| Lehigh Valley Railroad | |
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| Reporting mark | LV |
| Locale | New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania |
| Dates of operation | 1846–1976 |
| Successor | Conrail |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) (standard gauge) |
| Headquarters | Bethlehem, Pennsylvania |
The Lehigh Valley Railroad (reporting mark LV) was one of a number of railroads built in the northeastern United States primarily to haul anthracite coal.
It was authorized April 21, 1846 in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and incorporated September 20, 1847 as the Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad Company. On January 7, 1853, the name was changed to Lehigh Valley Railroad.[1] It was sometimes known as the Route of the Black Diamond, named after the anthracite it transported. At the time, anthracite was transported by boat down the Lehigh River. The railroad was meant to be a faster means of transportation.
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Construction started in 1850 when the route was surveyed and grading started, but progress was slow and financing was insufficient. The railroad's growth occurred after Asa Packer invested in the railroad in 1852, and it was renamed the Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR). With Packer's backing and leadership, his chief engineer Robert H. Sayre completed the road in 1855 from Mauch Chunk (present-day Jim Thorpe) to the Delaware River at Easton, where coal could either be shipped to Philadelphia on the Delaware Division Canal or transported across the river to Phillipsburg, New Jersey, where the Morris Canal and the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) could carry it to the New York market. At Easton, the LVRR constructed a double-decked bridge across the Delaware River for connections to the CNJ and the Belvidere Delaware Railroad in Phillipsburg.[2]
The 46-mile-long (74 km) LVRR connected at Mauch Chunk with the Beaver Meadow Railroad. The Beaver Meadow Railroad had been built in 1836, and it transported anthracite coal from Jeansville in Pennsylvania's Middle Coal Field to the Lehigh Canal at Mauch Chunk. For 25 years the Lehigh Canal had enjoyed a monopoly on downstream transportation and was charging independent producers high fees. When the LVRR opened, those producers eagerly sent their product by the railroad instead of canal, and within two years of its construction the LVRR was carrying over 400,000 tons of coal annually. By 1859 it had 600 coal cars and 19 engines.[2]
It immediately became the trunk line down the Lehigh Valley, with numerous feeder railroads connecting and contributing to its traffic. The production of the entire Middle Coal Field came to the LVRR over feeders to the Beaver Meadow: the Quakake Railroad, the Catawissa, Williamsport and Erie Railroad, the Hazelton Railroad, the Lehigh Luzerne Railroad, and other smaller lines. At Catasauqua, the Catasauqua and Fogelsville Railroad transported coal, ore, limestone, and iron for furnaces of the Thomas Iron Company, the Lehigh Crane Iron Company, the Lehigh Valley Iron Works, the Carbon Iron Company, and others. At Bethlehem, the North Pennsylvania Railroad provided a rail connection to Philadelphia, and at Phillipsburg the Belvidere Delaware Railroad connected to Trenton.[2] To accommodate the 4 ft 10 in (1,473 mm) gauge of the Belvidere, the cars were furnished with wheels having wide treads that operated on both roads.[3]
In 1864, the LV began acquiring feeder railroads and merging them with its system. The first acquisitions were the Beaver Meadow Railroad and Coal Company and the Penn Haven and White Haven Railroad. In 1866 the company acquired the Lehigh and Mahanoy Railroad (originally the Quakake Railroad), and a further round of acquisitions took place in 1868 with the addition of the Hazelton Railroad and the Lehigh Luzerne Railroad. With these acquisitions, the Lehigh Valley obtained the right to mine coal as well as transport it.[4]
The acquisitions in 1868 were notable because they marked the beginning of the LVRR's strategy of acquiring coal lands to ensure production and traffic for its own lines. Although the 1864 acquisition of the Beaver Meadow RR had included a few hundred acres of coal land, by 1868 the LVRR was feeling pressure from the Delaware and Hudson and the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad in the northern Wyoming Valley coal field, where the railroads mined and transported their own coal at a much reduced cost.[5] The LVRR recognized that its own continued prosperity depended on obtaining what coal lands remained. In pursuit of that strategy, the 1868 purchase of the Hazelton RR and the Lehigh and Luzerne Railroad brought 1,800 acres (7.3 km2) of coal land to the LVRR, and additional lands were acquired along branches of the LVRR.[6] Over the next dozen years the railroad acquired other large tracts of land: 13,000 acres (53 km2) in 1870,[7] 5,800 acres (23 km2) in 1872,[8] and acquisition of the Philadelphia Coal Company in 1873 with its large leases in the Mahanoy basin. In 1875, the holdings were consolidated into the Lehigh Valley Coal Company, which was wholly owned by the LVRR.[9][1] By 1893, the LVRR owned or controlled 53,000 acres (210 km2) of coal lands.[9]
