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“Then it came!
War clouds gathered over Europe, thickened, and in April, 1917,
enveloped us. For a short time the RV’s worries were over” (Young).
World War I broke out across Europe on July 28, 1914 as the result
of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne
of Austria, which set off a political powder keg which had been
building across Europe for some time. While the Europeans suffered
from all the plights that come with war, contrarily the Rahway
Valley Railroad benefited quite nicely from the ensuing war
effort.
The
outbreak of the war prompted the construction of several war time
plants, manufacturing mostly munitions, along the line of the Rahway
Valley Railroad. “Freight business before World War I was only fair
to marginal, until an influx of new industry; Eastern Tanning
Corp., American Can Co., The Chiclet Co., American Laundry and
Machine Co., and numerous coal and ice “docks,” lumber yards and a
big gravel quarry on the Summit grade, all became important shippers
of increasingly heavier freight manifests” (McCoy
12). Within a very short period of
time the Rahway Valley was overwhelmed with the amount of business
it was doing.
The
United States developed a system of “cash and carry” where the sale
of material to belligerents by American companies was permissible,
as long as the recipients arranged for the transport using their own
ships and paid immediately in cash, assuming all risk in
transportation. “For a brief period preceding the entry of the
United States into the war, the Government adopted the policy of
“cash and carry” in the sale of munitions to the belligerent
nations. Two munitions plants were built along the Rahway Valley
tracks. A gunpowder plant was built by American Can Co., in a
desolate area on the banks of the Rahway River in Kenilworth. Early
production from both this plant and the “Fireworks Factory” on the
Unionbury Branch was consigned to Czarist Russia, and shipped via
the Rahway Valley to east coast ports for transshipment overseas”
(McCoy
12).
With all
the added activity at the newly constructed factories, an abundance
of workers were needed to keep these plants at full productive
capacity. “Upon the entry of the United States into the Great War,
American Can Co. increased its facilities and stepped up production,
which was not going to the U.S. Armed Forces. To provide the large
numbers of war workers needed in this sparsely populated area, the .
. . Central Railroad ran several special trains daily from Jersey
City, Bayonne, and Elizabeth, over Rahway Valley tracks directly to
the plant. The CNJ brought in as many as 5,000 arsenal workers for
three shifts” (McCoy
13). William S. Young tells us that
the Can Company even provided its own passenger equipment, “. . .
the American Can Company, which opened a large shell arsenal at
Eighth Street, Kenilworth, had a string of eight coaches, which were
used. Every morning an RV hog picked them up from the Jersey Central
to whom they had been delivered by a SIRT engine from Staten Island,
and hauled them, crammed to the vestibules to the Can Co. plant”
(Young).
World War
I spring boarded Union County, as well as Essex County, into a
period of great industrial development. One area that was seeing
such development was Maplewood, NJ (then known as
South Orange Township and was not renamed Maplewood until 1922). A
section of this community, known as Hilton, was witnessing the
construction of several fuel dealers, building supply companies, as
well as a few manufacturing concerns. Either Louis Keller, in his
infinite wisdom, or another such as James S. Caldwell or
William W. Cole took note of this development at Hilton. Soon enough
interest was gathered and on August 4, 1914 the “Rahway
Valley Line” was formed, and subsequently leased to the
Rahway Valley Company, Lessee, to construct a three mile
spur line from the already extant Rahway Valley Railroad in Union to
a terminus on Boydon Avenue in Hilton. Delays in acquiring
right-of-way as well as the construction of long fills through Union
Township pushed back the opening of the entire spur to early 1918.
In later times the Rahway Valley Line, as it was officially known,
would acquire a slew of nicknames including the “Unionbury Spur,”
the “Maplewood Branch,” and the “Newark Heights Branch.” The latter
name, “Newark Heights,” was a name the railroad coined for its
terminus in Hilton. Freight depots were established at “Unionbury” (another
railroad coined name) on Morris Ave. in Union and at Newark Heights.
Interestingly, the bridges of the Rahway Valley Line which crossed
Morris
Ave., Vauxhall Rd., and
Stanley
Terrace all had abutments to accomodate two tracks.
This was done for the following reason, “Morris County Traction,
whose trolleys ran past the Unionbury depot and also within two
blocks of the end of track in Hilton, offered to pay for the right
to electrify the branch and run over it between those two points,
thus providing a link between its two lines. This plan was almost
carried out, but came to grief for reasons unknown”
(Young).
