Lackawanna Cut-Off

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The Paulins Kill Viaduct as it appears today on the Lackawanna Cut-Off. Located in Hainesburg, New Jersey, it is 115 feet tall and 1,100 feet long, and was the largest reinforced concrete structure in the world when it was completed in 1910.

The Lackawanna Cut-Off in Northwestern New Jersey

The Lackawanna Cut-Off was a 28-mile high-speed, double-track mainline constructed by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad between 1908-1911 and which ran west from Port Morris, New Jersey to Slateford, Pennsylvania. Considered an engineering masterpiece, the Cut-Off pioneered the use of reinforced concrete on a grand scale, as well as the use of massive cutting and filling. The story of the Cut-Off has played itself out over a century's time: the first half-century as part of the Lackawanna Railroad; the next quarter-century as part of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad and Conrail; and the past quarter century (without tracks) under individual ownership, and now, for the first time, under public (state) ownership, with the hope of the eventual revival of rail service.

From the beginning, however, this mammoth project, similar in scope to that of the Panama Canal, required planning, land acquisition and construction that presaged a new era of right-of-way construction long before the first revenue train could roll across the new line.

[edit] Planning (1905-1908)

The original 75-foot long survey map of the proposed Delaware Valley Cut-Off (as it was called in a handwritten note from September 25, 1906 on the back of the map) depicts the complete topographical layout of the 28.5 mile right-of-way.

The Cut-Off was built as a bypass of the DL&W's "Old Road". The Old Road was a circuitous route on an alignment significantly south of where the Cut-Off was later built, in anticipation of a merger with the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ), a merger which never took place. The Old Road was also built to a standard that by the beginning of the 20th Century was obsolete. As such, the Old Road had become an operational bottleneck, with Oxford Tunnel, which had been converted to gauntlet track (essentially a single track), being the biggest problem of all. President William Truesdale, who became president of the Lackawanna in 1899, foresaw the need for replacing the Old Road very early on, and the New Jersey Cut-Off (as it also was known) was born.

Starting about 1905, more than a dozen potential routes between Port Morris, NJ and Slateford, PA were surveyed. Several of these routes would have required significantly more tunneling than already existed on the Old Road. (Interestingly, the Cut-Off as built was not amongst these surveyed alignments.) Given that any east-west route in northwest New Jersey would cross the north-south hills at a right angle, the need for tunnels on the new route seemed inevitable, in spite of the fact that one of the major reasons for building the new route was to eliminate the tunnels on the old route.

As planning continued, a new route — the northernmost of all the potential routes — emerged. This route would have no tunnels and would cross the valley of the Pequest River on the world's largest railroad embankment: the Pequest Fill. Indeed, the "as built" version of the Cut-Off was not initially pursued because it was deemed impossible to build due to the projected scale of the fill that would be needed to cross the valley of the Pequest River.

The Cut-Off would run from the crest of the watershed at Lake Hopatcong (Port Morris, New Jersey) to Slateford, Pennsylvania on the Delaware River, two miles south of the Delaware Water Gap. The line is 28.5 miles in length, as compared to the Old Road's 39.6 miles, saving the Lackawanna eleven miles between the two points. This, however, was but one element of the improvement, for it reduced the maximum grade of 1.1% to less than 0.6%. (A grade of exactly 1% is a rise or fall of 52.8 feet per mile.) Although reducing the ruling grade by 0.5% (26 feet per mile) doesn't seem like much, the difference to an operating railroad operations is significant.

The building of the Cut-Off also eliminated a total curvature of 1,560 degrees (over four complete circles) and did away with the two tunnels at Oxford, New Jersey and Manunka Chunk, although a new 1,024 foot tunnel at Roseville would be required.

[edit] Construction (1908-1911)

The Cut-off required exceptionally heavy cuts and fills totaling over 15 million cubic yards (11.8 million m³). Where it was found impossible to obtain enough material from the cuts at either end of the fills, great as they were to build these monstrous embankments, the Lackawanna Railroad was obliged to purchase outright some 760 acres (3.1 km²) of farmland for "borrow pits" (see photo on the right).

One unintended consequence of the "borrow pits" was that, over time, several of them filled up with water to create ponds or, in this case, a small lake in Byram Township, appropriately named Lake Lackawanna.