The 1860s also saw the LVRR expand northward to Wilkes-Barre and up the Susquehanna River to the New York state line. Recognizing an opportunity for a near monopoly in the region north of the Wyoming Valley, in 1866 the LVRR purchased the North Branch Canal along the Susquehanna River, renaming it the Pennsylvania and New York Canal & Railroad Company (P&NY).[10] Construction of a rail line started immediately and by 1869 was complete from Wilkes-Barre to Waverly, New York, where coal was transferred to the broad gauge Erie Railroad and shipped to western markets through Buffalo.[7] To reach Wilkes-Barre, the LVRR purchased the Penn Haven & White Haven Railroad in 1864, and began constructing an extension from White Haven to Wilkes-Barre that was opened in 1867. By 1869, the LVRR owned a continuous track through Pennsylvania from Easton to Waverly. In 1875, the LVRR financed the addition of a third rail to the Erie line so that cars could roll directly from colliery to the port at Buffalo.[11]
In the 1870s the LVRR turned its eye toward expansion across New Jersey. The most important market in the East was New York City, but the LVRR was dependent on the CNJ and the Morris Canal for transport to the New York tidewater. In 1871, the LVRR leased the Morris Canal, which had a valuable outlet in Jersey City on the Hudson River opposite Manhattan.[12] Asa Packer purchased additional land at the canal basin in support of the New Jersey West Line Railroad, which he hoped to use as the LVRR's terminal. That project failed, but the lands were later used for the LVRR's own terminal in 1889.
The CNJ, seeing that the LVRR intended to create its own line across New Jersey, protected itself by leasing the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad (L&S) to ensure a continuing supply of coal traffic. The L&S had been chartered in 1837 by the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (the Lehigh Canal company) to connect the upper end of the canal at Mauch Chunk to Wilkes-Barre.[13] After the LVRR opened its line, the Lehigh & Susquehanna extended to Phillipsburg and connected with the CNJ and the Morris and Essex Railroad in 1868.[14] In 1871, the entire line from Phillipsburg to Wilkes-Barre was leased to the CNJ.[15] For most of its length, it ran parallel to the LVRR.
The LVRR found that the route of the Morris Canal was impractical for use as a railroad line, so in 1872 it purchased the dormant charter of the Perth Amboy & Bound Brook Railroad which had access to the Perth Amboy, New Jersey harbor, and added to it a new charter, the Bound Brook and Easton. The railroads were merged as the Easton and Amboy Railroad. Coal docks at Perth Amboy were soon constructed, and most of the line from Easton to Perth Amboy was graded and rails laid. However, the route required a 4,893-foot (1,491 m) tunnel through Musconetcong Mountain near Pattenburg, and that proved troublesome, delaying the opening of the line until May 1875, when a coal train first passed over the line. To support the expected increase in traffic, the wooden bridge over the Delaware River at Easton was also replaced by a double-tracked, 1,191-foot (363 m) iron bridge.[16]
On May 17, 1879, Asa Packer, the company's founder and leader, died at the age of 73. At the time of his death, the railroad was shipping 4.4 million tons of coal annually over 657 miles (1,057 km) of track, using 235 engines, 24,461 coal cars, and over 2,000 freight cars of various kinds. The company controlled 30,000 acres (12,000 ha) of coal-producing lands and was expanding rapidly into New York and New Jersey.[17] The railroad had survived the economic depression of 1873 and was seeing its business recover. Leadership of the company transferred smoothly to Charles Hartshorne who had been Vice President under Asa. In 1883, Hartshorne retired to allow Harry E. Packer, Asa's 32-year-old youngest son, to assume the Presidency.[4] A year later, Harry Packer died of illness, and Asa's 51-year-old nephew Elisha Packer Wilbur was elected President, a position he held for 13 years.[18]
The 1880s continued to be a period of growth, and the LVRR made important acquisitions in New York, expanded its reach into the southern coal field of Pennsylvania which had hitherto been the monopoly of the Reading, and successfully battled the CNJ over terminal facilities in Jersey City.
