Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad

The "Delaware and Cobb's Gap Railroad" was chartered December 4, 1850, to build a line from Scranton east to the Delaware River. Before it opened, the Delaware and Cobb's Gap and Lackawanna and Western were consolidated by the Lackawanna Steel Company into one company, the "Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad", on March 11, 1853. On the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, the Warren Railroad was chartered on February 12, 1851, to continue from the bridge over the river southeast to Hampton, on the Central Railroad of New Jersey. That section got its name from Warren County, the county through which it would primarily run.

Expansion and profits (1853–1940)

The rest of the line, now known as the Southern Division, opened on May 27, 1856, including the Warren Railroad in

The company built a Beaux-Arts terminal in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1907, and another Beaux-Arts passenger station (now a Radisson hotel) in Scranton the following year. A new terminal was constructed on the waterfront in Buffalo in 1917.

The "Lackawanna Railroad of New Jersey", chartered on February 7, 1908, to build the

Passenger operations

streamlined steam locomotive in the 1930s

A system map for the railroad, c. 1922

• Nos. 2 Pocono Express / 5 Twilight (Hoboken to Buffalo with New York Central connections to Chicago)
• Nos. 3 / 6 Phoebe Snow, also known as the Lackawanna Limited (Hoboken-Buffalo)
• Nos. 7 Westerner / 8 New Yorker (Hoboken to Buffalo, with Nickel Plate Nickel Plate Limited connection to Chicago)
• Nos. 10 New York Mail / 15 Owl (Hoboken to Buffalo)
• Nos. 1301 / 1306 Interstate Express (Philadelphia to Syracuse)
• Nos. 1702 Keystone Express / 1705 Pittsburgh Express (Scranton to Pittsburgh)

The railroad also ran commuter operations from the North Jersey suburbs to Hoboken on the Boonton, Gladstone, Montclair and Morristown Lines.^{[citation needed]} Early publicity for the passenger service featured a young woman, Phoebe Snow, who always wore white and kept her clothing clean while riding the "Road of Anthracite", powered by the clean-burning coal known as anthracite.^[4]

Decline (1940–1960)

The most profitable

In the wake of

Shoemaker next turned, in 1956, to aggressive but unsuccessful efforts to obtain joint operating agreements and even potential mergers with the Lehigh Valley Railroad and the Delaware and Hudson Railway.

Finally, Shoemaker sought and won a merger agreement with the

The merger was formally consummated on October 17, 1960. Shoemaker drew much criticism for it, and would even second-guess himself after he had retired from railroading. He later claimed to have had a "gentlemen's agreement" with the EL board of directors to take over as president of the new railroad. After he was pushed aside in favor of Erie managers, however, he left in disillusionment and became the president of the Central Railroad of New Jersey in 1962.^{[5][page needed]}

Even before the formal merger, growing ties between the Erie and Lackawanna led to the partial abandonment of the Lackawanna's mainline trackage between Binghamton and Buffalo. In 1958, the main line of the DL&W from Binghamton west to near

[9]

In 1972, the

During its time, the EL diversified its shipments from the growing Lehigh Valley and also procured a lucrative contract with Chrysler to ship auto components from Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. The EL also aggressively sought other contracts with suppliers in the area, pioneering what came to be known as intermodal shipping. None of this could compensate for the decline in coal shipments, however, and, as labor costs and taxes rose, the railroad's financial position became increasingly precarious although it was stronger than some railroads in the eastern U.S.

The opening of Interstates I-80, I-380, and I-81 during the early 1970s, which in effect paralleled much of the former Lackawanna mainline east of Binghamton, New York, caused more traffic to be diverted to trucks. This only helped to accelerate the EL's decline. By 1976, it was apparent that the EL was at the end of its tether, and it petitioned to join Conrail: a new regional railroad that was created on April 1, 1976, out of the remnants of seven bankrupt freight railroads in the northeastern U.S.

Conrail

The EL's rail property was legally conveyed into Conrail on April 1, 1976. Labor contracts limited immediate changes to the freight schedule, but in early 1979, Conrail suspended through freight service on the Lackawanna side. The railroad removed freight traffic from the Hoboken-Binghamton mainline and consolidated the service within its other operating routes. Railroad officials said the primary reasons were the EL's early-1960s severing of the Boonton Branch near Paterson, New Jersey, and the grades over the Pocono Mountains.