The earth and gravel was scooped out to a depth of twenty feet and hauled up onto the embankments, leaving in some places good-sized ponds where there was formerly level ground. Reinforced concrete served as the material for the construction of stations, signal towers, and the overhead highway crossings.

There were no at-grade crossings on the Cut-off when it was constructed.During the construction of the Cut-off, a suspended aerial cableway was employed in making the fills. By aid of cables and towers, movable bridges capable of supporting dump cars were constructed and when the work was in progress, presented the astonishing spectacle of a locomotive and train of cars suspended from a cable at an elevation of 100 feet (30 m) or more. At one time, ten steam shovels were at work on one fill alone. Five million pounds (2268 metric tonnes) of dynamite were consumed in rending apart the hills.^[1]

During construction, several foreign governments sent their representatives on tours of inspection to the Cut-off, since it stood as the most notable example of modern railway construction from its inception.

[edit] Significant structures

The Delaware River Viaduct as it appears from the Pennsylvania side of the river.

The deepest cut on the Cut-Off, Roseville Cut (just west of the tunnel) is 130 feet (40 m) deep; the largest is Armstrong Cut (just west of Johnsonburg, and the site of a massive rockslide in 1942) is 100 feet (31 m) deep and one mile (1,600 m) long, mostly through solid rock. The largest of the fills, the Pequest Fill, crosses the Pequest River valley, extends westward from a point one mile east of Andover, New Jersey. It is 110 feet (34 m) in height and over three miles (4.8 km) long and was the largest railroad fill in the world at the time of construction, with over 6.5 million cubic yards of fill needed to create a nearly level grade in this area.

The Delaware River Viaduct is 65 feet (22 m) tall and 1450 feet (446 m) long. In the adjacent photo, Interstate 80 passes under its arches on the opposite (New Jersey) side of the river and the Lackawanna's "Old Road" passes under it (behind the photographer) on the Pennsylvania side.]] With five arches of 150 feet (46 m) span, the abutments of this bridge were excavated 61 feet (19 m) below the surface to bedrock to ensure their stability. There are a total of 73 concrete bridges and culverts on the Cut-off.

The Paulinskill Viaduct crosses over the Paulins Kill and was the largest reinforced concrete viaduct in the world at the time of its completion (see photo at top of page). The bridge is 115 feet (35.4 m) high (approximately the height of the Statue of Liberty from crown to foot) and has a total length of 1,100 feet (307 m). It is also called the Hainesburg Viaduct, after the nearby town of Hainesburg.

Three concrete towers were built at Port Morris (NJ), Greendell (NJ), and Slateford Junction (PA). Greendell Tower, about 12 miles west of Port Morris, controlled the long passing siding and short freight siding there, was manned only until about 1934, when its operation was transferred to Port Morris Tower. Slateford Tower, which controlled the junction with the Old Road, remained in operation until the late 1950s when its operation was transferred to East Stroudsburg (PA) Tower, about six miles west. Port Morris ("UN") Tower, which controlled the junction with the line to Washington, New Jersey, remained in operation until the end of freight operations on the Cut-Off in January, 1979.

[edit] Operations (1911-1984)

The first revenue train crossed the Cut-Off during the early morning hours of Christmas Eve, 1911. It was the last major railroad line mainline to be built in New Jersey and is arguably the most scenic route in the state as it travels through the New Jersey Highlands, high above the surrounding terrain.

The opening of the Cut-Off had the immediate effect of downgrading the Old Road to secondary status. Long-distance trains, such as the Lackawanna Limited, which travelled from Hoboken, NJ to Buffalo, NY, and which provided sleeping car service onto Chicago and St. Louis, now called at Blairstown instead of Washington, NJ.

Clearly, the Cut-Off was built for speed, as no curve on the line had a speed restriction of less than 70 mph. As a result of the superelevation of curves, the overall speed limit on the line was later raised to 80 mph. Although no official record exists of overspeed operations on the Cut-Off, "making up time" on the schedule when trains were late during the steam era is reported to have occurred, with speeds in excess of 100 mph having been attained on occasion. Ironically, the coming of diesel operation during the 1940s and 50s restricted the top speeds of trains to 85 - 90 mph, depending on the type of locomotive.

The view off of the Pequest Fill gave the passengers on the Cut-Off a sense of travelling on a high land bridge, with sweeping views across the valley of the Pequest.