The port on Lake Erie at Buffalo was critical to the LVRR's shipments of coal to western markets and for receipt of grain sent by the West to eastern markets. Although in 1870 the LVRR had invested in the 2-mile (3.2 km) Buffalo Creek Railroad which connected the Erie to the lakefront, and had constructed the Lehigh Docks on Buffalo Creek, it depended on the Erie Railroad for the connection from Waverly to Buffalo.[7] In 1882, the LVRR began an extensive expansion into New York. First, it purchased a large parcel of land in Buffalo, the Tifft farm, for use as terminal facilities, and obtained a New York charter for the Lehigh Valley Railway.[19] Then in 1887 the Lehigh Valley Railroad obtained a lease on the Southern Central Railroad, which had a route from Waverly northward into the Finger Lakes region.[20] At the same time, the LVRR organized the Buffalo and Geneva to build from the northern end of Seneca Lake to Buffalo. Finally, in 1889, the LVRR gained control of the Geneva, Ithaca, and Sayre Railroad and completed its line of rail through New York.[21] As a result of its leases and acquisitions, the Lehigh Valley gained a monopoly on traffic in the Finger Lakes region.
It also continued to grow and develop its routes in Pennsylvania. In 1883 the railroad acquired land in northeast Pennsylvania and formed a subsidiary called The Glen Summit Hotel and Land Company. They opened a hotel in Glen Summit, Pennsylvania called the Glen Summit Hotel to serve lunch to passengers traveling on the line. The hotel remained with the company until 1909 when it was bought by residents of the surrounding cottages.[22]
Also in Pennsylvania, the Lehigh scored a coup by obtaining the charter formerly held by the Schuykill Haven and Lehigh River Railroad in 1886. That charter had been held by the Reading Railroad since 1860, when it had blocked construction in order to maintain its monopoly in the Southern Coal Field. That southern field held the largest reserves of anthracite in Pennsylvania and accounted for a large percentage of the total production. Through neglect, the Reading allowed the charter to lapse, and it was acquired by the Lehigh Valley, which immediately constructed the Schuylkill and Lehigh Valley Railroad. The line gave the LVRR a route into Pottsville, Pennsylvania and the Schuylkill Valley coal fields.[23]
In New Jersey, the LVRR embarked on a decade-long legal battle with the CNJ over terminal facilities in Jersey City. The land that Asa Packer had obtained in 1872 was situated on the southern side of the Morris Canal's South Basin, but the CNJ already had its own facilities adjacent to that property and disputed the LVRR's title, which partly overlapped land the CNJ had filled for its own terminal.[24] Finally in 1887 the two railroads reached a settlement, and construction of the LVRR's Jersey City freight yard began.[25] The LVRR obtained a 5-year agreement to use the CNJ line to access the terminal, which opened in 1889. It fronted the Morris Canal Basin with a series of 600-foot (180 m) piers angling out from the shoreline but was too narrow for a yard, so the LVRR built a separate yard at Oak Island in Newark to sort and prepare trains. The South Basin terminal was used solely for freight, having docks and car float facilities. Passengers were routed to the Pennsylvania Railroad's terminal and ferry.
