03-07-31 CLASSIC PHOTOS: NJT PVL Trip

It's Thanksgiving week so this post is going to be a shorty.  Back in 2003 I came upon an interesting idea for a trip with one of my New York friends to ride the NJT PVL line outbound from Hoboken and then return to the other Port Authority Bus Terminal via an NJT Express Bus.  Because of the complete lack of railfan views I didn't get a lot of photos on the trip, but you can view the photos I did get right here.

As was typical for the time I started the trip at the Hamilton, NJ station.  While waiting for my NJT train I caught a southbound Regional with unrebuilt AEM-7 #908 in Phase IV paint.

Along the way I got some photos of UNION tower and its iconic southbound high PRR PL signals, including a unique cantilever-gantry covering tracks 3, 4 and B.

HUDSON tower was also still operational at this point.  

Early in the day I made it up to 190th St on the A in order to ride the attendant-operated elevators.

At the line the PVL had no passing sidings so was operated in the peak direction on weekdays only.  Therefore we had to spend the day in NYC before making our way to Hoboken for the first northbound trip.  To make things special my friend and I decided to take an NY Waterway ferry and walk through the newly re-opened Winter Garden that had been destroyed during 9/11.

At the time PVL trains were using the pool of 13 former CNJ GP40PH-2 engines that had been equipped with the rather dysfunctional SES PTC system that had been installed on the PVL.  While I didn't get any pics of the CNJ engine on out train I did catch NJT GP40PH-2B #4208 in Hoboken Terminal.

TERMINAL TOWER at Hoboken was still in service as well.

Here an ex-EL Comet I cab car #5119 leads an inbound train past TERMINAL TOWER.  Most of the Comet I cab cars had been converted to accommodate high level boarding.

Prior to the 1983 infrastructure programme that built TERMINAL TOWER and its large NX interlocking machine, control was situated in a set of three DL&W towers, TERMINAL, EAST END and WEST END.  Today WEST END still stands while only the stump of EAST END survives.

At the time NJT had shut down one of the two tunnels through the Bergen hill into Hoboken terminal so that they could be modernized.  Here we see one such tunnel from one of the two smoke shafts with shotcrete sprayed all around.

HX tower at the HX drawbridge had closed in 1994, but still stands to this day.

Interior of Comet I cab car #5126 with the blacked out front window.

The conductor of the train did not take kindly to railfans taking photographs and can be seen here giving me the stink eye as we took his photo from public property after getting off the train in Spring Valley. 

A white heron wading in a rather dingy pond at a park across from the Spring Valley Station. 

Interestingly enough our return bus ride took us past most of the PVL station stops before returning to NYC, giving us better photo angles in the process!  Seen here is the Westwood station.

Well thanks for reading and I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving!