photocredit: pgengler.net

all of their stations were pretty rudimentary. Despite the rather grand name, the CNJ was always the weak sister of the New Jersey Railroads. It ran commuter service to lower manhattan from the un-chic southern suburbs, and brought coal from Pennsylvania. It was always sort of a financial play more than a railroad, and was more or less constantly in and out of bankruptcy. In the last years of it's life, after the end of coal heating, it was on government subsidy life support to keep it's commuter trains running.

The main line of the CNJ is now the Raritan Valley Line of the NJtransit system. Since it never had the money to electrify, like the Pensylvania or the Erie-Lacawanna, it continues as a diesel only route, and all trains terminate in Newark, since no diesel trains can go through the tunnel to NYC.

On a rail history note, when I started commuting from Cranford to NYC in 1979, all the coaches were from the 1920's and 30's with steam heat and windows that mostly didn't open. Even our diesel locamotives were crummy and old, since they needed special engines that produced steam for heat. At that time there was one self-propelled coach that made one round-trip per weekday to Reading Terminal in Philadelphia. In the early eighties the state of New Jersey took over all commuter routes, and introduced modern equipment. At that time the Electric trains on the Erie routes were the original ones produced by Thomas Edison.