Meanwhile, the LVRR began construction of a series of railroads to connect the Easton and Amboy line to Jersey City. The Roselle and South Plainfield Railway in 1887 connected with the CNJ at Roselle. The Newark and Roselle Railway in 1891 brought the line from Roselle into Newark, where passengers connected to the Pennsylvania Railroad. Bridging Newark Bay proved difficult. The LVRR first attempted to obtain a right of way at Greenville, but the Pennsylvania Railroad checkmated them by purchasing most of the properties needed. Then the CNJ opposed the LVRR's attempt to cross its line at Caven Point. Finally after settling the legal issues, the Newark Bay was bridged in 1892 by the Jersey City, Newark and Western Railway and connected to the National Docks Railway, which was partly owned by the LVRR and which reached the LVRR's terminal. In 1895, the LVRR constructed the Greenville and Hudson Railway parallel with the National Docks in order to relieve congestion and have a wholly owned route into Jersey City. Finally in 1900, the LVRR purchased the National Docks Railway outright.
The 1890s were a period of turmoil for the LVRR. Although the decade began with the completion of its terminals at Buffalo and Jersey City, and the establishment of a trunk line across New York, the company soon became entangled in business dealings which ultimately led to the Packer family's loss of control.
The coal trade was always the backbone of the business but was subject to boom and bust as competition and production increased and the economy cycled. The coal railroads had begun in 1873 to form pools to regulate production and set quotas for each railroad. By controlling supply, the coal combination attempted to keep prices and profits high. Several combinations occurred, but each fell apart as one road or another abrogated its agreement. The first such combination occurred in 1873, followed by others in 1878, 1884, and 1886. Customers naturally resented the actions of the cartel, and since coal was critical to commerce, Congress intervened in 1887 with the Interstate Commerce Act that forbade the roads from joining into such pools. Although the roads effectively ignored the Act and their sales agents continued to meet and set prices, the agreements were never effective for long.
In 1892, the Reading Railroad thought it had a solution — instead of attempting to maintain agreements among the coal railroads, it would purchase or lease the major lines and bring them into a monopoly. It leased the CNJ and the LVRR, purchased the railroads' coal companies, and arranged for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad to cooperate with the combination, thereby controlling 70% of the trade.[9][26] Unfortunately, it overreached and in 1893 was unable to meet its obligations. Its bankruptcy resulted in economic chaos, bringing on the financial panic of 1893 and forcing the LVRR to break the lease and resume its own operations, leaving it unable to pay dividends on its stock until 1904. The economic depression following 1893 was harsh, and by 1897 the LVRR was in dire need of support. The banking giant J. P. Morgan stepped in to refinance the LVRR debt, and obtained control of the railroad in the process. Ousting President Elisha P. Wilbur and several directors in 1897, the Morgan company installed W. Alfred Walter as President and seated its own directors. In 1901 Morgan arranged to have the Packer Estate's holdings purchased jointly by the Erie, the Pennsylvania, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, the DLW, and the CNJ, all companies in which Morgan had interests. Newly elected President Eben B. Thomas (formerly of the Erie) and his Board of Directors represented the combined interests of those railroads.[27]
A final attempt to establish a coal cartel took place in 1904 with the formation of the Temple Iron Company. Prior to that time, the Temple Iron Company was a small concern that happened to have a broad charter allowing it to act as a holding company. The Reading, now out of receivership, purchased the company and brought the other coal railroads into the partnership, with the Reading owning 30%, the LVRR 23%, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western 20%, CNJ 17%, Erie 6%, and New York, Susquehanna and Western 5%. The purpose of the Temple Iron Company was to lock up coal production and control the supply. Congress reacted with the 1906 Hepburn Act, which among other things forbade railroads from owning the commodities that they transported. A long series of antitrust investigations and lawsuits resulted, culminating in a 1911 Supreme Court decision that forced the LVRR to divest itself of the coal companies it had held since 1868. The LVRR shareholders received shares of the now independent Lehigh Valley Coal Company, but the railroad no longer had management control of the production, contracts, and sales of its largest customer.
Fortunately, grain tonnage was increasing, and the company transported large quantities from Buffalo to Philadelphia and other Eastern markets. Also, in 1914 the Panama Canal was completed, and the LVRR gained an important new market with ores shipped from South America to the Bethlehem Steel company. In order to handle the additional new ocean traffic, the LVRR created a large new pier at Constable Hook, which opened in 1915, and a new terminal at Claremont which opened in 1923.
