D&H's name originates from the 1823 New York state corporation charter listing "The President, Managers and Company of the Delaware & Hudson Canal Co." authorizing an establishment of "water communication" between the Delaware River and the Hudson River.
Nicknamed "The Bridge Line to New England and Canada," D&H connected New York with Montreal and New England. D&H has also been known as "North America's oldest continually operated transportation company."
By the 1790s, industrializing eastern population centers were having increasing troubles getting charcoal to fuel their growing kilns, smithies, and foundries. As local timber was denuded, efforts to find an alternative energy source began. During a fuel shortage in Philadelphia during the War of 1812, an employee at the direction of industrialist Josiah White conducted a series of experiments and discovered a number of ways that anthracite coal could be successfully ignited and burned.[2] The fuel had been seen more as a way to put out a fire than a fuel to build one up, so its use also had to overcome prejudice.[3]
By 1824, the mills of White and Hazard, and the regular large boatloads of anthracite they proved they could supply, tipped the prejudice against anthracite in Philadelphia[4] when the Lehigh River was damaged by flooding. The news of its rapid repair and restoration together with the fact anthracite stocks had for a time run down, but not out, establishing the reliable sourcing[a] finished off the bias,[4] as did the beginning of mine output reaching the Delaware basin markets due to the long delayed completion of the Schuylkill Canal.[b]
Wurts was a large thinker, and inspired his brothers to back forming a company to deliver the new fuel, anthracite, to New York City by building an ambitious canal to connect the Hudson River and the Delaware River, and both to the Coaldale coal deposits by chartering a Pennsylvania subsidiary corporation, the Delaware and Hudson Gravity Railroad, to bring coal to the Delaware and the new canal. This cable railroad would grow in importance and become the far-flung class I railroad, the Delaware and Hudson Railway.
An 1886 map of the Delaware and Hudson Company's railheads and connections
In the early 1820s, Philadelphia merchant William Wurts, who enjoyed walking about along Amerindian paths, and what today what is termed taking nature hikes, had heard of possible anthracite in the area,[5] so took a trip to explore the sparsely settled regions of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Finding coal outcrops, he immediately realized the value of the extensive anthracite deposits.
Returning to Philadelphia, he successfully interested his brothers in backing the idea of building a canal to make easier transporting coal to New York City.[6] The city was still feeling the effects of the depletion of stands of woodlands providing heating and cooking firewood and also squeezed by continuing post-War of 1812 import restrictions on British bituminous coal, on which it had once been relying. The canal he proposed (the first sections of the Erie Canal, opened in 1821, creating news coverage) would also tie the developing industries along the Delaware to the Hudson, which helped raise financing.
At the time, nearly all the eastern cities were experiencing energy cost increases and difficulty in getting large quantities of fuel, as most nearby timber stands had been used up, often for charcoal production enabling foundries to start up, which now needed fuel to stay in business. This general condition around most long established cities and towns in the United States is one reason so much venture capital was raised for coal and coal transportation projects after 1823 and into the early 1840s, once Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company had blazed a way forward steadily increasing annual shipping to over a remarkable 28,000 long tons (28,000t)[c] by 1825.[4][d][7]
The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company originates from the 1823 New York corporation charter listing the unusual name of "The President, Managers and Company of the Delaware & Hudson Canal Co." authorizing an establishment of "water communication" between the Delaware River and the Hudson River.[8] The D&H was chartered by separate laws in the states of New York and Pennsylvania in 1823 and 1826, respectively, allowing William Wurts and his brother Maurice to construct the Delaware and Hudson Canal and the gravity railroad that served it. In January 1825, following a demonstration of anthracite heating in a Wall Street coffeehouse, the D&H's public stock offering raised a million dollars. At the time, the Lehigh Canal had established a reliable flow of increasing annual tonnages,[d][7] and the industrial and heating uses of 'rock coal' were well established.
Ground was broken on July 13, 1825, and the canal was opened to navigation in October 1828. It began at Rondout Creek at the location known as Creeklocks, between Kingston, where the creek fed into the Hudson River, and Rosendale. From there, it proceeded southwest alongside Rondout Creek to Ellenville, continuing through the valley of Sandburg Creek, Homowack Kill, Basha Kill, and Neversink River to Port Jervis on the Delaware River. From there, the canal ran northwest on the New York side of the Delaware River, crossing into Pennsylvania on Roebling's Delaware Aqueduct at Lackawaxen and running on the north bank of the Lackawaxen River to Honesdale.[9]
To get the anthracite from the Wurts' mine in the Moosic Mountains near Carbondale to the canal at Honesdale, the canal company built the Delaware and Hudson Gravity Railroad. The state of Pennsylvania authorized its construction on April 8, 1826. On August 8, 1829, the D&H's first locomotive, the Stourbridge Lion, made history as the first locomotive to run on rails in the United States. Westward extensions of the railroad opened access to new mines at Archbald in 1843, Valley Junction in 1858, Providence in 1860, and Scranton in 1863. Passenger service began west of Carbondale in 1860.
