The Lackawanna Cut-Off is a former double-track railroad line, 28.45 miles (45.8 km) long, built by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad between 1908 and 1911. The last major railroad mainline to be constructed in New Jersey,[1] the Cut-Off operated between 1911 and 1979. It was abandoned in 1983 and its tracks were removed the following year.
Also called the New Jersey Cut-Off, the Hopatcong-Slateford Cut-Off, the Lackawanna Highline, or simply the Cut-Off, the Lackawanna Cut-Off runs west from Port Morris Junction (near the southern tip of Lake Hopatcong in New Jersey, about 45 miles (72.4 km) west-northwest of New York City) to Slateford Junction near the Delaware Water Gap in Pennsylvania.[2]
The Lackawanna Cut-Off is an example of early 20th century right-of-way construction, which minimized grades and curves and was built without vehicular crossings. It was one of the first railroad projects to use reinforced concrete on a large scale. One of the largest such projects in the country at the time, its large cuts, fills, and embankments required the movement of millions of tons of fill material using techniques similar to those on the Panama Canal.[1] Running through hills and across valleys, the Cut-Off never exceeds a gradient of 0.55%, and only one curve has a speed limit of less than 70 mph (110 km/h).[2]
In 2011, after a more than quarter-century effort to restore rail service on the line, construction began on the easternmost 7.3 miles (11.8 km) of the Cut-Off between Port Morris Junction (the connection with the NJ Transit rail system near Lake Hopatcong) and Andover, New Jersey.
The story of the Lackawanna Cut-Off begins more than a half-century before the first train ran on the line. The Lackawanna's "Old Road" via Oxford, New Jersey, chartered in 1851 and completed in 1862 under the supervision of railroad magnate John I. Blair, was meant to provide a more or less straight route between the mainlines of the Lackawanna Railroad in Pennsylvania and the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ). But when the railroads' proposed end-to-end merger fell through, and the Lackawanna subsequently merged with the Morris and Essex Railroad in New Jersey, the Old Road was immediately transformed into a circuitous and, therefore, obsolete route. All this during its first decade of operation.[1]
The operational problems caused by the Old Road only worsened as the railroad's business grew, and by the beginning of the 20th century it had become the Lackawanna's chief bottleneck. Trains were limited to 50 mph (80 km/h) on the route, and 20 mph (32 km/h) through the route's two tunnels. By 1901, the larger locomotives and train cars being built required the installation of gantlet track (two overlapping tracks that in effect were a single track) through the 2996 foot (915 m) long Oxford Tunnel.[1] A second 975 foot (300 m) long tunnel (actually two single-track tunnels) near Manunka Chunk also had chronic drainage problems that occasionally plagued operations.[2][1]
William Truesdale, who had become president of the Lackawanna in 1899, recognized early on that the railroad needed to replace the Old Road.[2] By 1905, engineers had surveyed more than a dozen potential routes between Port Morris, New Jersey, and Slateford, Pennsylvania. Because any east-west route in northwest New Jersey would cross the north-south hills at a right angle, tunneling seemed inevitable. Indeed, several of the surveyed routes would have required much longer tunnels than already existed on the Old Road. For instance, Line "C" — the surveyed lines were given letters — would have passed about a mile south of the town of Hope, New Jersey (roughly five miles (8 km) north of where the Old Road ran), and would have required three tunnels totaling four miles (6.5 km) in length. On the other hand, Line "M", which ran about 10 miles (16 km) north of the Old Road, and which of all the surveyed routes most closely mirrored the route eventually chosen, would have required no tunneling, but would have been longer and would have had speed restrictions near Roseville and Tranquility, NJ.[2][1]