It also built a passenger terminal in Buffalo in 1915. Since 1896 the LVRR had run an important and prestigious express train named the "Black Diamond" which carried passengers to the Finger Lakes and Buffalo. Additional passenger trains ran from Philadelphia to Scranton and westward. From the beginning, the LVRR's New York City passengers had used the Pennsylvania Railroad's terminal and ferry at Jersey City, but in 1913 the PRR terminated that agreement, so the LVRR contracted with the CNJ for use of its terminal and ferry, which was expanded to handle the increased number of passengers. The railroad also published a monthly magazine promoting travel on the train called the "Black Diamond Express Monthly".
In the war years of 1914-1918, the Lehigh handled war materials and explosives at its Black Tom island facility, which had been obtained along with the National Docks Railroad in 1900. In 1916, a horrendous explosion occurred at the facility, destroying ships and buildings, and breaking windows in Manhattan. At first the incident was considered an accident; a long investigation eventually concluded that the explosion was an act of German sabotage, for which reparations were finally paid off in 1979.
After the U.S. entered World War I, the railroads were nationalized in order to prevent strikes and interruptions. The United States Railroad Administration controlled the railroad from 1918 to 1920, at which time control was transferred back to the private companies. A beneficial aspect was that the railroads obtained quantities of new equipment that had been purchased by the government.
Throughout the 1920s the railroad remained in the hands of the Morgan / Drexel banking firm, but in 1928 an attempt was made to wrest control from them. In 1927, Leonor Fresnel Loree, president of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad, had a vision for a new fifth trunk line between the East and West, consisting of the Wabash Railroad, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway, and the LVRR.[28] Through bonds issued by the D&H, he obtained 30% of the LVRR stock, and won the support of nearly half the stockholders. In 1928, he attempted to seat a new President and board. A massive proxy fight ensued, with existing President Edward Eugene Loomis narrowly retaining his position with the support of Edward T. Stotesbury of J. P. Morgan.[29]
Following the defeat of its plan, the D&H sold its stock to the Pennsylvania Railroad. In the following years, the Pennsylvania quietly obtained more stock, both directly and through railroads it controlled, primarily the Wabash. By 1931, the PRR controlled 51% of the LVRR stock. Following Loomis' death in 1937, the presidency went to Loomis' assistant Duncan J. Kerr,[30] but in 1940 he was replaced by Albert N. Williams,[31] and the road came under the influence of the PRR. In 1941, the Pennsylvania placed its shares in a voting trust after reaching an agreement with the New York Central regarding the PRR's purchase of the Wabash.[32]
Following the Great Depression, the railroad had a few periods of prosperity, but was clearly in a slow decline. Passengers preferred the convenience of automobiles to trains, and airlines provided faster long-distance travel than trains. Oil and gas were supplanting coal as the fuel of choice. The Depression had been difficult for all the railroads, and Congress recognized that bankruptcy laws needed revision. The Chandler Acts of 1938-9 provided a new form of relief for railroads, allowing them to restructure their debt while continuing to operate. The LVRR was approved for such a restructuring in 1940 when several large mortgage loans were due. The restructuring allowed the LVRR to extend the maturity of its mortgages, but needed to repeat the process in 1950.[33] The terms of the restructurings precluded dividend payments until 1953 when LVRR common stock paid the first dividend since 1931.[34] In 1957, the LVRR again stopped dividends.[35]
Two final blows fell in the 1950s: the passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act in 1956, better known as the Interstate Highway Act, and the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959. The interstate highways helped the trucking industry offer door-to-door service, and the St. Lawrence Seaway allowed grain shipments to bypass the railways and go directly to overseas markets. By the 1960s railroads in the East were struggling to survive. The Pennsylvania Railroad in 1962 requested ICC authorization to acquire complete control of the LVRR through a swap of PRR stock for LVRR and elimination of the voting trust that had been in place since 1941.[36] It managed to acquire more than 85% of all outstanding shares,and from that time the LVRR was little more than a division of the PRR. The Pennsylvania merged with the New York Central in 1968, but the Penn Central failed in 1970, causing a cascade of failures throughout the East.