At the outset, the Lackawanna's woman in white, Phoebe Snow, advertised the Cut-Off in posters that showed the Pequest Fill and proclaimed the Lackawanna as the "Shortest Route" [to Buffalo]. Later, when Phoebe Snow became a streamlined train, the Cut-Off, with its wide vistas from atop its immense fills, was considered a scenic highlight of the trip to Buffalo. Although few trains stopped at Johnsonburg or Greendell, except on flag, Blairstown was considered a major stop on the railroad and virtually all of the named passenger trains, Phoebe included, stopped there. (The station at Blairstown even sold commutation tickets.)

As it turned out, the Cut-Off in New Jersey was a testing ground for even greater engineering feats with the Pennsylvania Cut-Off — mostly notably the Tunkhannock Viaduct — in Pennsylvania. The Tunkhannock Viaduct remains to this day the largest reinforced concrete structure in the world and the most enduring symbol of the Road of Anthracite. The Pennsylvania Cut-Off, which was built 1912-1915, is still heavily used today and is owned by Canadian Pacific Railway.

Roseville Tunnel looking west. Note how the hill directly above the tunnel has been partially blasted away as part of the original aborted plan to create Roseville Cut, which, at 140 feet deep, would have been the deepest cut on the Cut-Off. The instability of the native rock, however, dictated that a tunnel would be necessary instead.

The story of the Cut-Off, unfortunately, is symbolic of American railroading, with the route being single-tracked in 1958 in anticipation of a merger with the Erie Railroad in 1960 to form the Erie Lackawanna Railroad. The management of the new company quickly moved most freight trains to the so-called "Erie side" from the "Lackawanna side", which meant that far fewer trains travelled over the Cut-Off. This traffic pattern remained in effect for over ten years, past the discontinuation of passenger service in January 1970, but was changed during the early 1970s when virtually all EL traffic was moved back to the Lackawanna side. This continued through the Conrail merger in 1976. Conrail management, however, was displeased with the heavy grades in New Jersey east of the Cut-Off and the Pocono grades west of the Cut-Off, and discontinued all service over the Cut-Off in January 1979 when this traffic was shifted over to over non-EL lines

With the Cut-Off placed out of service, all routine maintenance on the line was discontinued. Ironically, Conrail had replaced numerous crossties on the Cut-Off in 1976, so the line was in better shape than it had been in nearly 15 years. Typically, however, placing a line out of service was the first step towards abandonment. Nevertheless, as a last-ditch attempt an Amtrak inspection train was run over the line on November 13, 1979 in an attempt to elicit support for Hoboken-Scranton service.^{[citation needed]} But with no funding, and insufficient political support, available the idea faded. This would be the last passenger train run on the Cut-Off during the 20th Century.

From 1980-1984 various proposals were made in an attempt to purchase the line. Both Sussex County and Morris County in New Jersey and Monroe County in Pennsylvania, together with several private entrepreneurs, pursued funding to pay for the $6.5 million price-tag that Conrail had set for the line from Port Morris to Scranton (operating costs would be separate). Even CSX Transportation was purportedly involved at one point. In the end, the Monroe County Railroad Authority would block Conrail's complete removal of the track in Pennsylvania (only one track would be removed, including the short piece of the Cut-Off in Pennsylvania), but the entire trackage on the Cut-Off in New Jersey would soon be removed.

Slateford Junction, PA, looking north to the Delaware Water Gap. The connecting switch between the Cut-Off (on the left) and the Old Road (on the right) is actually about 1500 feet past Slateford Tower, obscured by the foliage on the left. The Cut-Off was four tracks wide and the Old Road three tracks at the time of the opening of the Cut-Off. A turntable was also located here.

[edit] Death and Revival Efforts (1984 - Present)

The death rattle of the Cut-Off would continue through the summer of 1984, with a Conrail rail train slowly but surely removing the tracks from west to east: the same direction in which they were originally laid. The final spike would be removed from the Lackawanna Cut-Off at Port Morris on October 24, 1984.

In the aftermath of the removal of the tracks on the Cut-Off, in 1985 Conrail sold the now empty right-of-way (only the ties and rock ballast remained) for about $1 million to two land developers, one of whom, Gerald Turco, proposed to use the Cut-Off as a massive construction landfill. (The second developer, Burton Goldmeier, who purchased the short section of the line in Morris County, was rumored to want the right-of-way as an access road.) The Turco proposal, however, became a rallying point in preserving the Cut-Off and was a direct catalyst for a $40 million state bond issue for acquiring abandoned rail rights-of-way in New Jersey.