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| War Time Freight
Hauler! RV #8, ex-P&LE #9319, was purchased in 1916
during the middle of the World War I rush.
Photo taken by J. Wallace Higgins,
collection of Thomas T. Taber, III.
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The
Rahway Valley Railroad was abuzz with all sorts of activity.
Thousands of workers from the big cities poured in along the RV’s
rails daily and dozens of freight cars were moved to interchange
points around the clock. “Activity was the order of the day. The
arsenal loaded from five to twenty-five cars daily from a maze of
spurs, while over on the east side, Carpenter Steel Company . . .
sent out car after car of alloy tubing from four shipping spurs”
(Young). According to Carl
Nees, the railroad’s longtime master mechanic, as many
as eighty car movements were made daily.
With
all the added activity on the RV, motive power became an issue. The
RV had retired #4 in
1911 and sold off both #5 and #6, which left #7 as the sole
locomotive on the line. Throughout the war foreign motive power
became a common site along the rails of the Rahway Valley, “Lehigh
engines came up to Kenilworth for trains. Other LV hogs were leased
to the RV, as was Jersey Central, and Pennsy power, with the latter
road supplying its own crews” (Young). With the added cash made from
the abundant car movements, the RV invested in its own motive power.
#8, a big Pittsburgh &
Lake Erie Railroad 2-8-0 Consolidation-type, was purchased
in
1916. A
pair of ex-Pennsylvania
Railroad 0-6-0 switchers
came to the
RV in December, 1917 (#9) and February, 1918 (#10) respectively. #7, the
line’s beloved
locomotive, left the Rahway
Valley in 1917 as part of Uncle Sam’s war effort. According to one
source #7 ended up at the Watervliet Arsenal in Watervliet,
NY.
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| Strip ticket for
an excursion to Asbury Park. Collection of
Thomas T. Taber,
III. | | During the war the Rahway Valley
and Jersey Central partnered to offer special summer excursion trips
to Asbury Park on the Jersey Shore. “RV summer excursions to Jersey
Shore points became just the thing for war time workers, who went
via the Jersey Central armed with special strip tickets” (Young).
Connecting trains with
the Jersey Central at Aldene offered residents along the Rahway
Valley, as well as the many war time workers, the chance to visit
Jersey’s sandy shores. Trips to the shore offered a day to forget
the worries of the world and the intense battles being fought
abroad.
There
were worries to be had at home too. On July 30, 1916 the “Black Tom
Explosion” rocked Jersey City, NJ. German saboteurs detonated
ammunition stockpiles ready for shipment to the Allied forces in
Europe. Along the little RV there were constant rumors and threats
of German spies and sabotage. “A similar disaster virtually
destroyed the Unionbury [ammunition] plant, and rumors of spies and
saboteurs of Imperial Germany were rife. Railroad officials hired a
number of local sharpshooters and railroad property was guarded
around the clock” (McCoy
13).
The disaster, that
McCoy speaks of, rocked Union County on September 18, 1914. "The
Wright Chemical Company's plant at [Union, New Jersey], was wrecked
by an explosion this afternoon. Three men were blown to pieces. The
explosion took place apparently in a finishing and drying house
where guncotton was being hauled. It tore this building and others
about it to bits. Houses in all directions were damaged. Every pane
of glass in some houses were broken as far as Cranford. The shock
was very great, and at Cranford a chimney was knocked from a house.
It is said the only men in the vicinity were the three killed, so
that the death list is no likely to grow. In Springfield it is said
in some houses the pictures were hurled form hte walls and dishes
thrown from shelves and plaster cracked. The men killed were: John
Reyley, foreman, of Springfield; Winfield Palmer, seventeen years
old, of Springfield; and Grover Kleindents, also of Springfield.
Several laborers working outside were somewhat injured by flying
debris" ("Three
Killed By Explosion; Many Houses Damaged")
Some
months before Black Tom, a near disaster occurred at the American
Can Company’s plant in Kenilworth, “One tragic day in October, 1919,
an explosion in a loading cell rocked the area, killing several
workers and injuring many more. The ensuing fire threatened a cut of
several boxcars loaded with munitions. The plant’s armed guards
threw a cordon around the perimeter in expectations of a major
disaster. A crew form the Rahway Valley coolly backed their
locomotive into the string of loaded cars, now beginning to smoke,
coupled up and slowly withdrew from the scene. As the wood sheathed
boxes rolled across the 8th St. crossing, hose crews of the
Kenilworth Volunteer Fire Department wet down the train, preventing
the tragedy which seemed certain to destroy the plant” (McCoy
13).