The Morristown Line is the only piece of multi-track railroad on the entire 900-mile Lackawanna system that has not been reduced to fewer tracks over the years.^{[citation needed]} It was triple-tracked nearly a century prior^[when?], and remains so today.

The

The Syracuse and Utica branches north of Binghamton were sold by Conrail to the Delaware Otsego Corp., which operates them as the northern division of the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway.

Norfolk Southern

In 1997, Conrail accepted an offer of purchase from CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Railway. On June 1, 1999, Norfolk Southern took over many of the Conrail lines in New Jersey, including most of the former DL&W. It also purchased the remnants of the former Bangor & Portland branch in Pennsylvania. Norfolk Southern continues to operate local freights on the lines. In 2014, it purchased the former DL&W main from Taylor, PA to Binghamton, NY from the Canadian Pacific Railway, which it continues to operate to this day.

NJ Transit

NJ Transit Rail Operations took over passenger operations in 1983. The State of New Jersey had subsidized the routes operated by the Erie Lackawanna, and later Conrail. NJ Transit operates over former DL&W trackage on much of the former Morris & Essex Railroad to Gladstone and Hackettstown. In 2002, the transit agency consolidated the Montclair Branch and Boonton Line to create the Montclair-Boonton Line. NJ Transit also operates on the remaining portion (south of Paterson) of the original Boonton Line known as the Main Line. NJ Transit's hub is at Hoboken Terminal.

Trains on the

Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Railroad Authority

Since the 1999 breakup of Conrail, the former DL&W main line from Scranton south-east to Slateford in Monroe County has been owned by the

The D-L also runs Lackawanna County's tourist trolleys from the Electric City Trolley Museum, under overhead electrified wiring installed on original sections of the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley Railroad that was also purchased by Lackawanna County. It also runs trains on a remnant of the DL&W Diamond branch in Scranton.

In 2006, the Monroe County and Lackawanna County Railroad Authorities formed the Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Rail Authority to accelerate the resumption of passenger train service between New York City and Scranton.

Other remnants

New York

Most of the main line west of Binghamton in New York State has been abandoned, in favor of the Erie's Buffalo line via

Pennsylvania

As of 2018, the

• 
  DL&W inspection engine, circa 1900
• 
  Freight car at a grade crossing, 1900
• 
  Hoboken Terminal under construction, 1907
• 
  Mount Pocono Station

  , late 1890s
• 
  Original Lackawanna R.R. sign at Hoboken Terminal, Hoboken, New Jersey
• 
  The Phoebe Snow at Hoboken Terminal, 1965
• 
  Lackawanna RR terminal building in Hoboken as of 2018
• 
  Norfolk Southern NS #1074, an

  EMD SD70ACe locomotive painted in Lackawanna Railroad livery as part of the NS heritage fleet^[14]

• Abraham Burton Cohen
• Boonton Branch
• Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley Railroad
• Sussex Railroad
• Greigsville & Pearl Creek Railroad
• Syracuse & Baldwinsville Railroad
• DL&W 1151 class

Notes

References

• Taber, Thomas Townsend; Taber, Thomas Townsend III (1980). The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad in the Twentieth Century. Vol. 1. Muncy, PA: Privately printed.
  ISBN 0-9603398-2-5
  .

Further reading

• King, Shelden S. (1991). The Route of Phoebe Snow: A Story of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad. Flanders, New Jersey: Railroad Avenue Enterprises.
• McCabe, Wayne T.; Gordon, Kate (2003). A Penny A View—An Album of Postcard Views—Building the Lackawanna Cut-off in Sussex and Warren Counties, New Jersey. Newton, New Jersey: Historic Preservation Alternatives.
• Taber, Thomas Townsend (1977). The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad in the Nineteenth Century. Muncy, Pennsylvania: Privately printed.
  OCLC 9846964
  .
• * Scanned issues of the Erie, Lackawanna, and Erie-Lackawanna magazines, primarily for employees

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad.

• DL&W pages at the Western NY Railroad Archive (archived, 21 Sep 2003)
• DL&W on the Railroad Historical Society
• DL&W pages by the Erie Lackawanna Historical Society (archive, 11 Aug 2004)
• DL&W Booklet – The Story of the New Jersey Cutoff (archived, 26 Jan 2003)
• Erie Lackawanna Route Maps
• Friendly, customized rail service on the Genesee Valley Transp. Co. website
• Chronology of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (archived, 30 Sep 2006)
• The DL&W's Sussex Branch (archived, 7 Aug 2003)
• DL&W photos at the Library of Congress