Port Morris ("UN") Tower stands forlorn for not having seen a train pass in over a decade in this photo, which faces eastbound. Of the three towers on the Cut-Off, UN Tower was the only one still in operation when the Cut-Off was placed out of service in early 1979. The connection to NJ Transit's Montclair-Boonton Line to New York is a short distance past the tower.

The bond issue was approved by the voters in November 1989 and the New Jersey Department of Transportation subsequently initiated condemnation proceedings against the corporations that Mr. Turco and Mr. Goldmeier had set up in New Jersey for the Cut-Off. (Mr. Turco established separate corporations for the sections of right-of-way in each municipality that the Cut-Off ran through — Knowlton, Blairstown and Frelinghuysen townships in Warren County; Green, Byram, and Andover townships, and Stanhope and Andover boroughs in Sussex County; and Roxbury Township in Morris County. In addition, a separate corporation had been set up for the Paulins Kill Viaduct.)

In the late 1990s, the state of New Jersey and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania purchased their respective portions of the Cut-Off for a total of $21 million. Today, New Jersey Transit is conducting studies to restore passenger service between Scranton, Pennsylvania, the Poconos, East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, western New Jersey, and Hoboken/New York City via its Morristown Line.^[2] However, this project has been delayed repeatedly due to financing issues and lukewarm suppot on the New Jersey side; yet, the project remains on NJ Transit's list of System Expansion Projects during a recent clean-up when many other projects were removed from the list.^[3] It remains to be seen if Amtrak or a successor will plan to revive the Phoebe Snow or operate medium-haul trains from Binghamton, New York over a restored Cutoff.

Port Morris Jct. and yard in this aerial shot clearly shows the Cut-Off (the straight line going towards the upper right (west)) and the NJ Transit line to Hackettstown (curving off to the left (south)). Lake Hopatcong station is about 1/4 mile to the east (bottom), and 45 miles beyond that, New York City. Since this photo was taken in 1985, much of Port Morris yard has been occupied by NJ Transit.

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, in the 2000s has advocated the restoration of passenger rail service between Scranton and Hoboken, and has secured federal funding for initial steps toward that restoration.^[4]

In late July 2006, New Jersey Transit informed interested parties that the final environmental review has been submitted to the Federal Transit Administration for approval and review.^[5] Assuming the project is approved soon, funding for the project's construction can be expected to appear in the following fiscal year's budget.

In addition, the Lackawanna County and Monroe County Railroad Authorities merged in 2006 to form the Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Rail Authority to help speed up resumption of passenger service on the Pennsylvania side of the Lackawanna Cutoff project.^{[citation needed]}

Officials in New York State have proposed high speed rail linking Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Potsdam, New York. Such a service would reach the New York cities of Binghamton, Syracuse, and Watertown. This could potentially mean high-speed direct, one-seat service from Potsdam to New York City through the Southern Tier of New York much of which would be over former Lackawanna trackage which is still intact except for the Cutoff in New Jersey.

In October of 2006, developers pitched the idea of Wall Street West, an office complex to serve as a backup for New York City firms in the event of another terrorist attack. The site is located near East Stroudsburg which is located in a different watershed and power grid than New York City. It remains to be seen whether Wall Street West can help revive the Lackawanna Cutoff.

[edit] NJ Transit's proposal to operate the Lackawanna Cut-Off (2007)

The locomotive of a westbound NJ Transit train at Port Morris, NJ is passing the exact spot where the connecting switch to the Lackawanna Cut-Off will be rebuilt. The photographer is standing on the right-of-way of the Cut-Off. In the future, this train might switch onto the Cut-Off or continue on to Netcong and Hackettstown, NJ as this train is.