Indeed, the only way to avoid the operational problems associated with Line "M" would be to build the world's largest land-bridge across the Pequest River Valley, which Truesdale wanted, but which the civil engineers on Truesdale's staff thought impossible to build. Truesdale, an adroit corporate executive with a strong tendency towards perfectionism, was acutely aware of the political pitfalls of spending an enormous sum of company money on a railroad line that wasn't first-rate in every respect. So, Truesdale pushed for the seemingly impossible land-bridge to be built — and prevailed. The result would come to be known as the Pequest Fill.[1]
To finance the enormous cost of building the Cut-Off, Truesdale created a new corporation in 1908, the Lackawanna Railroad of New Jersey.[2]
As built, the route ran from the crest of the watershed at Lake Hopatcong to Slateford on the Delaware River, 2 miles (3 km) south of the Delaware Water Gap. The line was 28.45 miles (45.8 km) in length, some 11 miles shorter than the Old Road's 39.6 miles (64 km). The new line reduced the ruling grade of 1.1% to 0.55%.[2] The Cut-Off runs downgrade from east to west, save for a short stretch of less than 0.1% upgrade on the Pequest Fill east of Greendell that accounts for the entire 11 feet (3.4 m) of "rise and fall" on the Cut-Off.[2]
The Cut-Off would have 1,560 degrees (more than four complete circles) less curvature than the Old Road, as well as none of the significant operational problems associated with the Old Road's tunnels. A 1,024 feet (312 m) long tunnel at Roseville was required when construction of a cut there encountered unstable rock. This disappointed Truesdale, whose experience with the Old Road made him want to eschew tunnels on the new line. Fortunately, Roseville Tunnel caused no major operational problems, and a 70 mph (113 km/h) speed limit was permitted through the tunnel.[2]
The line was built without grade crossings, a modern design feature that the Lackawanna was already introducing to the east; grade separation eliminated the nuisance and hazard of automobiles and horse-drawn vehicles crossing the right-of-way.
Construction began August 1, 1908, and was divided into seven sections, each the responsibility of a different contracting company.
Each required heavy cuts and fills. A total of 14,621,100 cubic yards (11,000,000 m3) of fill material was required for the entire project, more than could be obtained from the project's cuts, so the Lackawanna Railroad bought about 760 acres (3.1 km²) of farmland for borrow pits.[2] The earth and gravel was scooped out to a depth of 20 feet (6 m) and hauled up onto the embankments. During construction, several foreign governments sent representatives on inspection tours.[1]
The Pequest Fill extended westward from a point 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Andover, NJ, to 1 mile (1.6 km) west of Huntsville, New Jersey. It is 110 feet (34 m) tall and 3.12 miles (5.0 km) long, and required 6,625,000 cubic yards of fill.[2] The original Huntsville, New Jersey schoolhouse is buried under the Pequest Fill; the DL&W paid for a second schoolhouse to be built nearby.[3]
The line's largest cut, Armstrong Cut, just west of Johnsonburg, NJ, is 100 feet (30 m) deep and 1 mile (1,600 m) long, mostly through solid rock. It was the site of a massive rockslide in 1941. The line's deepest cut is Roseville Cut, just west of Roseville Tunnel, at 130 feet (40 m) deep.[4]
During the summer of 1911, as construction fell behind schedule on the Roseville section, contractor Waltz & Reece Company used torchlight, as there was no electricity available, to work around the clock.[1]
The Cut-Off's 73 reinforced concrete structures include underpasses, overhead bridges, culverts, and, most notably, two viaducts.
