fields. The MU&WG then served as the NYS&W's Middletown Branch. In 1898, the Erie gained control of the NYS&W and thus gained control of the MU&WG as well.

    The MU&WG was a very desirable property because of the tremendous milk traffic it generated, possibly the greatest mile for mile in the US. Milk was shipped to the NY metropolitan area via all three of the MU&WG's connections as creameries and condenseries were built along the route at Pounds Station (outside Middletown), Slate Hill, Johnson, Westtown and Unionville.

    The MU&WG was taken over by the holders of its two mortgages on September 8, 1913 because the Erie failed to pay their bonds, perhaps because the Erie preferred to invest in major expansion projects along its own lines. The mortgage holders organized an independent shortline, the Middletown & Unionville RR, which began operations on December 1, 1913.

    The road enjoyed the revenues from its heavy milk traffic, both fluid and condensed, as well as related commodities such as livestock, feed, bottles and coal. The M&U would roster 8 steam locomotives, none with a trailing truck (4‑4‑0, 2‑6‑0, 4‑6‑0 and 2‑8‑0 configurations), over the years and rely on the O&W shops for repairs. Fifty‑six O&W steamers in 13 classes would fill in on the M&U while the M&U's own engine was up at the O&W shops.

    A substantial passenger service , often using rail busses, was offered with emphasis on carrying high school students from hamlets along the line to school in Middletown. However, a new high school was built distant from the M&U with the result that the contract was canceled and the M&U abolished passenger service with the end of the school year in June of 1940.

    The milk traffic was lost to truck competition with the final shipment on August 18, 1941 from Borden’s at Johnson. Between 1938 and 1942, the NYS&W and the O&W had a very close relationship which resulted in the routing of heavy coal traffic from the O&W to the NYS&W via the M&U. On April 23, 1944, the M&U retired its last steamer and relied on leased O&W locomotives and then NYS&W decapods until the arrival of General Electric 44 ton diesel No. 1 on April 19, 1946.

    Coal traffic dwindled and the M&U was sold at a foreclosure sale on January 15, 1947 to three of its feed customers who had purchased the No. 1 for the railroad the prior year. They reorganized the company as the Middletown and New Jersey Railway on October 1, 1947. The O&W maintained No. 1 and loaned its own GE 44 tonners, Nos. 101 and 105, when No l was in the shop. Traffic in the 1950's was dominated by a large GLF feed mill near Dolson Ave. in Middletown.

    In the late 1950's the M&NJ lost two of its three connections as the O&W ceased operations on March 31, 1957 and the NYS&W abandoned the Hanford branch the next year. The GLF mill at Dolson Ave. burned down on March 30, 1962 but was rebuilt as a much larger facility including a custom mix plant and a bulk plant with an annual capacity of 50,000 tons. GLF was merged into Agway . The complex received as many as a dozen loads daily.

    In the early 1960's, the Empire State Railway Museum ran diesel and steam excursions over the line until relocating to Essex, Ct. in the mid‑1960's. In 1963,, the M&NJ purchased a GE 44 tonner from Calco Chemical, Bound Brook, NJ, and numbered it No. 2. Service on the south end of the line was cut back about 7 miles to Johnson with the last run to Unionville on December 31, 1968. Within two years service was cut back two more miles to Slate Hill. Agway opened a fertilizer plant near Dolson Ave. in 1966; Balchem opened a chemical plant in an old creamery in Slate Hill in 1968 and Genpak constructed a plant in Middletown in 1969 to produce plastic plates and dishes. These three new customers would be the only remaining customers in the late 1980's and through the 1990's.

    In the late 1970's the M&NJ participated in the shortline boxcar boom and rostered about 750 50 ft. blue boxcars owned by NRUC (National Railcar Utilization Corp.). The boxcars were loaded at Genpak and then spent much of their time running over other railroads while the M&NJ collected 10% of the usage fees for the cars. Unfortunately the market for these cars disappeared within a couple of years and all the cars returned to the M&NJ for storage. Over a decade passed before the last boxcar left the M&NJ.

    The Agway feed facilities at Dolson Avenue closed in the mid‑1980's and the M&NJ settled into a routine of weekly trips to Genpak, bi‑weekly trips to Balchem and seasonal service to the Agway fertilizer plant. The Agway fertilizer plant closed in the late 1990’s and Balchem moved the portion of their business requiring rail service to the mid-west in June of 2002, leaving Genpak in Middletown as their only customer. 44 tonner No. 1 is out of service (but cosmetically restored to its early black and white scheme) and No. 2 alone would power the M&NJ from the early 1980's to the current time.

Sources of additional information include ''A Classic American Shortline; The M&U/M&NJ", Railroad Model ,Craftsman Aug. 1989, "The Middletown and New Jersey " Parts 1 & 2, Railpace Oct. & Nov. 1982 and the Middletown and New Jersey Railway Historical Society at http://mnjrhs.org P. Brill 6‑05‑2000