• The Cut-Off would be rebuilt as a single-track 79 mph railroad with passing sidings near Andover and Blairstown. The track will be laid so as to permit the addition of a second track in the future, if needed.^[6]
• Station sites, with additional parking, would be built at Andover (new station, with 125 parking spaces) and Blairstown (existing station, with 230 parking spaces).
• Stations will include high-level platforms and be comply with ADA standards.
• Midtown Direct service would operate from Andover east using dual-mode locomotives, currently under development.
• Stations in Pennsylvania include Delaware Water Gap (new station near the Delaware Water Gap Visitors Center in Smithfield Township, with 900 parking spaces in a five-story parking garage); East Stroudsburg (new station site, slightly east of the existing station, with 228 parking spaces); Analomink (new station, near old station site, with 250 parking spaces); Pocono Mountain (new station, near the old Mt. Pocono station, with 1,000 parking spaces); Tobyhanna (existing station, with 102 parking spaces); and Scranton (new station, west of existing station, with 30 parking spaces).
• Maintenance-of-way operations for the new line would work out of Greendell.
• $551 million in the federal funds would be needed to rebuild service.
• The passenger service, as currently planned, will consist of 18 trains a day nine eastbound and nine westbound between Scranton and Hoboken. They would carry some 6,000 passengers, most from the Poconos, to jobs the metropolitan area by 2030.
• The service would provide a two hour ride from the Poconos (three hours from Scranton) to either Hoboken or Penn Station, New York. At Hoboken, commuters would have to board a New Jersey PATH train to travel into lower Manhattan or switch to a Hudson-Bergen Light Rail train to points along the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. Midtown Direct service will be provided from Andover east, with additional service available from Dover, NJ east.
• NJ Transit will run the service, which will cost $26 million a year and would initially incur a $12 million deficit.^[7]

[edit] Interesting Facts

• The original Tranquility schoolhouse is buried under the Pequest Fill in Green Township. The DL&W paid for a second schoolhouse to be built a short distance away.^[8]
• The Cut-Off was so expensive to build--$11 million--that a new corporation, the Lackawanna Railroad of New Jersey was created. The LRRNJ remained a separate corporate entity until 1941, when it was merged into the Lackawanna Railroad.
• The Lackawanna Cut-Off in New Jersey has been known by several different names: the Delaware Valley Cut-Off, the Hoptacong-Slateford Cut-Off, the New Jersey Cut-Off, the Stanhope-Slateford Cut-Off, the Blairstown Cut-Off, and the Lackawanna Cut-Off.
• About 20% of the Cut-Off was triple-tracked, with several miles having four tracks.
• As construction fell behind schedule during the summer of 1911, crews resorted to the use of torch light (there was no electricity available) to continue work 24/7.
• Old Lackawanna men reportedly referred to the blasted area above Roseville Tunnel as "rattlesnake territory". Would-be climbers are forewarned of this danger during the warmer months.
• Although the Cut-Off is generally thought of as an all downgrade railroad east to west, there is, in fact, a very short stretch of upgrade westbound (less than 0.1%) on the Pequest Fill east of Greendell. This accounts for the entire 11 feet of "rise and fall" on the Cut-Off.

Greendell Station was opened in 1911 and closed 30 years later. The station never had electricity. The tower in the distance controlled the four tracks here (including a siding at the station) until control of the switches was transferred to "UN" Tower at Port Morris. A passing track was retained after the Cut-Off was single-tracked in 1958.

• The Cut-Off played an indirect role in the Rockport Wreck of June 16, 1925. The Rockport Wreck, which occurred when an eastbound passenger special bound for Hoboken derailed at Rockport Road, south of Hackettstown, New Jersey on the Old Road, killing 47 people. The passenger special had initially been scheduled to travel over the Cut-Off but because of freight traffic on the Cut-Off, and the fact that the train was hours ahead of the departure time for the transatlantic portion of the passengers' trip, was detoured over the Old Road. A storm earlier that evening had washed loose debris onto the grade crossing at Rockport (there had been road work up the hill from the grade crossing earlier that day), which caused the locomotive to derail and to end up adjacent to one of the passenger cars with steam escaping, scalding numerous passengers to death. Reportedly, the tower at Slateford had made the decision to reroute the special. Had the special travelled over the Cut-Off, the Rockport Wreck would have never occurred.
• Although the station at Johnsonburg was closed for nearly twenty years, EL train #41 (ex-DL&W #47), the westbound mail train, did stop at Johnsonburg to drop and pick up mail up until the early 1960s.
• The right-of-way has been mostly impervious to wash-outs over the years, the Cut-Off has occasionally been beset by sink holes that formed from the settling of the underlying fill. This settling occurred for a time even after the line was opened to operations. The most recent sink holes, however, occurred just east of Roseville Tunnel during the early 1980s, which caused the tracks to buckle at that location.
• The most notable runaway to have occurred on the Cut-off was in 1958 when a string of boxcars got away on the wye at Port Morris and started to drift westbound on the Cut-off. A freight engine was immediately dispatched to try to catch the cars, but was unsuccessful. The cars, which reportedly reached a speed near 80 mph, wrecked at Point of Gap, about 30 miles away. An eastbound local freight, which detected the westbound move by signal indications, took the siding at Greendell at top speed in an attempt to avoid the runaway. Miraculously, the first car of the runaway string clipped the markers on the back-end of the caboose on the train, but no other damage was incurred.

