McMickle Cut (Lackawanna Cut-Off)

A NJ Transit construction vehicle loaded with concrete ties heads west through McMickle Cut towards the new CR 605 bridge on January 14, 2012. The stream to the left feeds wetlands within the cut.

McMickle Cut is the longest cut on the Lackawanna Cut-Off railroad line in northwest New Jersey. It was built between 1908 and 1911 by contractor Timothy Burke between mileposts 47.1 and 48.1 where Stanhope and Byram Township meet. Some 600,000 cubic yards of material was removed by dynamite and other methods to make the cut, which is 1.04 miles (1.7 km) long, has an average depth of 29 feet (8.9 m), and a maximum depth of 54 feet (16.6 m).

McMickle Cut, the first major cut west of Port Morris Junction on the Cut-Off, begins just west of County Road 602 (site of a future grade crossing) in Hopatcong. Sussex County Road 605 (Sparta-Stanhope Road) crosses over the Cut-Off about midway between the ends of the cut (MP 47.8), near its deepest point, where the line is on a 2° curve (70 mph, 113 km/hr).^[1] Formerly, CR 605 crossed the Cut-Off on a one-lane bridge that was completed in 1911. Although the original bridge (known as K-07) still exists—it carries an adjacent hiking trail—it was considered functionally obsolete (although not functionally deficient) and was replaced by a modern two-lane bridge of similar design that opened on September 30, 2008. The old bridge was also rehabilitated at the time of the building of the new bridge.^[2]

McMickle Cut is within the section of the Cut-Off that is being rebuilt by NJ Transit for rail service to Andover, which is slated to open in 2016. Lack of maintenance has allowed the area to drain increasingly poorly and meet the technical definition of wetlands. It is thought that its creation unearthed an underground stream not on the 1906 survey map.^[3]

The original County Road 605 bridge looking westbound in April 1989. The bridge crosses roughly in the middle of McMickle Cut. Note that there are the remains of two tracks through the area. Although the Cut-Off was single-tracked in 1958, the second track was not removed here; instead it became a passing siding that ran from the western end of McMickle Cut to Port Morris Junction, nearly 3 miles (5 km).

McMickle Cut is named for John McMickle, who owned most of the land that became the Cut.

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