New York & Erie Railroad

The first railroad to reach Middletown was the New York and Erie Railroad, a predecessor of the Erie Railroad, which reached the hamlet on June 1, 1843^[4] and remained the only railroad in the immediate region for over two decades. In the early 1840s, the NY&E fostered the growth of the Orange County dairy industry by developing the capacity to ship fluid milk to New York City without spoilage.^[5] This development provided the area's dairy farmers, who had hitherto been limited to the shipment of butter, with a far more profitable business opportunity. Furthermore, by greatly accelerating the expansion of Orange County's dairy industry, this development helped foster the creation of a number of small railroads in southeast New York State, including the predecessor of the Middletown and New Jersey, the Middletown, Unionville and Water Gap Railroad. The NY&E was reorganized as the Erie Railroad on April 30, 1861.

Middletown, Unionville and Water Gap Railroad

In 1866, public meetings were held in Middletown, Westtown and Unionville, New York, to discuss the viability of a railroad via these hamlets to Deckertown, Sussex County, New Jersey.^[6] A route was surveyed from there to Middletown, but, as built, the Middletown, Unionville and Water Gap Railroad only extended from a connection with the NY&E in Middletown to Unionville, which was reached on December 6, 1867,^[7] after fourteen months of construction. Freight cars received from the Erie made the 14-mile (23 km) trip to Unionville starting January 13, 1868. The MU&WG was built to the 6-foot (1.8 m) broad gauge of the Erie. The road was leased to the Erie and commenced regular operations as the Erie's "Unionville Branch" on May 15, 1868.

New York and Oswego Midland Railroad

On January 11, 1866, the New York and Oswego Midland Railroad was incorporated with the goal of linking Oswego, New York, on Lake Ontario, with the Hudson River at a point across from New York City.^[8] The NY&OM reached Middletown in 1871 and hoped to connect with three New Jersey companies to form a through route to New York Harbor. The three New Jersey roads merged in 1870 to form the New Jersey Midland Railroad, which built west in 1871 from Two Bridges (Beaver Lake) to the New Jersey/New York state line at Hanford, just south of Unionville. The link between the NY&OM and the NJM would be the MU&WG, which was leased by the NY&OM effective April 1, 1872. The MU&WG was standard-gauged, and the NY&OM built just over 1 mile (1.6 km) of track to bridge the MU&WG over the Erie and connect it to the NY&OM at East Main Street, Middletown.^[9] The NY&OM soon entered bankruptcy and dropped the lease on the MU&WG which was then leased by the NJM in 1873.

New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad

The NJM reorganized into the Midland Railroad of New Jersey in 1880 and in 1881 merged with several other roads to form the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad.^[10] Meanwhile, the NY&OM reorganized as the New York, Ontario and Western in 1879, and the Erie reorganized as the New York, Lake Erie & Western in 1878. The MU&WG wound up in a very favorable situation, with connections to three major carriers, the NYLE&W (Erie) and O&W in Middletown and the NYS&W at Hanford. This offered the MU&WG's shippers the choice of multiple freight routings and enabled the shortline to gain better freight rates and a bigger share of the revenue by having the big carriers compete for its traffic. This advantage continued for decades and was enjoyed by its successors, the M&U and the M&NJ, until the late 1950s.

Erie Railroad again in control

The MU&WG was the west end of the NYS&W until the NYS&W built west in 1882 from Two Bridges to Gravel Place, near Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, to gain a link to the anthracite fields via a connection with the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western. The MU&WG then functioned as the NYS&W's Middletown Branch. In 1898, the Erie Railroad, successor to the NYLE&W in 1895, gained control of the NYS&W and thus gained control of the MU&WG for the second time. The MU&WG was a very desirable property because of the tremendous milk traffic it originated, possibly the greatest in the United States at that time on a mile for mile basis. Milk was shipped to the New York metropolitan region via all three of the MU&WG's connections. Creameries and condenseries were built along the route at Pounds Station (just south of Middletown), Slate Hill, Johnson, Westtown and Unionville.

Middletown and Unionville Railroad

The MU&WG was taken over by the bondholders of its two mortgages on September 8, 1913 because the Erie failed to pay the interest on the bonds. The bondholders organized an independent shortline, the Middletown and Unionville Railroad, which began operations on December 1, 1913 under Vice President and General Manager J. A. Smith. The road enjoyed the revenues from its heavy milk traffic, fluid and condensed, as well as related commodities such as livestock, feed, bottles and coal for the powerhouses.