The Paulinskill Viaduct (sometimes called the Hainesburg Viaduct after a nearby town) crosses the Paulins Kill. At 115 feet (35 m) high (about the height of the Statue of Liberty from crown to foot) and 1,100 feet (340 m) long, it was at the time the world's largest reinforced concrete viaduct.[2]
The Delaware River Viaduct, 65 feet (20 m) tall and 1,450 feet (440 m) long,[2] has five arches that span 150 feet (50 m) each. For stability, its abutments were excavated 62 feet (19 m) down to bedrock.[1]
Three reinforced concrete stations were built in the towns of Greendell, Johnsonburg and Blairstown. Greendell and Johnsonburg, located in rural areas, provided only modest business for the railroad, whereas Blairstown was more of a regional center and became a regular stop for passenger trains.[1]
Three reinforced concrete interlocking towers were built on the line: Port Morris Junction and Greendell Towers in New Jersey and Slateford Junction Tower in Pennsylvania. Greendell Tower, about 12 miles (19 km) west of Port Morris, controlled the crossovers, long passing siding, and short freight siding there. It was manned until 1938,[4] when its operation was transferred to Port Morris Tower. Slateford Jct. Tower, which controlled the junction with the Old Road, remained in operation until January 1951, when its functionality was transferred to East Stroudsburg Tower, about 6 miles (10 km) 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.[1]
The Cut-Off cost $11,065,511.43 to build in 1911.[2][5] The Lackawanna Railroad of New Jersey remained a separate corporate entity until 1941, when it was merged into the Lackawanna Railroad.[1][6])
The first revenue train to cross the Cut-Off is thought to have been train #15, a westbound passenger train that with the change in timetable would have entered onto the Cut-Off at Port Morris at approximately 12:15 am on the morning of December 24, 1911.[2]
The Cut-Off shaved 20 minutes off the schedule for passenger trains and saved freight trains a full hour.[2] Long-distance trains, such as the Lackawanna Limited, which traveled from Hoboken, New Jersey, to Buffalo, New York, and provided sleeping car service on to Chicago and St. Louis, shifted to the Cut-Off. The Old Road was immediately downgraded to secondary status.[1]
The Cut-Off was built to permit an unrestricted speed of 70 mph (110 km/h) on curves with a degree of curvature of 2°. The overall speed limit on the line was later raised to 75 mph (121 km/h) and then to 80 mph (130 km/h), in response to the installation of heavier rail and the fact that roughly 85% of the line was tangent (straight) track. Making up time (exceeding the speed limit when trains were late) was reported to have occurred on occasion, although such a practice would only have occurred when the railroad crew confirmed that no railroad officials were on board the train.[2]
The western end of Roseville Tunnel posed a few minor operational problems, including snow and ice buildup and occasional rockslides. A watchman was posted in a shanty to keep an eye out for slides until a mechanical detector was installed to change trackside signals to red when such occurred.[7] Over the years, the daylighting (removal of the land above) Roseville Tunnel has been occasionally discussed. The cost and scale of such a project has never been calculated. Indeed, even with the upcoming reactivation of rail service through the tunnel, it is not considered a high priority.
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. In 1949, when the Phoebe Snow, the Lackawanna's premier streamlined train, was inaugurated, the Cut-Off was considered a scenic highlight of the trip to Buffalo, NY.
The Lackawanna was one of the most profitable US corporations when it built the Cut-Off.[1][2] The most profitable commodity shipped by the railroad was anthracite coal. For instance, in 1890 and during 1920–1940, the DL&W shipped upwards of 14% of the State of Pennsylvania's anthracite production. Other profitable freight included dairy products, cattle, lumber, cement, steel, and grain.[2] At the time, the Pocono Mountains region was one of the most popular vacation destinations in the country—especially among New Yorkers—and several large hotels sat along the line in Northeastern Pennsylvania, generating a large amount of passenger traffic for the Lackawanna. All of this helped justify the railroad's expansion of its double-track mainline to three and in some places four tracks.[2] The Cut-Off had several passing sidings and together with the Old Road effectively was the equivalent a four-track mainline between Slateford and Port Morris Junctions. The Old Road's route provided extra capacity when the Cut-Off could not handle peaks in traffic.
But changes in the region's economy ultimately undercut the railroad. The post-World War II boom enjoyed by many U.S. cities bypassed Scranton and the rest of Lackawanna and Luzerne counties. Oil and natural gas quickly became the preferred energy sources. Silk and other textile industries shrank as jobs moved to the southern U.S. or overseas. The advent of refrigeration squeezed the business from ice ponds on top of the Poconos. Even the dairy industry changed. The Lackawanna had long enjoyed revenues from milk shipments; many stations had a creamery next to the tracks, including Johnsonburg on the Cut-Off.
