Bad timing department - URHS/Friends N.J. Museum

steamtown observer · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 3:11 pm **Posts:** 371

Some of you might be aware that New Jersey's new governor has announced massive budget cuts and elimination of many existing state departments as well as a massive cut in aid for NJ Transit. With that as a backdrop the two organizations planning a state transportation museum for the last 25 years have now started promoting locating the museum at the former CNJ Terminal at Liberty State Park in Jersey City.

If you have been following this soap opera you may recall that the CNJ Terminal was one of the earlier desired locations. Then a "study" was done and Flemington was selected. After that town made it clear they wanted no part of it a new study was done and Phillipsburg was chosen. In fact the Friends group obtained ownership of the former Union Station (CNJ/DL&W) in town that they open on occasion. Then the city decided to let the land needed for a museum go to a developer. The Friends made it clear they were leaving (Union Station not withstanding) and announced the new location was a corn field about 10 miles east of town. Now the Friends are holding their annual symposium and they are are promoting that event as "On to Liberty State Park"!

The train shed area at the CNJ Terminal is devoid of track and disconnected from the nearest rail connection two miles away. More importantly the sheds are fenced off and the roof is in danger of collapse (it was last used in 1967 but no real maintenance was done on it for at least a decade before that).

Perhaps if this was 1987 this plan might have been taken seriously. Now this far down the road I don't expect it to pass the laugh test in Trenton. All the while the equipment (sans the Hickory Creek) continues to rot.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Tue Feb 23, 2010 4:05 pm

Ummmmmm......

My first reaction was "April 1st isn't for another month...."

JR May · **Posted:** Tue Feb 23, 2010 4:45 pm

Not really sure why a negative post is really required at this time, nor the April 1st comment. A group of dedicated volunteers have been hard at work on this concept for a couple of years. Is it a long shot? Perhaps it is. Does it have merit? Yes it does. Would be it a good start for a State museum? Yes it is.

Let's give the guys a break and be supportive. There is a lot more to this than just the shed and storage of some equipment. Regular detailed updates are provided in their newsletter so I'd suggest anyone with an interest in this concept take out a membership in the Friends of the NJTHC organization.

Lets be supportive.

J.R. May

cjvrr · **Posted:** Tue Feb 23, 2010 4:53 pm

Hold on, stop the presses.....

Someone involved with the Friends group spoke at the Volunteer Railroaders Association meeting on February 18, 2010. There is no plan to move the entire URHS collection to Liberty State Park (LSP). LSP has made it clear that any display at the terminal has to be equipment that would have gone to the terminal. So that limits the equipment to just Jersey Central, LV and B&O. There is talk, just talk at this point, of attempting to include a trolley link from the Hudson Bergen Light Rail line to the terminal itself as well as a link from the terminal to the south end of the park. This would use PCC cars but it is nothing more than lines on a map at this point.

Although my personal opinion is a museum should have been constructed under a reconstructed, enclosed, train shed at LSP 20+ years ago, it is not going to happen with the current leadship and environmentalists that control LSP. The LSP people have visions of fruit and veggie merchants using a restored train shed to sell organic produce.....really.

Another personal friend and member of the URHS, whom is on the site location committee stated at the same meeting the URHS is currently looking for two locations to display the collection one in Northern NJ and the one in Southern NJ. No specific sites have been chosen at this time.

So the Liberty State Park site may be a satelite location for some equipment, but it is not being billed as the future home of the entire URHS collection.

Chris

cjvrr · **Posted:** Tue Feb 23, 2010 5:02 pm

Just as a follow up....Please find a response I received from the Liberty State Park group in 2008 when I contacted them, on my own, about locating a museum under the train shed... ;

Quote:

Dear Chris,

A few years ago there was a big statewide and legislature discussion and Philipsburg was chosen for the state's RR museum. The Friends supported that choice as the park's main purpose is to serve as an open space urban park for family recreation and to enjoy the views of Lady Liberty, Ellis Island and the skyline. There are already plenty of tourists coming to park for taking ferries to those national monuments and also tourists coming to Liberty Science Center. The Interior 240 acres is going to be restored as a natural area with nature trails and will draw ecotourists. So most people think that a RR museum is one major tourist thing too many for this park. Also, to restore the Sheds will cost about 30 million (with asbestos in concrete roof). The Friends and no other group has time to raise this kind of money and our state and federal gov't has fiscal problems. There is a basic plan, that hasn't had public hearings yet for the space under Sheds (when eventually they get restored) and it's basically extra space for festivals that happen in the Concourse, a few trains as educational exhibits, history signage, a people mover connection from Sheds to ferry parking lot and perhaps other uses such as green markets, etc.

