New York and Long Branch Railroad: A PRR & CNJ Subsidiary

Last revised: September 22, 2026

The New York & Long Branch owned 38 miles of railroad from the mouth of the Raritan to Bay Head and never owned a locomotive. Reporting mark NYLB. The Jersey Central and the Pennsylvania furnished every train. One family came from Communipaw with steam and, later, diesel. The other came from Penn Station behind an electric, changed engines at South Amboy, and went on to the shore behind a K4s or a diesel. The property company’s office was at Long Branch. The track is still the spine of NJ Transit’s North Jersey Coast Line.

New Jersey chartered the company on April 8, 1868. Perth Amboy to Long Branch opened to regular trains on July 1, 1875. The line reached Bay Head Junction in 1881. A joint agreement of January 3, 1882, completed by the operating agreement of January 2, 1888, put both parent railroads on the whole route. Conrail took the property on April 1, 1976. Commuter trains passed to NJ Transit on January 1, 1983.

Pennsylvania K4s 4-6-2 3880 and GG1 4884 together on the New York and Long Branch at South Amboy New Jersey circa 1955

Pennsylvania K4s 4-6-2 #3880 and GG1 #4884 together at South Amboy, New Jersey, circa 1955. The electric has come down from New York. The Pacific will take the shore train on to Bay Head. Meyer Pearlman photo. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · Charter and the Raritan draw · South to Bay Head · January 1882 and January 1888 · Two railroads, one track · South Amboy and the wires · The Broker at Woodbridge · Aldene, Penn Central, Conrail · North Jersey Coast Line

At a glance

Item	Detail
Headquarters	Long Branch, New Jersey
Charter	Special act of New Jersey, April 8, 1868. A March 30, 1869 supplement allowed a bridge or ferry across the Raritan
Opened	Perth Amboy–Long Branch. Ceremonial trains June 25, 1875. Regular service July 1, 1875
Completed	Bay Head Junction, 1881. Four short roads merged December 20, 1881
Miles	38.04 recorded (22.44 built by the company, 15.60 acquired by merger). 39.35 inventoried at the federal valuation
Gauge	4 ft 8½ in
Mark	NYLB. The mark rode on the company. The locomotives rode on the Jersey Central and the Pennsylvania
Lease	Jersey Central, from the opening until January 2, 1882. Exclusive operating rights dated from 1873
Joint use	Agreements of January 3, 1882 and January 2, 1888. Both parents held trackage rights over the entire line and furnished every train. Jersey Central handled the freight
Stock	At the 1918 valuation the Jersey Central owned the entire capital stock
Wires	Pennsylvania catenary ended at South Amboy, 1936. NJ Transit to Matawan, 1982; revenue electric service to Long Branch, July 2, 1988
Successor	Conrail, April 1, 1976. Commuter operation to NJ Transit, January 1, 1983. Today’s North Jersey Coast Line

Mileage, stock, and the two agreement dates are the Interstate Commerce Commission corporate history. The 1873 operating rights and the Jersey Central freight job are the Classic Trains account of the Jersey Central. Information compiled September 22, 2026.

April 8, 1868, and the Raritan draw

The charter was a shore railroad with a New York errand. Long Branch was already a resort. The older way in was a boat across Raritan Bay to the New Jersey Southern at Port Monmouth, or a roundabout ride through Red Bank. A supplement of March 30, 1869, let the new company cross the Raritan by bridge or by ferry. In that same year the Jersey Central agreed to build the line and lease it when it was finished. The lease itself is dated October 6, 1873. Classic Trains puts the exclusive operating rights in 1873 as well. The company that owned the charter did not have the engines.

