When people remember the old railroad station in Kearny, I suspect that most think of the one that used to be off Elm St., north of Midland Ave. But there was another: the West Arlington station, which stood where N. Midland Ave. now curves sharply around toward Passaic Ave. The station, opened in 1874 and rebuilt in 1895, served the Erie and Erie-Lackawanna’s New York-Greenwood Lake lines. The fi nal passenger train stopped there on Sept. 30, 1966. The station’s tower, housing the controls for the nearby Passaic River bridge, remained in use until 1976, That same year, the structure was destroyed by fi re. The last passenger train crossed the bridge on Sept. 20, 2002. All that remain at the station site now are overgrowth and underbrush and a single abandoned track (there had once been two track beds).
– Karen Zautyk