.jpg) |
| RV #10, ex-PRR
#396 Class B-4a, was another war time acquisition. It is
seen here at Kenilworth. Collection of
Thomas T. Taber, III.
| | Incidents
like these shook the nation to their core. Germans, as well as
German-Americans, were constantly regarded as suspicious and accused
of being spies for the German Empire. For this reason details of
activities at war time plants were kept highly secret and
confidential. The Chemical Company of America, a customer of the RV
located in Springfield, was engaged in heavy war time production.
The plant most likely produced mustard gas but the details still
remain in question. Activities at the plant were so secretive that
when a fire ravaged the plant on August 9, 1915, firemen were banned
from entering the plant. “Orders forbidding the admission of all
outsiders to the plant of the American Chemical Company of
Springfield are so strict that guards stationed about the company’s
property this afternoon refused to allow the local Fire Department
to assist in extinguishing a fire that for more than two hours
threatened to destroy the factory. The American Chemical Company
announced a few weeks ago that it had accepted several large war
orders from the Allies. With the doubling of the working force night
shifts were decided upon and twenty guards kept outsiders from the
factory grounds. The flames were first discovered from a train of
the Rahway Valley Railroad that passes close to the factory
buildings. The Fire Department answered the alarm, but the firemen
were stopped at the entrance to the factory grounds. Captain Roscoe
Ruby stated tonight that unless the chemical company explained
satisfactorily its position to the local officials, he would refuse
to respond to their alarms in the future” (“Bar Firemen From
Blaze”).
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| This aerial view
from 1923 shows the plant of the Chemical Company of
America that was located alongside the Rahway Valley
Railroad in Springfield, NJ. During the war the plant
had Allied contracts, most likely to produce mustard
gas. Activities at the plant were so secretive that even
firemen, responding to a fire at the plant, were banned
from entering. The Chemical Company of America suffered
from at least three fires and explosions during its
existance here. Union Township Historical
Society. | |
The flurry of activity that
resulted from the outbreak of World War I was a blessing for the
little railroad, as well as the biggest boon in its history. 1918
and 1919 were banner years for the Rahway Valley Railroad. The
railroad’s gross earnings for 1918 were $125,439 and topped out at
$136,439. 1919 also marked the first year since 1909 that the
railroad had reported a net profit. Freight and passenger revenues
reached all-time highs. Gross passenger receipts peaked in 1918 with
$10,690, up from a scant $703 earned in
1915.
“In short, it was the biggest boom
in the pike’s history. Louis Keller patted himself on the back for
sticking with the road for so long, but he probably reconsidered
doing away with himself when the bubble burst with the signing of
the Armistice” (Young). All too quickly, it seemed, peace came
between the warring powers of Europe after American involvement. The
Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918 and effectively ended all
conflict. Back on the home front, the boom of activity along the
rails of the Rahway Valley Railroad hastily came to an abrupt end.
The bottom fell out.
James S. Caldwell had managed the
daily operations of the railroad during this time, and to his credit
did so quite well, but the railroad trudged towards an uncertain
future after the war concluded. The railroad also suffered the loss
of William W.
Cole, who had been serving as the President of the
Rahway Valley Railroad Company, who died on December 20, 1915 while
on business in Poughkeepsie, NY. His death was the result of an
accident. Louis Keller succeeded him as
President.
As an
aside, there is a possibility that during World War I, when the
United States Railroad Administration (USRA) took over the operation
of the nation’s major railroads, a brief connection was made with
the Lackawanna to facilitate movements of crucial war time
materials. “Faced with the tremendous effort of all-out war
production and troop movements, the U.S. Government took over the
railroads. The Office of the U.S. Railroad Administration issued a
directive that where possible, all main and branch lines were to be
connected to facilitate the movement of war material. This offered
the Rahway Valley another chance to press for its long sought
connection with the Lackawanna, a scant 300 feet from its Summit
terminal. The Federal order read, in part; “necessary track work,
frogs and switches shall be laid at the convenience of the receiving
line” (McCoy
13).
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| #7 and her
crew pose in this photograph. Standing in the center is
"Handsome" Jack Shallcross, then Frazee Haines, and Joe Shallcross. The
Rahway Valley Railroad hauled thousands of war time workers to
munitions plants located along its rails.
Collection of Don
Maxton. |
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