Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-07-28
FIFTY YEARS
OF RAILROADS
AOId Resident Of MiddIesex COun-
y Traces traction Develop
ment for Half Century.

by the man who superintendent the
construction of the first electric road
In the county:
While ii is universally known that
enormously large capital is invested
In arilroads in this state, but few
are aware of the novelties that have
occurred in railroad progress in
whole or in part of Middlesex county
within the past fifty years.
The first bicycle engine Oarge
wheeler) l knew of was the j. j.
Chetwood that ran from New Bruins
wick to Jersey City in the later
flfties. The engineer "sported' a
Canadian toboggan cap with a %tassel,
and for a while curious persons went
to the station to see engine and driv-
er on each trip. The wheels were
less than six feet in diameter.
The largest driving wheels on rails
in this county ante-dated the Chef
wood by ten years. l think the en-
CINE was built in the rorties and ran
between South Amboy and Camden
and was known as No. 20. 1t had
one driving wheel each side eight
feet in diameter. They were partly
covered by copper wheel houses, so
they lesembled a steamboat, and the
connecting rods had side tension
rods like a steamboat. Three engi-
neers wishing to know its capacity
for speed, one acted as fireman, one
as brakeman, one sat in the "gigtop."
1t ended itself and them by explod-
ing near Bordentown. OF course
the speed was never known. The
safety-valve was pinned down. At
that time all engines on the G. & A.
road had gigtops on the rea of the
tender where a man worked a brake
with his feet.
The next novelty in engines were
termed monster built" They had
walking beams about four feet long
on each side and about a foot above
the boiler near the smokestack and,
think, we're used to work the
pumps. The engines were manipu-
lated by two upright levers that OPP
Grated alternately and when running
reminded one of an automaton shak-
ing its fist at the engineer.
In the later fifties about two miles
of track running out from South Am
boy was laid with rails eight inches
deep or high. The writer measured
them. They resembled iron beams
bit lacked the essential of elasticity.
About this period a passenger
train on the G. & A. road running
backward struck the vehicle of one
DR.. Heiniken, which caused a great
fatality by wrecking the train. To
prevent a repetition the company
adopted the idea of a small automat-
ic steam whistle in one end of a cyl
Under and when in motion there
would be three puffs and a whistle.
1t was discarded in about a year. 1t
was called the Heiniken whistle.
In the seventies some two miles of
track we're laid with iron ties west
of Menlo Park. They rcsembled in
verified cutters but lacked elasticity.
In s~eventy-six the old original en-
CINE, John Bull No. l." after being
repaired, made a farewell trip
through Woodbridge and Amboy.
After exhibiting at the Centennial |
think it was sent to the smithsonian
institute at Washington. Another
John Bull" was sent from England
in the eighties as a sample to com
pete with ours and ran from New
York to Philadelphia, crossing our
county. 1t could not start more than
six cars on a level nor make the
time and 1t disappeared within two
years. | think it had II driving
wheel each side.
III eighty-one the first electric rail-
road in the United States was built
at Menlo Park. Not being a trolley.
the current ran along on II rail
the motor, returning by the
opposite rail. It was only a partial
success. AS an experiment, M. Ed
ison built a s~even-foot gauge track
down a thirty-degree incline with a
curve at the bottom. Being BURDEN
ed with other work he eve did any
thing with it. Beside this we have
had tracks of six feet, four feet eight,
three feet six, and two feet gauge,
all but the first still in operation in
the county. i,
One of the most novel and skillful
feats in ~railroading was lately ac-
complished when the iron bridge at
New Brunswick, double track, eleven
hundred feet long and some forty
feet above the river, was moved
about sixty feet sidewise in about
four hours and not a train even de-
layed, it being on Sunday. 1t was
rsed until a stone bridge was built.
II is said one of the first firemen,
now in the nineties, on the former
Camden G. Amboy road, is still living
at %Jamesburg in this county.
It might be a good occasion to
state that in the fifties a bet was won
that an actor could leave a theatre
in New York at 8 o'clock and resume
the play at 10 o'clock in Philadel-
rhia. Many switches were wedged
end guarded by men with lanterns.
The train" ran from Railway to
New Brunswick in less than twelve
minutes, which at that time was UNI
p~recedented. The engine, H. K.
Remsen," that made this run was ar
terward used in building the railroad
from Railway to Perth Amboy.
1t is somewhat novel that across
st. Georges VENUE in North Wood
bridge there is now under construc-
ton, some fifteen feet above grade,
q branch of the p. r. r. and a snort
line trolley north and the Port Read
ing coal road south of it, the latter
two being on grade SO that in about
a year there will be three railroads
running parallel within a belt OF o
hundred and fifty feet.
-"RUSTICUs."