Perhaps the most catastrophic blow to the Lackawanna, however, was dealt by Mother Nature. In August 1955, flooding from Hurricane Diane devastated the Pocono Mountains region, killing 80 people. The floods cut the Lackawanna Railroad in 88 places, destroying 60 miles (97 km) of track, stranded several trains (with a number of passengers aboard), and shutting down the railroad for nearly a month (with temporary speed restrictions prevailing on the damaged sections of railroad for months), causing a total of $8.1 million in damages and lost revenue. The Cut-Off was not directly affected by the flooding, but until the mainline in Pennsylvania reopened, all trains were cancelled or rerouted over other railroads. The Lackawanna would never fully recover.[2]
Then, in January 1959, the Knox Mine Disaster flooded the mines and all but obliterated what was left of the region's anthracite industry.[8][9]
The Lackawanna Railroad's financial problems were not at all unique. Rail traffic in the US in general declined after World War II as trucks and automobiles took away freight and passenger traffic.[2] Declining freight traffic put the nearby New York, Ontario and Western Railroad and Lehigh & New England Railroad out of business in 1957 and 1961, respectively. Over the next three decades, nearly every major railroad in the Northeastern US would go bankrupt.
By the late 1950s, all signs pointed to continued financial decline and eventual bankruptcy for the DL&W, prompting Lackawanna president Perry Shoemaker to seek a merger with the Nickel Plate Road. The deal would have created a railroad stretching more than 1,100 miles (1700 km) from St. Louis, Mo. to New York City and would have allowed the Lackawanna to retain the 200 miles (322 km) of double-track mainline between Buffalo, and Binghamton, New York. Interestingly, there was historical precedent for a Lackawanna-Nickel Plate merger going back to a 1920 report issued by William Z. Ripley, a professor of political economics at Harvard University, who concluded (within the so-called Ripley Report) that such a merger would have been financially beneficial to both railroads.[10]
But 40 years later, the Lackawanna was but a shadow of its former financial self and although the Lackawanna had accumulated a substantial block of Nickel Plate stock, the Nickel Plate was not interested in an end-to-end merger, rebuffing attempts to seat a DL&W director on its board of directors, indicating that the Lackawanna's financial position would not have benefited Nickel Plate stockholders. (The Nickel Plate would later merge with the Norfolk and Western Railroad). As such, starting in 1956, the Lackawanna aggressively sought joint operating agreements, and potential mergers, with the Lehigh Valley Railroad and the Delaware and Hudson Railway; in the end, neither the LVRR nor the D&H was interested.
As if all these factors weren't bad enough to endure, property taxes in New Jersey were a tremendous financial drain on the Lackawanna and other railroads that ran through New Jersey, a situation that would not be remedied for another two decades.[2]
With the Nickel Plate out of the picture, Shoemaker sought a merger with the DL&W's longtime rival, the Erie Railroad. As a result, the Cut-Off was single-tracked in 1958 in anticipation of the Erie merger, except for the sidings at Port Morris, Greendell and Slateford. The merger would be formally consummated on October 17, 1960.
Shoemaker would receive much criticism for orchestrating the merger, and would even second-guess himself after he had retired from railroading. Indeed, Shoemaker later claimed to have had a "gentlemen's agreement" with the E-L Board of Directors to take over as president of the new railroad, but was pushed aside in favor of Erie Railroad managers, causing him to leave in disillusionment to became the president of the Central Railroad of New Jersey in 1962[2]. In the end, the merger would lead to the abandonment of most of the Lackawanna's mainline trackage between Binghamton, NY and Buffalo, NY.
Soon after the merger, the new E-L management shifted most freight trains to the "Erie side", the former Erie Railroad lines, leaving only a few daily freight trains traveling over the Cut-Off. Passenger train traffic would not be affected, at least not immediately. This traffic pattern would remain in effect for over ten years—past the discontinuation of passenger service on January 6, 1970—and was almost completely dependent on the lucrative interchange with the New Haven Railroad at Maybrook, New York.
