Lake Hopatcong is named after the largest freshwater lake in New Jersey and is along the diesel portion of the line and only receives service during weekdays to and from Hoboken with trains running via the Montclair-Boonton Line or the Morristown Line. The station is located just west of the Port Morris Yard, the westernmost yard on the Morristown and Montclair-Boonton Lines, meaning that 4 AM trains and 2 PM rush hour trains originate and terminate respectively at the station. All other train service (9 Hoboken-bound trains, 11 Westbound trains) either terminates and the crew changes ends in the station and the train re-enters service becoming a Hoboken-bound train at Hackettstown (5 trains per day) or Mount Olive (2 per day) or deadheads back (the remaining 2 Hoboken-bound and 2 Hackettstown-bound, and 2 Mount Olive-bound trains per day) nearly to Lake Hopatcong to reach the Port Morris Yard.
The station itself is relatively simple with the 1910 station house no longer in passenger use and not visible beyond the trees since it is on a higher-grade and used to have stairs/elevators down to the station platform that have long been removed. The train line here is in a bit of an open-cut. The stop consists of a single, still in use 3 car low-level side platform along the two-track line. There is a second side platform along the opposite track that sits abandoned except for the sealed off entrance to a concrete tunnel that once led up to the station house. This platform has orange construction-style signs saying Platform Closed Do Not Trespass and a Lake Hopatcong Station sign that looks like one at a that should be at a station entrance (since its taller and has the NJ Transit logo) and not one to be on a train platform. The in-service 3 car low-level platform (with trains able to stop on the outer track at a concrete grade-crossing) has a small cinderblock shelter structure with a gabled roof which is painted brown, along with a staircase of about 5 steps that is the only exit to the station’s small parking lot.
This 96 space, free parking lot contains a bike rack, a black, white domed bus shelter containing the station’s TVM, and chain link fencing to prevent passengers falling down the short step onto the platform. To leave the platform, all pedestrians and drivers must cross under the brick-arched viaduct of Main Road — that has no direct entrances to the station — and use a driveway at the extreme northern (railroad western) end of the station parking lot (as far from the platform entrance as possible), that runs uphill and into the back of a parking lot of a building containing multiple shops at the NW corner of the intersection of Main Road and Lakeside Blvd across from Lake Hopatcong. At least both corners of this business contain road signs for NJ Transit Lake Hopatcong pointing towards the back of the business, otherwise the station entrance would be extremely hard to find to someone not familiar with the area.
All Photos: July 16, 2013
Netcong 
Mount Arlington