Fifty years ago trains were a common sight in Belleville. In 1940 two branches of the Erie Railroad served the town. The Paterson-Newark branch ran north and south, with stops at Essex and Cleveland Streets. Each week 122 trains ran on this line. The Greenwood Lake branch extended east and west between Jersey City and Greenwood Lake. On this line, with its stations at Mill Street and Belwood Park (Hewitt Place),
passed 199 trains weekly.

Nearly one hundred trains a week rolled past the Franklin Street station on a spur line of the Greenwood Lake branch that went to West Orange. At one time rails carried not only trains but also electric trolleys. Tracks were laid on Washington Avenue after 1897 to run trolleys into Belleville from Paterson and Newark. Just as the electric trolley had replaced the horse car, so in 1937 did the bus replace the trolley. The few trains that serve Belleville today carry freight only; the automobile and the truck are today's preferred means of transportation.

Source: Belleville: 150th-Anniversary Historical Highlights 1839-1989 by Robert B. Burnett and the Belleville 150th-Anniversary Committee Belleville, New Jersey. 1991.