The 1970 merger of the New Haven Railroad into the Penn Central Railroad changed all this: the New England Gateway was closed, causing dramatic traffic changes for the Cut-Off. Indeed, as very little on-line freight originated on the Erie side, once the Gateway was closed (eliminating the original justification for shifting traffic to the Erie side), virtually all the E-L's freight trains were shifted back to the Lackawanna side and now traversed the Cut-Off once again. After the New England Gateway closed, E-L's management downgraded the Erie side and seriously considered its abandonment.
The year 1970 also saw the E-L abandon the Lackawanna's Old Road as a through route. The tracks were removed, except for short stretches at either end of the line: in Washington, New Jersey (to serve a local industry, a service that is provided by Norfolk Southern to this day); and in Delaware, New Jersey (to provide additional trackage for coal train operations across the Delaware River to the Med-Ed power plant in Portland, Pennsylvania).[11]
In 1972, the Central Railroad of New Jersey abandoned all its operations in Pennsylvania (which by that time were freight-only), causing additional through freights to be run daily between Elizabeth, NJ on the CNJ and Scranton on the E-L. The trains, designated as the eastbound SE-98 and the westbound ES-99, travelled via the Cut-Off and were routed via the CNJ's High Bridge Branch. This arrangement ended with the creation of Conrail.[12]
During its time, the E-L 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 E-L also aggressively sought other contracts with suppliers in the area, pioneering what came to be known as intermodal shipping. However, none of this could compensate for the decline in coal shipments, and, as labor costs and taxes rose, the railroad's financial position, while stronger than some railroads in the eastern U.S., was becoming increasingly precarious.
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, encouraged more traffic to be diverted to trucks. This helped accelerate the E-L's decline and its inclusion into 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.. Initially, Conrail's freight schedule over the Cut-Off did not much change from the E-L's due to labor contracts that restricted any immediate alterations. This, too, would change. In early 1979, Conrail suspended freight service on the Cut-Off, citing the E-L's early-1960s severing of the Boonton Branch near Paterson, New Jersey, and the grades over the Pocono Mountains as the primary reason for removing freight traffic from the entire Hoboken-Scranton route and consolidating this service within its other operating routes.
The end of service on the Cut-Off and the Old Road severed a corridor that had operated continuously since the American Civil War.
When Conrail removed the Cut-Off from service in early 1979, all routine maintenance on the line was discontinued, and two sections of rail were removed at Port Morris Jct., effectively disconnecting the main track, although the Port Morris Wye track was left in place. Yet Conrail had already replaced thousands of crossties on the Cut-Off after its takeover, so the line was arguably in better physical condition than it had been since the Lackawanna days.
Supporters of the Cut-Off convinced Amtrak to operate an inspection train between Hoboken and Scranton to investigate the possibility of operating intercity trains on the line. The 133-mile (215 km) inspection trip (dubbed the "Pocono Mountain Special") was operated over the line on a dreary November 13, 1979. Unfortunately, with no Amtrak funding available and insufficient political support, the idea of Hoboken, NJ–Scranton rail service faded. This would be the only Amtrak train—and the last passenger train—to operate on the Cut-Off during the 20th century.[13]
Several attempts were made to purchase the line from Conrail. The Monroe County Railroad Authority in Pennsylvania pursued funding to pay for the $6.5 million price-tag that Conrail had set for the 88-mile (142 km) section of track between Port Morris and Scranton. The agreement was to have included a $4.1 million loan (at 3.25% per annum) from the federal government, plus a bond issue to cover the balance of the purchase price, plus additional unspecified rehabilitation costs. Conrail was to receive permission to remove one track from Analomink, PA, to Scranton (about 40 miles, 65 km), with an option for the state to purchase the second track to Moscow, PA, for Steamtown operations out of Scranton. Part of the agreement stipulated that the designated operator of the railroad would be expected to repay the loan using revenue from operations.[13]
On August 10, 1983, Monroe County officials were informed by the US Department of Transportation that the federal loan guarantee had been revoked in favor of the financially ailing Detroit and Mackinac Railroad in Michigan. In spite of this, a list of 16 potential operators was gathered, of which seven submitted proposals on August 26, 1983. Even with the revocation of the federal loan guarantee, officials in Monroe County continued to be optimistic that Congress could be convinced to provide the needed financial support to the project.[13]
In the end, it would be the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) that would provide Conrail with the legal ability to abandon the Cut-Off. In 1983, the ICC ruled that from that time onward, track that had been out of service for two years would be exempt from regulation for abandonment. Until that time, a rather lengthy process had existed, which discouraged railroads from abandoning unwanted routes. After the ICC ruling, however, any track segment would be considered as "out of service" if it had no originating or terminating shipments for two years and was not required for service to any other trackage.[14] The Cut-Off, placed out of service four years before the ICC ruling and free of shippers left on the line, immediately met the requirements for abandonment.
