By 1986, the RV experienced declining freight traffic, and they lost their liability insurance coverage, That same year, the railroad was sold to the Delaware Otsego Corporation (DO).

Area residents have proposed to create a 7.3-mile (11.7 km) pedestrian linear park to parallel the trackage of the abandoned Rahway Valley Railroad.

[3] A northern portion of the rail trail on the RV mainline is under construction as the Summit Park Line, with a footbridge over Morris Avenue installed in October 2022.

[6] The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), which owns the track bed, has been working to clear it for trail usage.

The organization had been formed in 1894 by several Elmira, New York businessmen, to redevelop some land on the border of Cranford and Union as a town called New Orange (now Kenilworth).

Between July 1897 and March 1898, contractor Frank H. Bailey of Elmira, constructed a 2-mile (3.2 km) stretch of trackage for the NY&NO, and in the process, a connection was made with the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) at Cranford.

Multiple surveys were made, and some work was done in acquiring some nearby right-of-ways, but the NOFJ was unable to extend their trackage.

The NOFJ began to haul hopper cars of fill material between the excavation sites in New Orange to their Roselle Park interchange with the LV.

In 1904, the New Orange Industrial Association failed, and the remaining promoters engaged several New York City businessmen and reorganized the enterprise as the Kenilworth Realty Corporation.

These men partnered with Louis Keller, founder of the Social Register and the Baltusrol Golf Club, to charter the Rahway Valley Railroad and construct an extension of the NOFJ to Summit.

His desire for improved transportation for the club was frustrated by the New Orange Industrial Association, as their efforts to extend their railroad to Summit came to grief.

On July 18, 1904, after the association had failed, and was reorganized as the Kenilworth Realty Corporation, Keller partnered with its new principals to charter the Rahway Valley Railroad (RV).

After a bridge across Broad Street was completed, the RV filed an application with the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W) for a connection at Summit.

The RV obtained a large sum of debt from their line construction, and without their desired DL&W connection, and a lack of lineside industry, the railroad was unable to pay their indebtedness.

After the Elmirans died, their respective estates looked to liquidate their bond holdings and wished to sell the railroad.

Workers for both plants were delivered to the RV at a fast pace, by the Lehigh Valley, the CNJ, and the nearby Staten Island Railway.

An explosion at the Wright plant caused widespread damage in the surrounding area, and rumors of German spies promoted the RV to hire armed guards to protect the property.

After World War I ended, freight and passenger traffic both decreased on the RV, and it worsened the railroad's financial position.

Bob Clark attempted to attract new businesses to the line, and he was temporarily successful, but his customer base continued to be siphoned away by trucks.

In 1980. passenger trains were again run over the Rahway Valley Railroad, but for only one week, for the occasion of the U.S. Open being held at the Baltusrol Golf Club.

The train, sponsored by the Union County Trust Company, utilized passenger coaches leased from the Cooperstown and Charlotte Valley Railroad (C&CV) in New York.

[11] In 2001, the Morristown and Erie Railway (M&E) was contracted by the state of New Jersey to rehabilitate and operate the southern portion of the former Rahway Valley Railroad.

By May 15, 2012, the M&E removed all of their assets from the track beds, since they did not exercise their option to extend the operating agreement with Union County.