When the Sheds are restored one day in the future, I hope that perhaps you could help by getting a few trains, but a museum is really one tourist attraction too many for this park. That's my honest view.
Feel free to contact the park Superintendent Josh Osowski at superintendent@libertystatepark.us or park administrator and chair of the park's Public Advisory Committee, Frank Gallagher at Frank.Gallagher@dep.state.nj.us
I hope you enjoy the park this year.
Sam
Sam Pesin, president of The Friends of LSP

At 06:29 PM 3/24/2008, you wrote:

Dear Sir,

I am looking to see if your group has ever been contacted by any railroad preservation groups in NJ about the possibility of locating a railroad museum inside the train sheds adjacent to the Jersey Central Terminal? I am not intimately involved with any of the railroad groups but would be willing to gauge interest in locating a museum at the terminal if the FOLSP agree to the concept.

Thank you for your time and response.

Christopher J. Vitz, P.E.
Butler, NJ

I don't agree with his response, but you can bet he has way more enviromentalists backing his side of the issue than we have railfans....

co614 · **Posted:** Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:14 pm

I tried hard in 1995 while serving on the Commission charged with the job of creating/locating a Transportation Heritage Center for the State of NJ to get Liberty State Park designated as the chosen site.

It made ultimate sense from every perspective. The beautifully restored CRRofNJ terminal building through which millions of Ellis Island immigrants began their journey into America, a 16 track train shed, a park that already attracted 3 million/year visitors, literally in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty etc.,etc.,etc.!! An active connection to the mainline also then existed.

I had serious co-sponsorship interest from Chrysler ( the highway pavillion) and Carnival Cruise Lines ( the maritime pavillion...oh yea the famous Morris Canal has its origin point there) and I'm confident we could have gotten additional corporate sponsorship interest for the rail pavillion.

An integral part of the plan was to have a 5 mile circular track around the perimeter of the park on which would operate continuos jitney type trains using 0-4-0's,0-6-0's, some trolleys etc., and occassionaly scheduled mainline steam excursions to places like Pt. Jervis etc. The perimeter trains would have connected the large exterior parking lots at the light rail stations with the various parts of the parks interior.

VERY unfortunatly the Commission decided in favor of remote Phillipsburg due to the fact that P'Burg wanted it and there was a small but vocal group connected with Liberty State Park who opposed it. I think their name was something like the Friends of the NJ Mosquito??

Anyhow, its a crying shame as it was a once in a lifetime chance to establish a rail museum where it could have truly flourished and been self-sufficient.

The realistic chances of it happening now with the State bankrupt are somewhere between slim and none, and slim's left town!!!

Oh well, you can lead 'em to water!!

Ross Rowland

Higherspeedrailnow · **Joined:** Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:09 am **Posts:** 130

cjvrr wrote:

Hold on, stop the presses.....

Someone involved with the Friends group spoke at the Volunteer Railroaders Association meeting on February 18, 2010. There is no plan to move the entire URHS collection to Liberty State Park (LSP). LSP has made it clear that any display at the terminal has to be equipment that would have gone to the terminal. So that limits the equipment to just Jersey Central, LV and B&O. There is talk, just talk at this point, of attempting to include a trolley link from the Hudson Bergen Light Rail line to the terminal itself as well as a link from the terminal to the south end of the park. This would use PCC cars but it is nothing more than lines on a map at this point.

Although my personal opinion is a museum should have been constructed under a reconstructed, enclosed, train shed at LSP 20+ years ago, it is not going to happen with the current leadship and environmentalists that control LSP. The LSP people have visions of fruit and veggie merchants using a restored train shed to sell organic produce.....really.

Another personal friend and member of the URHS, whom is on the site location committee stated at the same meeting the URHS is currently looking for two locations to display the collection one in Northern NJ and the one in Southern NJ. No specific sites have been chosen at this time.

So the Liberty State Park site may be a satelite location for some equipment, but it is not being billed as the future home of the entire URHS collection.

Chris

Equipment that went to the terminal? Like the DL&W baggage car first out they use for storage. I think it's painted CNJ. You need someone with money to get in there and straighten these people out. I don't like the idea the B&O is left out of the terminal displays like it was never there.

Mgoldman · **Posted:** Wed Feb 24, 2010 5:48 am

I once visited the Terminal and I remember feeling I needed the better part of an hour to see all the amazing attractions. I suppose if I went to the Science Center, I could've spent an additional two more hours. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stay even a full hour as I was told it was not legal to take photos within the terminal- specifically under the shed where the tracks were.

I'm not quite sure how filling the shed located at the rear of the station with trains and sharing with a huge population, the historic state and national treasure that the terminal is and why it exists in the first place will in some way block the view of Lady Liberty, Ellis Island and NYC.