On June 21, 1970, the Penn Central declared bankruptcy and sought bankruptcy protection. As a result, the PC was relieved of its obligation to pay fees to various Northeastern railroads—the Lehigh Valley included—for the use of their railcars and other operations. Conversely, the other railroads' obligations to pay those fees to the Penn Central were not waived. This imbalance in payments would prove fatal to the financially frail Lehigh Valley, and it declared bankruptcy just over one month after the Penn Central, on July 24, 1970[37] (this date has often been misquoted as June 24th due to an error in Robert Archer's definitive history of the Lehigh Valley, The Route of the Black Diamond).
The Lehigh Valley remained in operation during the 1970 bankruptcy, as was the common practice of the time. In 1972, the Lehigh Valley assumed the remaining Pennsylvania trackage of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, a competing anthracite railroad which had entered bankruptcy as well. The two roads had entered a shared trackage agreement in this area in 1965 to reduce costs as both had parallel routes from Wilkes-Barre virtually all the way to New York, often on adjoining grades through Pennsylvania.
On April 1, 1976, major portions of the assets of the bankrupt Lehigh Valley Railroad were acquired by Conrail. This primarily consisted of the main line and related branches from Van Etten Jct. (north/RR west of Sayre, Pennsylvania) to Oak Island, the Ithaca branch from Van Etten Jct. to Ithaca, New York, connecting to the Cayuga Lake line and on to the Milliken power station in Lake Ridge, New York, and small segments in Geneva, Batavia, Auburn and Cortland. Additionally, a segment from Geneva to Victor, later cut back to Shortsville to Victor, plus a small segment west from Van Etten Jct., remained with the Lehigh Valley Estate under subsidized Conrail operation. The Shortsville to Victor segment became the Ontario Central Railroad in 1979. Most of the rail equipment went to Conrail as well, but 24 locomotives (units GP38-2 314-325 and C420 404-415) went to the Delaware & Hudson instead. The remainder of the assets were disposed of by the estate until it was folded into the non-railroad Penn Central Corporation in the early 1980s.
The mainline across New Jersey and Oak Island Yard remain important to Norfolk Southern, CSX, and Conrail Shared Assets today. This section became important to Conrail as an alternate route to avoid Amtrak's former PRR/PC Northeast Corridor electrified route. Most of the other remaining Lehigh Valley track serves as branch lines, or has been sold to shortline and regional operators. These operators include, in alphabetical order:
The first locomotive purchased by the LVRR was the "Delaware", a wood-burning 4-4-0 built by Richard Norris & Sons of Philadelphia in 1855. It was followed by the "Catasauqua" 4-4-0 and "Lehigh" 4-6-0, which were also Norris & Sons engines. In 1856, the "E. A. Packer" 4-4-0 was purchased from William Mason of Taunton, Massachusetts. Subsequently the LVRR favored engines from Baldwin Locomotive Works and William Mason, but tried many other designs as it experimented with motive power that could handle the line's heavy grades.[3]
In 1866, Master Mechanic Alexander Mitchell designed the "Consolidation" 2-8-0 locomotive, built by Baldwin, which was to become a standard freight locomotive throughout the world. 2-8-0 pattern provided the traction needed for hauling heavy freight, but had a short enough wheelbase to manage curves.
1945: The first mainline diesels arrive, in the form of EMD FT locomotives.
1948: ALCO PA passenger diesels replace steam on all passenger runs.
1951: September 14 - Last day of steam on the LV as Mikado 432 drops her fire in Delano, Pennsylvania.
The LVRR operated several named trains in the post-World War II era. Among them:
The primary passenger motive power for the LVRR in the diesel era was the ALCO PA-1 car body diesel-electric locomotive, of which the LVRR had fourteen. These locomotives were also used in freight service during and after the era of LVRR passenger service. A pair of ALCO FA-2 FB-2 car body diesel-electric locomotives were also purchased to augment the PAs when necessary. These were FAs with steam generators, but they were not designated as FPA-2 units.
Due to declining passenger patronage, the Lehigh Valley successfully petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission to terminate all passenger service. This took effect on February 4, 1961. Budd Rail Diesel Car service would continue on a branch line for an additional four days. The majority of passenger equipment is believed to have been scrapped some time after February 1961. Most serviceable equipment not retained for company service was sold to other roads.
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