Even without the federal loan guarantee, the Monroe County Railroad Authority (with support from PennDOT and the bizarre threat of the use of a privately-owned World War II tank against Conrail) would block Conrail's attempt to completely remove the track in Pennsylvania. However, the political support could only delay temporarily Conrail's removal of the tracks on the New Jersey section of the Cut-Off.[13]
A Conrail train began removing track in summer 1984. Starting at the east end of the Delaware River Viaduct, the train worked eastward, and pulled the last rail on October 5.[15]. The wooden ties and rock ballast were left in place, which was somewhat unusual for Conrail, which typically removed all components (rails, wooden ties, signals, poles, rock ballast) when dismantling a rail line.[13]
The following year, Conrail sold all of the now-abandoned right-of-way, except for the easternmost 1.5 miles (2.4 km) (which Conrail temporarily retained ownership to), to Jerry Turco, a developer. Turco said he had never intended to buy the Cut-Off, discovering its availability after approaching Conrail in late 1984 to acquire a small parcel of the Lehigh and Hudson River Railway (L&HR) right-of-way in Andover so that he could expand his adjacent nursing home operation. Conrail, the owner of the abandoned L&HR, reportedly countered by offering to sell Turco the entire 32-mile L&HR right-of-way from Sparta Junction in Sparta, NJ to BD Junction in Belvidere, NJ. Conrail further offered to add the Cut-Off (the L&HR right-of-way crossed under the Pequest Fill near Tranquility, NJ), offering Turco a package deal for a total of nearly 60 miles (97 km) of rights-of-way. Turco accepted, reportedly paying roughly $2 million for the package. Conrail removed the track from the L&HR, as Turco had only acquired the land and not the track.
In 1986, Turco announced plans to remove the fill material from the Pequest Fill and other large fills from the Cut-Off and to transport it to the now-defunct Westway project in New York City. The second part of Turco's plans involved the dumping of garbage and construction materials into the large cuts on the right-of-way. While it was never entirely clear if Turco was serious about pursuing his proposed Rebar Landfill, as it was called, or if it was just a ploy to stir up public opposition to the plan in order to gain political support and to force the New Jersey state government to step in and acquire the Cut-Off by condemnation, it is clear that the controversial Turco proposal became a rallying point for preserving the Cut-Off, and helped galvanize support for a $25 million state bond issue for acquiring abandoned rail rights-of-way in New Jersey.
During this time, Conrail sold the remaining 1.5-mile (2.4 km) parcel of right-of-way near Port Morris to Burton Goldmeier, a developer who reportedly wanted to use the Cut-Off as an access road to a proposed development project. It was rumored that Conrail initially retained ownership of the Goldmeier parcel so as prevent Turco from entering into an agreement with a competing freight railroad that might attempt to reactivate the Cut-Off. Whether that is true or not is not known, but by the time Conrail sold the Goldmeier parcel, it had already placed additional constraints into its agreement covering the Pennsylvania trackage west of Slateford Junction, strongly suggesting that Conrail was uneasy about the possibility of another railroad entering the New York market via the Cut-Off.