Construction of a single-track railroad followed. The piece the New York & Long Branch built itself was Perth Amboy to Long Branch, 22.44 miles, finished in 1875. The obstacle was the river. The swing bridge between Perth Amboy and South Amboy was the first fixed railroad link between those two towns. On Friday, June 25, 1875, two invited trains, one from Jersey City and one from Newark, stopped on the Perth Amboy side so the guests could watch the draw open and close. The Matawan Journal the next day called the span the longest drawbridge in the world, closing the mouth of the Raritan on the Pennsylvania Central, “will or nill.” President Grant was among the guests. Regular service began July 1.

The all-rail ride to Jersey City also needed the Jersey Central’s Perth Amboy & Elizabethport line, begun in 1871, taken over by the Central in 1873, and finished through to Elizabethport. From there the Newark Bay bridge and Communipaw put a passenger on a ferry to Manhattan. The Journal’s jab at the Pennsylvania was early. Within seven years the Pennsylvania was on the same track.

A 1908 swing bridge replaced the 1875 span. Pennsylvania Steel built it, with McCullen & McDermott. The moving span is 331 feet, in a bridge of thirty spans and two tracks. Near the end of construction a dynamite blast damaged the new work. Railroaders call the bridge River Draw. It has passed from the two parents to Penn Central (1968–1971), the New Jersey Department of Transportation (to 1983), and NJ Transit.

Four short railroads to Bay Head

South of Long Branch the New York & Long Branch grew by buying the companies that had already graded the next beach towns. On December 20, 1881, four of them merged in, north to south:

New Egypt & Farmingdale, incorporated March 17, 1869. It built Long Branch to Belmar (then Ocean Beach) in 1876, 8.30 miles. The rest of the charter, on to New Egypt, was never built.
Long Branch & Sea Girt, incorporated June 18, 1875. Belmar to Sea Girt, 1876, 3.50 miles.
New York & Long Branch Extension, incorporated March 10, 1880. Sea Girt to Point Pleasant the same year, 2.80 miles.
Long Branch & Barnegat Bay, incorporated September 23, 1880. Point Pleasant to Bay Head Junction, 1881, 1.00 mile, finished by the New York & Long Branch itself.

The merger added 15.60 miles. With the 22.44 miles built in 1875, the recorded railroad was 38.04 miles. The federal valuation later inventoried 39.35. A later passenger timetable numbered the same ground from the south: Bay Head Junction 0.0, Sea Girt 3.9, Asbury Park 10.0, Long Branch 15.7, Red Bank 21.6, Matawan 31.4, South Amboy 36.6, Perth Amboy 38.6.

The towns on that list were the point of the railroad. Long Branch, Elberon, Deal, Asbury Park, Ocean Grove, Avon, Belmar, Spring Lake, Sea Girt, Manasquan, and Point Pleasant were the shore. In September 1881 crews laid a temporary track from the Elberon station to the door of the Francklyn cottage so that President James A. Garfield, shot on July 2, could finish the trip by train. He died there on September 19.

The Pennsylvania comes aboard

From the first train until January 2, 1882, the Jersey Central operated the property under the lease. The Pennsylvania’s answer was a parallel railroad, talked of as the Perth Amboy & Long Branch. The threat worked. Agreements dated January 3, 1882, and January 2, 1888, among the New York & Long Branch, the Jersey Central, the New Jersey Southern, and the Pennsylvania put both large roads on the entire line. The valuation is plain about what that meant. The New York & Long Branch owned the railroad. The two parents held trackage rights over all of it and furnished the entire train service. At that valuation the Jersey Central owned every share of the capital stock. The Pennsylvania’s right was the trackage, and the trains it chose to run.

From January 3, 1882, until the end of 1917 the New York & Long Branch was the operating company of record under those agreements. It still had no engines. When the Reading leased the Jersey Central, it exercised the Central’s rights here from May 29, 1883, to December 31, 1886. On October 16, 1917, the Jersey Central succeeded to the New Jersey Southern’s rights. The United States Railroad Administration took the common-carrier property on January 1, 1918.