Old Road of the Lackawanna on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River Viaduct, looking north, just south of Slateford Jct. Note how the tracks have been shifted to the center of the underpass to give greater overhead clearance. This is a common practice after a railroad is downsized from double- to single-track operation.

• Four railroad lines crossed under the Cut-Off (none crossed over it): from east to west, the DL&W's Sussex Branch, the Lehigh and Hudson River Railway, the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway (twice - once under the Paulins Kill Viaduct and once under the NJ side of the Delaware River Viaduct), and the Old Road of the Lackawanna. Of the four railroad lines, the Old Road crossing is the only one that still has tracks on it, although most of the Old Road in NJ has been abandoned since 1970. The trackage in the accompanying photo is used by the Delaware-Lackawanna RR. Note that the tracks have been realigned to the center of the underpass to increase the overhead clearance. This section was originally double-tracked. Prior to the building of the Cut-Off, Oxford Tunnel, double-tracked for its 2200 feet, presented a similar problem as is seen here, although on a much larger scale, necessitating that the tracks be overlapped through the tunnel near the center of the tunnel bore, resulting in a gauntlet track. Such an arrangement was never necessary at this location since after the Cut-Off was opened, the amount of traffic on the Old Road dropped significantly.

The tunnel for the Lehigh & New England Railroad, on the right, never saw a train, save for the dinky trains that built the tunnel. The tunnel for NJ Route 94 is on the left. The Cut-Off itself is atop the embankment. Compare this photo with the one from 1912 (above) taken from atop a hill on the other side of the Cut-Off.

• A fifth rail line was to have crossed under the Cut-Off, the Lehigh and New England Railroad, which was in the planning stages at the time of the Cut-Off's construction. The rail tunnel is adjacent to NJ 94; after the Cut-Off was in operation, the L&NE decided against building its own railroad in northwest New Jersey and instead continued to exercise trackage rights over the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad's right-of-way to Hainesburg Junction, just south of the Paulins Kill Viaduct. As a result, the only trains to have operated through the L&NE's tunnel were the Cut-Off's dinky construction trains. In the accompanying photo, the Paulins Kill Viaduct is about 1/2 mile (1 km) east (left) and the projected connection with the L&NE's line to Pennsylvania is about 1/2 mile south through the tunnel. While vestiges of the L&NE's never-used route can be found if one knows where to look for them, the most endurable remnant will always be the tunnel under the Cut-Off, which now acts as an access road to the recreational activities held at Tunnel Field in Knowlton Township.
• The first revenue train over the Cut-Off on Christmas Eve 1911 is thought to have been powered by Engine #952, a 4-4-0 Camelback, an engine which is presently displayed at the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri.
• The opening of the Cut-Off decreased the distance on the DL&W Railroad's mainline between Hoboken, NJ and Buffalo, New York from 407 to 396 miles. As a result, in addition to the 28 new mile markers that were needed on the Cut-Off itself, all mile markers on the mainline west of the Cut-Off were replaced.

The Lehigh and Hudson River Railway, shown here, crossed under the Cut-Off near Tranquility, NJ, about two miles east of Greendell. One proposal during the mid-1980s would have created a connecting line for freights from the Cut-Off to the L&HR at this point in order to bypass the heavily-travelled commuter lines east of this point.