As such, when voters approved the bond issue in November 1989, it opened the door for the preservation of the Lackawanna Cut-Off. As expected, the New Jersey Department of Transportation began the use of eminent domain against the corporations that Turco and Goldmeier had established in New Jersey for the Cut-Off. Of the two parcels, acquisition of Turco's parcel was by far the most complicated as Turco had established separate corporations for the sections of right-of-way in each municipality that his section of 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, separate corporations had been set up for the Paulinskill Viaduct and the Delaware River Viaduct, as well as for the mile (1.6 km) of right-way in Pennsylvania (which would be subsequently acquired by Pennsylvania's Monroe County Authority). In addition to these corporations, Turco created a holding company to oversee these other companies: OLC, Inc., OLC standing for Old Lackawanna Cut-Off.
By 2001, the State of New Jersey and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had acquired their respective portions of the Cut-Off for a total of $21 million. In 2003, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania secured initial funding for the restoration of passenger rail service between Scranton and New York City.[16]
Work progressed slowly but steadily. In July 2006, the final environmental review was submitted to the Federal Transit Administration for review and approval.[17] The following February, the Lackawanna County and Monroe County Railroad Authorities were merged to form the Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Rail Authority. One of the objectives of the rail authority was to help expedite the effort to restore passenger service on the Pennsylvania side of the Lackawanna Cut-Off project.
In May 2008, the North Jersey Transportation Authority approved funding to rebuild the first 7.3 miles (11.7 km) of the Cut-Off between Andover and Port Morris Junction (NJ).[18][19] By 2009, the environmental assessment for the rest of the project to Scranton was completed, with a "Finding of No Significant Impact" (FONSI).[20] The EPA subsequently concurred with this finding in July 2009.
Brush removal and general preparation for the relaying of tracks between Port Morris and Andover in New Jersey, was to have originally begun in 2010, but two problems delayed the work. One was wetlands near County Route 605 in Stanhope, NJ. These wetlands date to the construction of the Cut-Off, although adequate drainage had prevented the right-of-way from flooding. With abandonment of the line, regular maintenance on the adjacent drainage ditches ceased, resulting in an area that technically met the definition of wetlands.
The second problem resulted when the Sierra Club, an environmental group, objected to brush clearing along the line during the mating season of the Indiana bat, an endangered species.[21]
As of 2011, most of the right-of-way between Port Morris and Lake Lackawanna (roughly the halfway point between Port Morris and Andover) has been prepared (cleared of trees and debris and has been ballasted), but the section between Lake Lackawanna and Andover is still awaiting approval of environmental permits. The laying of railroad track began at Port Morris, NJ in September 2011, with about one mile (1.5 km) having been laid by December 2011, at which time a Norfolk Southern rail train carrying a total of 7.5 miles (12.5 km) of rail to Port Morris—sufficient to relay a single track to Andover—was brought to Port Morris. Starting on December 19, 2011, using NJ Transit locomotives, the train was transferred to the Cut-Off and over a four-day period the entire load of 50 strands of 1600-foot (492 m) continuously-welded rail was off-loaded immediately adjacent to Cut-Off in Port Morris.
One additional problem exists at County Route 602 in Hopatcong: a grade crossing was created in 1990 to eliminate a low-clearance underpass that went under the Cut-Off's right-of-way. The County Road 602 crossing is roughly 1.5 miles (2 km) west of Port Morris Junction and will present both construction and operational problems. Being on a curved section of track, the grade crossing may require a speed restriction; it may also complicate the transfer of rail for construction west of the crossing. In the future, another newly-created grade crossing on the Cut-Off, west of Andover and just west of the Greendell station site (created when an overhead bridge over the Cut-Off on County Route 606 was eliminated in the late 1990s), may present some minor operational problems. It is thought that the Greendell grade crossing may eventually be eliminated after the reinstitution of rail service farther west on the line, but due to topography it is unlikely that it will ever be feasible to eliminate the County Route 602 crossing.
