BY ERIC MODEL

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

JOURNEYS INTO NEW JERSEY

If you travel through the seemingly endless sprawl along Route 22, near Watchung, you'll come across a sign announcing "The Blue Star Shopping Center." To most the sign merely distinguishes it from similar retail counterparts to be found up and down the road and around the state.

But to others the "Blue Star" has meaning.

Some of us are able to recall those purple buses of the Somerset Bus Lines that once traveled local roads adorned with stars describing the "Blue Star Line." That "Blue Star Line" has been gone for almost 40 years — one of the many casualties of the consolidation of various bus companies that ultimately resulting in the modern-day NJ Transit.

Back in its time the Blue Star Lines were one of the many colorful buses to be found on the state's roads and highways — some others included the Orange and Black Lines, The Red And Tan Lines, the yellow and red of "The Manhattan Lines," and the blue and yellow of the Asbury Park-Long Branch Lines. Today they are but a memory.