Middletown and New Jersey Railroad

The M&U was sold at a foreclosure sale on January 15, 1947 to the three feed dealers, Manning, Simmons and Clark, who reorganized the company as the Middletown and New Jersey Railway Company, Inc. on October 1, 1947. Traffic in the 1950s was dominated by a large GLF feed mill near Dolson Ave. in Middletown. By the mid-1950s, the three owners had died and the railroad was sold around 1956 to John Manning and Marc Suffern.

Main line

The railway operates 43 miles (69 km) of track and interchanges with the Norfolk Southern Railway in Middletown and Campbell Hall, and the New York Susquehanna and Western Railroad in Warwick.^[11]

A New York State Department of Transportation grant of $750,000 was expected in fall 2007, and an additional $2 million was slated for 2009, to rehabilitate several additional miles of track in order to serve various potential industrial sites. Rehabilitation began in October 2010, after the damage done by hurricane Irene. In late August 2011, the MNJ was granted an additional $1.6 million by the state Department of Transportation for storm damage repairs and upgrades.

In 2010, the railroad filed a petition with the Surface Transportation Board to lease three branch lines and yards formerly operated by Norfolk Southern Railway. The M&NJ assumed operations and received trackage rights on the Walden and Maybrook industrials and the Hudson Secondary from Metro-North RR's Southern Tier Line at Campbell Hall to Warwick from Norfolk Southern on October 6, 2010, adding 40 miles of leased lines and trackage rights.

Buildings

The M&NJ's offices are located in Middletown, New York in a converted train station originally built in 1872, with an engine shed located immediately behind the station. Nearby is the more-modern engine house that stores the railroad's sole operating GP9 diesel-electric locomotive.

Steam locomotives

The railroad and its predecessors would roster a total of eight steam locomotives over the years, all bought second hand and none with a trailing truck. Three of these were camelback locomotives and the wheel arrangements included 4-4-0, 2-6-0, 4-6-0, and 2-8-0. The line's predecessor, the Middletown and Unionville Railroad (M&U), relied on the nearby New York, Ontario and Western shops for locomotive repairs and inspections and rented fifty-six different O&W locomotives in thirteen classes while its own was in the O&W shops. On April 23, 1944, the M&U retired the last railroad-owned steam locomotive and thereafter leased O&W locomotives and then NYS&W 2-10-0 "decapod" steam locomotives.

The M&NJ purchased former Bath and Hammondsport Railroad 2-6-0 11 in the 1980s with the intent of restoring it for freight service. However it sat stored until 2006 when it was sold to the owner of the Everett Railroad. It is currently undergoing restoration to active service at the shops of the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. In 2015 after 9 years of restoration it returned to services.

During the 1960s when the Empire State Railway Museum was based out of Middletown, NY locomotive 103, a 2-6-2 from the Sumter & Choctaw Railroad was operated in excursion service between Middletown and Slate Hill, NY as the Middletown & Orange Railroad. This locomotive has since returned to the collection of the Railroad Museum of New England in Thomaston, Connecticut, where it is stored awaiting a possible restoration.

Diesel locomotives

The brand new General Electric 44-ton switcher #1 arrived April 19, 1946. Three of the M&U's feed customers had purchased the diesel on behalf of the railroad. The O&W maintained M&NJ #1 and loaned its own 44-tonners, 101 and 105, when #1 was in their shop.

In 1963, the M&NJ purchased a second GE 44-tonner #2 from Calco Chemical of Bound Brook, New Jersey. M&NJ #2 was the railway's sole operating unit from about 1981 into July 2007. It is now leased to an East Penn Railroad customer in Pennsylvania, while the original 44-tonner was stored inoperative in the Middletown engine house. It was slated for restoration; however, the October 2021 issue of Railfan & Railroad magazine reported that it was scrapped in late July 2021 in Middletown along with two other GE locomotives.

Current power is provided primarily by EMD GP38-2's 2174, 2175, and 5615 (which was recently acquired from Norfolk Southern). Additional power includes a Canadian-built EMD GP9u (formerly Amtrak) 773 which arrived in July 2007. The railroad has also leased GE B30-7 ESPN 7811 and GE B23-7 ESPN 5114 from its sister company, East Penn on October 1, 2010.

Railroad cars

Because it is a short-line railroad, the M&NJ does not ordinarily own or lease many railway cars. However, in the late 1970s, the M&NJ rostered 500 blue boxcars 50 feet (15 m) in length leased from NRUC, the National Railway Utilization Company. The cars were loaded with finished goods at Polytherm, then spent much of their time hauling loads in interchange service throughout the U.S. and Canada while the M&NJ collected 10% of the usage fees they generated. The boom in incentive per diem (IPD) boxcars ended by the early 1980s and the cars returned to the M&NJ which opened 2 miles (3.2 km) of unused track to store the cars until buyers could be found, a task which took almost a decade.