An EL commuter train still wearing ERIE's paint scheme on the power fills the cluttered scene at Passaic some four years after the merger of ERIE-DL&W. In a month, trains would no longer run here.
Comments:
That's the intersection of Washington Pl., in the center of the photo. I lived on that street for 8 years until Route 21 came through. Progress....no more railroad and more highways.
At the time of this 1963 photo, the town fathers were anxious to rid the downtown streets of Passaic of what was once the Erie main line. Over 50 years later, with New Jersey Transit trains skirting the downtown area, not much has been gained, outside of more parking spaces.
Commuters and those shoppers who used the trains could take full advantage of the close proximity of the trains to the numerous stores that lined both sides of the tracks. The fashionable shops seen here, like the railroad right of way and vintage autos themselves, are long gone now. Until the Erie shifted trains up to the Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, the trains that passed through here terminated at the Pavonia Avenue Terminal, where connections could be made to Manhattan via either the Chambers St. ferries or the Hudson tubes.
Commuters and those shoppers who used the trains could take full advantage of the close proximity of the trains to the numerous stores that lined both sides of the tracks. The fashionable shops seen here, like the railroad right of way and vintage autos themselves, are long gone now. Until the Erie shifted trains up to the Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, the trains that passed through here terminated at the Pavonia Avenue Terminal, where connections could be made to Manhattan via either the Chambers St. ferries or the Hudson tubes.