/Mitch

Higherspeedrailnow · **Joined:** Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:09 am **Posts:** 130

Mgoldman wrote:

I once visited the Terminal and I remember feeling I needed the better part of an hour to see all the amazing attractions. I suppose if I went to the Science Center, I could've spent an additional two more hours. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stay even a full hour as I was told it was not legal to take photos within the terminal- specifically under the shed where the tracks were.

I'm not quite sure how filling the shed located at the rear of the station with trains and sharing with a huge population, the historic state and national treasure that the terminal is and why it exists in the first place will in some way block the view of Lady Liberty, Ellis Island and NYC.

/Mitch

I was the last passenger to get on the last car of the last train out in 1967! That car was jammed with fans. Now they're going to spend billions on a tunnel to replace the terminal. I'd spend that money on light rail lines across Manhattan with connecting High Speed ferry boats to the Terminal. Aldene is a failure! (Aldene Plan)

Higherspeedrailnow · **Joined:** Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:09 am **Posts:** 130

Mgoldman wrote:

I once visited the Terminal and I remember feeling I needed the better part of an hour to see all the amazing attractions. I suppose if I went to the Science Center, I could've spent an additional two more hours. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stay even a full hour as I was told it was not legal to take photos within the terminal- specifically under the shed where the tracks were.

I'm not quite sure how filling the shed located at the rear of the station with trains and sharing with a huge population, the historic state and national treasure that the terminal is and why it exists in the first place will in some way block the view of Lady Liberty, Ellis Island and NYC.

/Mitch

There must be something else going on here.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Wed Feb 24, 2010 7:38 am

Mgoldman wrote:

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stay even a full hour as I was told it was not legal to take photos within the terminal- specifically under the shed where the tracks were.

This wasn't by any chance a NJ Transit policeman once again overstepping his bounds and making up nonexistent laws under the guise of "Homeland (In)Security," now, was it? <:-)

cjvrr · **Posted:** Wed Feb 24, 2010 10:00 am

co614 wrote:

It made ultimate sense from every perspective. The beautifully restored CRRofNJ terminal building through which millions of Ellis Island immigrants began their journey into America, a 16 track train shed, a park that already attracted 3 million/year visitors, literally in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty etc.,etc.,etc.!! An active connection to the mainline also then existed.

Wholeheartedly agree!

Mgoldman · **Posted:** Wed Feb 24, 2010 5:53 pm

Here's a view of the station both inside and out, taken in June of 2007.

Not sure what type of hired gun was on patrol at the time I was told it was forbidden to take photos in the shed vrs through the gates within the emptied out lobby. I suppose they thought I was at risk and a liability under the roof. It's America, though - what if I fell or tripped and there was no handrails to grasp?

Regardless - it was and is an amazing place, well suited for a railroad museum.

/Mitch

Mr. Ed · **Posted:** Thu Feb 25, 2010 12:20 pm

This would make an awesome museum site, replete with a roof! And a paying museum with an excursion could be made to be self sustainable. I understand the problem with asbestos in the roof but I thought that if it wasn't loose (friable) it was OK to leave it undisturbed. It's a shame to see this historic site go unused and allowed to deteriorate. Remember, they don't build these anymore. It needs to be saved while it still can.

Later!
Mr. Ed

Howard P. · **Posted:** Thu Feb 25, 2010 2:18 pm

Back in 1976, a couple of colleagues and I were involved with a very brief and tentative effort to create a "New York Regional Railway Museum" at the old CNJ facilities. We had a few discussions with some of the parks people that were about to take possession of the site, and had some on-site meetings/walkarounds.

At that time, the Communipaw engine terminal was 85% intact, save for all the rail; that had been ripped a few months previously. The terminal was still a ruin; the terminal interlocking tower was still there, although battered. A shuttle train was planned to go between the terminal and engine house areas, and a connection to the outside world was necessary, for excursions in and out of the museum.

The "scope" was to include rolling stock and artifacts from an area within 50 miles or so of Manhattan, so items from NYC, LIRR, NYNH&H along with the usual New Jersey lines, would all be displayed.

I don't recall the exact details of why this never went anywhere, but it was mainly, "This simply isn't the right time for this", on the part of the State and Federal parks people.

One thing I would like to add to any discussion of displaying rolling stock at the Terminal: salt air atmosphere. It's incredibly destructive to any large outdoor metal objects, and I have seen first-hand what happens to railroad stuff that is anywhere (within 5 miles) near a seacoast. Unless any equipment displayed was inside a controlled atmosphere, it will suffer greatly.

Wonderful pictures, by the way, and very evocative for me (and probably for Brother Rowland as well).

Howard P.
C'paw, NJ