Classic Trains’ account of the Jersey Central gives the freight to the Central. Passenger trains belonged to whichever parent had sold the ticket. New Jersey Southern trains, and later the Central’s Southern Division, used the New York & Long Branch between Red Bank and the Perth Amboy Branch. The Blue Comet of 1929–1941 was the famous one: Jersey City to Atlantic City, blue and cream, down this railroad as far as Red Bank and then inland across the Pine Barrens.

Two railroads, one track

A Jersey Central shore train was a Communipaw train. It left the Hudson terminal, crossed Newark Bay, took the Perth Amboy Branch at Elizabethport, and came onto New York & Long Branch iron at Perth Amboy. Steam, and then diesel, stayed on the train all the way to Bay Head. The Central turned its trains on a loop at Bay Head Junction.

A Pennsylvania shore train was a New York train. After Penn Station opened in 1910 the usual path was the tunnel, the corridor, and the Perth Amboy & Woodbridge branch into South Amboy. At South Amboy the Pennsylvania also met its own Camden & Amboy line, the old main to Jamesburg and Camden, and the Raritan River Railroad. South Amboy is where the electrics stopped. The railroad south of that station was someone else’s steam, even when the car bore a Pennsylvania name.

Pennsylvania K4s Pacifics 5406 and 5367 at South Amboy New Jersey in the 1950s

Pennsylvania K4s Pacifics #5406 and #5367 at South Amboy in the 1950s. South Amboy is where a Pennsylvania shore train changed power. Charles Ballard photo.

Other people’s railroads touched the line on the way south. A Jersey Central branch from Freehold reached Matawan, and the old Atlantic Highlands line left there. The New Jersey Southern crossed at Red Bank and again at Branchport. A short Monmouth Park railroad joined at Oceanport for the race trains. The Pennsylvania’s Freehold & Jamesburg Agricultural Railroad left at Sea Girt, which is how a Philadelphia passenger reached the shore without coming down from New York. At Bay Head Junction the Pennsylvania & Atlantic continued toward the barrier-beach towns and Toms River. That connection is why the station was a junction.

South Amboy and the wires

The Pennsylvania electrified the approach as part of the New York–Washington work. Catenary from Rahway, on the corridor, to South Amboy was finished in 1936. A GG1, or one of the earlier electrics, brought the train to South Amboy. A K4s Pacific took it to Bay Head. The Jersey Central’s trains rolled through the same station with no electric at all. The photograph at the top of this page is that change of power: one of each, side by side.

Pennsylvania K4s 920 waiting at the South Amboy New Jersey enginehouse in March 1957

Pennsylvania K4s #920 at the South Amboy enginehouse, March 1957. The house served the shore trains after the electrics cut off. Mac Owen collection.

Steam on the Pennsylvania’s shore trains ended in 1957. Diesels took the same job. An E7A at South Amboy under the wires, with the train number still a Pennsylvania commuter number, is the next chapter of the same station.

Pennsylvania E7A 5863 stopped under the wires at South Amboy New Jersey with commuter train 111 on September 3 1965

Pennsylvania E7A #5863 with commuter train #111 at South Amboy, September 3, 1965. The wires end here. The diesel will take the train down the New York & Long Branch. Roger Puta photo.

The Broker at Woodbridge

The Pennsylvania shore train people remember for the worst reason left Exchange Place, Jersey City, on the afternoon of February 6, 1951. Train 733, The Broker, was an express to Bay Head. A Jersey Central strike had filled it. K4s 2445 and eleven cars carried more than a thousand passengers. At 5:43 p.m., south of Woodbridge station, the train entered a temporary trestle built that day so the New Jersey Turnpike could cross the railroad. The order for the trestle was 25 miles an hour. The New Jersey Board of Public Utility Commissioners found that engineer Joseph H. Fitzsimmons took it at 60 to 65. Eighty-five people were killed and about 500 hurt. It remains the deadliest wreck in New Jersey.