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In 2008, the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA) approved a proposal by New Jersey Transit to restore rail service to the Lackawanna Cut-Off and onward along the old DL&W mainline in Pennsylvania to Scranton.[22] The approval made the project eligible for Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funding for engineering and design work.
The NJT proposed to reopen train service in two phases:
Stations in Pennsylvania would include Delaware Water Gap (a new station near the Delaware Water Gap Visitors' Center in Smithfield Township, with 900 parking spaces in a five-story parking garage); East Stroudsburg (a new station site, slightly south of the old station site, with 228 parking spaces); Analomink (a new station, near the old station site, with 250 parking spaces); Pocono Mountain (a new station, near the old Mount Pocono station, with 1,000 parking spaces); Tobyhanna (an existing station, with 102 parking spaces); and Scranton (a new station, west of the existing station, with 30 parking spaces). All stations on the line would have high-level platforms and would comply with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards.[22]
Passenger service to Scranton would consist of 18 trains a day (nine eastbound and nine westbound) between and Hoboken or New York City). By 2030, it is estimated that the service would carry 6,000 passengers a day from northeastern Pennsylvania and northwestern New Jersey to jobs in New Jersey and New York City.[22]
Future commuters traveling to Hoboken using this service would board a Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) train to travel into lower Manhattan or would switch to a Hudson-Bergen Light Rail train to points along the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. A two-hour travel time from northeastern Pennsylvania to New York City has been estimated, about the same as rides from New York's northern suburbs of Poughkeepsie, Brewster, and New Haven, Connecticut. NJ Transit will operate the service to Scranton, which is projected will cost about $26 million a year.[24]
| Milepost* | Town | Station/Landmark | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 45.7 | Roxbury Township | Port Morris Junction | Junction between Lackawanna Cut-Off and Montclair-Boonton Line to Hoboken Terminal and Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan (via Midtown Direct service) – nearest station at Lake Hopatcong (MP 45.5). NJT's Port Morris rail yard is also located here Morris Canal passed under Cut-Off just west of tower (canal filled-in by mid-1920s). |
| 51.6 | Byram Township | Roseville Tunnel | No station, 1024 foot (315 m) double-track tunnel.[21] |
| 53 | Andover | Andover | Proposed NJT station - new station on Cut-Off.[25] |
| 57.6 | Green Township | Greendell | Future maintenance-of-way facility on Cut-Off. Station and tower closed in 1938.[21] |
| 60.7 | Frelinghuysen Township | Johnsonburg | No station currently proposed. Old station closed 1940, partially rebuilt in early 1990s; demolished in 2007. |
| 64.8 | Blairstown Township | Blairstown | Proposed NJT station using existing station building. The only regularly scheduled stop for passenger trains on the Cut-Off.[25] |
| 71.6 | Knowlton Township | Paulinskill Viaduct | No station. Also known as Hainesburg Viaduct. |
| 73 | Stateline (NJ/PA)(Delaware River) | Delaware River Viaduct | No station. I-80 passes under arches of viaduct on New Jersey side of the river. |
| 74.3 | Slateford | Slateford Junction | Junction between Lackawanna Cut-Off and Old Road - Interlocking tower (no station) |
| 77.2 | Delaware Water Gap | Delaware Water Gap | Proposed station.[25] Old station (about 0.5 miles (800 m) east of proposed station) vacated in 1967. |
| 81.6 | East Stroudsburg | East Stroudsburg | Proposed station (south of old station site).[25] |
| 86.8 | Analomink | Analomink | Proposed station (near old station site).[25] |
| 100.3 | Mount Pocono | Pocono Mountain | Proposed station north of former station in Coolbaugh Township near PA SR 611.[26] |
| 107.6 | Tobyhanna | Tobyhanna | Station closed January 1958. Proposed station using existing station building.[26] |
| 133.1 | Scranton | Scranton | Proposed station[25] (existing station building currently a Radisson Hotel). |
(* Note - Milepost refers to the number of miles west of Hoboken, NJ.)
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