The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1901-06-11
LAFAYETTE BOOM
?. R. R. Buying Up Property
in the Section for It's
New Branch Road.
GREAT RAILROAD PROJECT
Docks at Greenville Will Con-
vert the Bay Into One of
the Worlds Great
Freight Depots.

The Pennsylvania Railroad has plans
| now on foot for the building of branch
road from the yards near the main line
at Waldo avenue, to the Greenville shore
front, where millions of dollars are now
being spent In converting the bay into
one Of the greatest freight depots the
, world possesses. Details of this latest
move have come to light through the
purchase of thousands OF dollars worth
of property in the Lafayette section.
The idea is, indeed, an old one, but
few know of it. over a decade ago the
road acquired acres of property in
Greenville, with view to having a great
freight line there some day. The past
year has seen the WONDERFUL advances
and numerous Improvements made, and
today the p r. R. is in position to go
ahead with its project.
The plan is simple yet one that involves
the expenditure of thousands of dollars
and months of toll. The idea as under
stood is to build freight line from the
main line across the low lands at the foot
of the Heights, crossing Montgomery and
Grand streets by trestle and crossing the
canal, too. From there the road will
take a southwesterly turn and run for a
half mile over Communipaw avenue to
the Central tracks, which it will cross by
trestle, then go directly south to the docks
in Greenville. In doing this the road will
cross Academy, Wayne. Mercer. Mont
gomery and Grand streets, Communipaw
avenue and Pacific avenue.
1t is also believed that the company
| secured the privileges years ago to COM
plete this work, but the acquisition of
property and the formation of plans have
been the work of years. The old Nc
Knight homestead south of Pacific ave-
nue. has been sold to the road for 800, OOO
A part of the Rehill property extending
to the canal has also been bought in and
the Griffing Iron Works are said to have
parted with enough of their land near the
canal to allow the road to reach
other property. The famous old zinc
works north of Communipaw avenue,
which shut down recently owing to the
trust war and threw hundreds of hands
out of work, has also been taken by the
Pennsylvania Railroad for freight yard
and track line. Other very valuable
rights have been bought in and rapid
| steps are being taken to push the matter
1t is not likely that any active work
will be begun on this new line for some
time Agents are now negotiating for
the purchase of property and it will not
be long before a clear right of way is
secured.
Scarcely in the history of railroad i'm
provements has such gigantic under
taking been attempted The docks, miles
in length, being constructed in Green
vile to handle tons of freight direct from
the steamers and ship it over the conti-
nent with one handling is one great
scheme now being rapidly pushed to COM
pletion. This new line through Lafayette
will cut off about seven miles of road
under the system now in operation The
plan to run cars from the main line
through Lafayette to the Greenville docks
| and thence over the Newark Bay to the
tracks at Elizabeth is a big time saver
Lafayette is developing into a railroad
centre. Property owners are asking
fancy prices from the roads and are get
ting them It will not be long before that
section will be completely transformed.