The derailment was on the Pennsylvania’s own New York Division, between Union, near Rahway, and WC, near Perth Amboy. Fitzsimmons told the investigators he was looking for the single yellow lamp that marked a slow order on the New York & Long Branch, and that those lamps began 2.3 miles south of the trestle. The train was going to Bay Head. The track under it had not yet become the New York & Long Branch. The Pacific was repaired and went back to work. It was scrapped in 1953. NJ Transit and Woodbridge Township later marked the site.

Aldene, Penn Central, one owner

Communipaw closed to scheduled trains on April 30, 1967, the Aldene Plan. Jersey Central shore trains left the ferry and used Newark Penn Station. The Pennsylvania’s own shore trains were already New York and Newark trains. On February 1, 1968, Penn Central inherited the Pennsylvania’s shore trains. The Jersey Central’s trains stayed separate through the Central’s last bankruptcy.

Conrail ended the split. On April 1, 1976, Penn Central and the Jersey Central both came into Conrail, and the New York & Long Branch came with them. For the first time since January 1882 one company held both sets of rights. Conrail ran the commuter trains under contract to the state. The Northeast Rail Service Act of 1981 told Conrail to leave the commuter business. NJ Transit Rail Operations took those trains on January 1, 1983.

North Jersey Coast Line

NJ Transit’s North Jersey Coast Line is this railroad plus the old Pennsylvania approach from Rahway. Most New York trains now run through to Long Branch under the wire. A diesel covers Long Branch to Bay Head. The extension of catenary is dated: South Amboy to Matawan in 1982, and revenue electric service into a new Long Branch station on July 2, 1988. The first invited electric from Newark ran on June 28. The South Amboy engine change, and the steam-era enginehouse that had served it, ended with those wires. In 2002 the voltage from Matawan to Long Branch went from 12.5 kV to 25 kV. North of Matawan the old Pennsylvania current remains, 12 kV at 25 Hz. Arrow III cars can use one voltage or the other on a given trip. They do not change taps on the move, so they stay north of the Matawan gap.

Bay Head is still the end of the passenger railroad. River Draw is still the Raritan crossing, owned by NJ Transit and wired. The 38 miles are the North Jersey Coast Line.

Sources

Interstate Commerce Commission, corporate history of the New York and Long Branch. Charter April 8, 1868; office at Long Branch; CNJ lease to January 2, 1882; agreements of January 3, 1882 and January 2, 1888; Reading exercise of CNJ rights May 29, 1883–December 31, 1886; CNJ succession to the New Jersey Southern October 16, 1917; USRA January 1, 1918; CNJ ownership of the entire capital stock; recorded mileage 38.040 and inventoried 39.353; merger mileages of December 20, 1881
“Jersey Central: Coal, Commuters, and a Comet.” Classic Trains, Winter 2011. Exclusive operating rights in 1873; 1888 compromise; Jersey Central freight; Southern Division reached via the Perth Amboy Branch and the New York & Long Branch
Matawan Journal, June 26, 1875, as reprinted in the Morgan, New Jersey, local history of River Draw. Grant excursion of June 25; the draw called the longest in the world; lease dated October 6, 1873
Long Branch station history. Ceremonial opening June 25, 1875; regular service July 1, 1875; revenue electric service July 2, 1988
Historic American Engineering Record, Raritan and Delaware Bay Railroad. The 1869 Jersey Central agreement to build and lease the New York & Long Branch
Interstate Commerce Commission, Ex Parte No. 178, Woodbridge, February 6, 1951, and the New Jersey Board of Public Utility Commissioners report, June 26, 1951. Train 733; the wreck on Pennsylvania track; the yellow-lamp practice beginning 2.3 miles farther south on the New York & Long Branch
Trains, New Jersey Transit Rail Operations. Conrail commuter contract; NJ Transit Rail Operations January 1, 1983; catenary South Amboy–Matawan 1982 and Matawan–Long Branch 1988
Raritan Bay Drawbridge record. 1875 span; 1908 replacement, 331-foot swing, two tracks; owners Penn Central, NJDOT, NJ Transit

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