• Easements owned by the Lackawanna Railroad for right-of-way about a mile south of Hope Township, New Jersey (about 5-6 miles south of the Cut-Off) were discovered in the 1950s. This would have been for one of the potential alignments for the Cut-Off.
• One of the developers who bought the Cut-Off right-of-way, Gerald Turco, also refurbished the stations at Johnsonburg and Greendell.
• Shortly after the end of passenger service in 1970, the station at Blairstown Township was sold to a local radio station, which operated out of the building until the 1990s.
• Mr. Turco only became aware of the availability of the Cut-Off for purchase after he contacted Conrail regarding the acquisition of an adjacent parcel of land for the expansion of his nursing home complex in Andover, New Jersey. Conrail refused to allow Turco to buy an isolated parcel of the Lehigh & Hudson River Railway in Andover (an north-south right-of-way — also abandoned, although it still had tracks — that crossed under the Cut-Off at Tranquility a short distance from Turco's nursing home), causing Turco to buy the entire L&HR RR from Sparta Junction to Belvidere. Conrail reportedly offered Turco a "package deal" that included both rights-of-way.
• Presently, the right-of-way is unobstructed in New Jersey, although Slateford Road in Pennsylvania was temporarily filled in during the 1990s to replace an aging overhead bridge (see photo above). Two road crossings have since been created on the cutoff – one just west of Port Morris, New Jersey in the 1980s and another at Greendell station in the 1990s.
• Lake Hopatcong station is located about 1500 feet east of Port Morris Jct., and technically was not on the Cut-Off. But in anticipation of the opening of the new line the station was completely rebuilt using, as might be expected, reinforced concrete. In the adjacent photo from 1911, the station has been expanded to four tracks. The station building is on the top of the hill and still exists to this day. The Hopatcong Railroad to Bertrand Island also crossed behind the station out of view to the left. After Conrail took over operation of the railroad in 1976 it declared the overhead pedestrian bridge here unsafe. Repeated attempts to dismantle the "unsafe" bridge, however, were unsuccessful. In a somewhat comical ending, the bridge had to be finally brought down by dynamite. This station stop is still used by NJ Transit.
• The single-lane overhead bridge for County Route 521, just east of the Blairstown Station, was declared inadequate (although structurally sound) during the late 1980s. Recently, a second single-lane concrete bridge, based on the original DL&W design, was completed just east of the original bridge. Together, the two bridges now carry CR 521 over the Cut-Off right-of-way at that site.
• The line is regularly traversed by dirt bikes and four-wheelers in spite of the No Trespassing signs that were erected by the State of New Jersey during the 1990s.
• The Paulins Kill Viaduct became a popular spot for bungee jumpers until about the mid-1990s. The bridge has since been fenced off in the center to discourage this use.
• The Paulins Kill Viaduct has been featured in Weird NJ as being a purported site for Satanic cult rituals and sacrifices. Although the viaduct is somewhat remotely located and is heavily marred by graffiti (some of which does include Satanic symbology) it appears that much of the alleged Satanic connection is hyperbole.
• The line west of the Cut-off was to be ripped up in the Poconos, but the presence of the Tobyhanna Army Depot and the Chrysler facility at Mt. Pocono helped keep that part of the line in service between Scranton and Mt. Pocono. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania stepped in and prevented any track from being ripped up in Pennsylvania. (In a somewhat bizarre footnote, the use of a privately-owned World War II tank was threatened at the time.) In 1996, Conrail operated the first train between Scranton and Slateford due to flooding on other lines. Since then, freight service has been growing on the Pocono Main with operator Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad handling freight on the line.
• Steamtown operates steam and/or diesel excursions from Scranton to destinations including Moscow, Tobyhanna, East Stroudsburg, and occasionally Slateford just south of Delaware Water Gap.

[edit] Stations and landmarks on the Cut-Off (and corridor into Pennsylvania)

It doesn't look like much right now, but this would be the home to the new Andover station stop and 125 parking spaces, which would be just off to the right here. This is the beginning of the Pequest Fill (and the longest tangent on the Cut-Off), which is also on a slight downgrade, as is evident in this photo.

As long as the Cut-Off saw passenger service, Blairstown was always a main stop on the railroad. Commutation tickets were sold here until 1970, a practice that would be renewed with the re-opening of the line.

(Note - Milepost refers to the number of miles from Hoboken, NJ.)

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Steamtown National Historic Site

[edit] External links

• The Great Lackawanna Cutoff - Then & Now
• DL&W Booklet - The Story of the New Jersey Cutoff
• Touring the Lackawanna Cutoff
• The Penn Jersey Rail Coalition