The canal was a successful enterprise for many of its early years, but the company's management realized that railroads were the future of transportation, and began investing in stock and trackage. In 1898, the canal carried its last loads of coal and was drained and sold. The next year, the company dropped the "Canal" from its name. The remaining fragments of the canal were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1968.
Delaware and Hudson Company
As railroads grew in popularity, the canal company recognized the importance of replacing the canal with a railroad. The first step of this was the Jefferson Railroad, a line from Carbondale north towards New York, chartered in 1864, built by the Erie Railroad in 1869 and opened in 1872. This was a branch of the Erie, running south from the main line at Lanesboro to Carbondale. Also built as part of this line was a continuation from the other side of the D&H's gravity railroad at Honesdale southeast to the Erie's Pennsylvania Coal Company railroad at Hawley. The Jefferson Railroad (and through it the Erie) obtained trackage rights over the D&H between its two sections, and the D&H obtained trackage rights to Lanesboro.[10]
The other part of the main line was the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad, which the D&H leased on February 24, 1870. The Delaware and Hudson already had a history of working with the Albany and Susquehanna, agreeing in 1866 to jointly build an extension to Nineveh and subsequently ship coal across the entire line. The two companies then entered into an arrangement whereby the Delaware and Hudson perpetually leased the Albany and Susquehanna for $490,000 per year.[11] The connecting Lackawanna and Susquehanna Railroad, chartered in 1867 and opened in 1872, was also absorbed. The Albany and Susquehanna provided a line from Albany southwest to Binghamton, while the Lackawanna and Susquehanna split from that line at Nineveh, running south to the Jefferson Railroad at Lanesboro. Also leased in 1870 was the Schenectady and Susquehanna Railroad, connecting the Albany and Susquehanna at Duanesburg to Schenectady, opened in 1872[10] (reorganized as the Schenectady and Duanesburg Railroad in 1873).
Upon gaining control of the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad Company in 1871, new repair shops were built north of Albany, New York at Green Island. The following year, shops and a locomotive terminal were added midway between Albany and Binghamton at Oneonta. For 40 years the Green Island Shops and Oneonta Shops were the primary back shops for the system. [12]
Some company directors questioned the wisdom of acquiring extensive rail systems in northern New York. A direct line to Albany existed for many years through the canal and river system, so most of the coal markets in the area were already accessible. These concerns were overruled by the majority, who believed great benefit would accrue to having an all-rail route to Upstate New York that was not nearly as vulnerable to winter weather as the canal. Avoiding situations in which the company would have to rely on other railroads to reach its markets also would be desirable. The effort was helped by a report that estimated necessary upgrades to the canal would cost $300,000, an expenditure that would not be needed if rail routes could be purchased or leased.[11]
A D&H newspaper advertisement for travel along the line, c.1914A gold bond of the Delaware and Hudson Company, issued October 1, 1915
The canal was last used on November 5, 1891, and the gravity railroad closed January 3, 1899. On April 28, 1899, the name was changed to the Delaware and Hudson Company to reflect the lack of a canal, which was sold in June of that year. Between Port Jackson and Ellenville, the right-of-way for the canal was used by the Ellenville and Kingston Railroad, a branch of the New York, Ontario and Western Railway, chartered in 1901 and opened in 1902.
Also in 1912, a new shop site was constructed to handle larger locomotives on the north side of Albany at Watervliet. Known as the Colonie Shops, they were constructed on 1,100 acres of land for $2.5 million and eventually employed 2,500. Thereafter the obsolete repair facilities at Green Island were downgraded. [13]
On April 1, 1930, the property of the Delaware and Hudson Company was transferred to the Delaware and Hudson Railroad Corporation, incorporated December 1, 1928. In 1938, the D&H started to act as a bridge line, carrying large amounts of freight between other connecting lines.
After the Second World War the D&H, like all railroads in the United States, gradually curtailed passenger service. By 1957, the D&H had ended service between Albany and Lake George (via Fort Edward) and between Albany and North Creek (via Saratoga Springs) in the southeast part of Adirondack Park.[14] The D&H had also ended service on its branch between Plattsburgh and Lyon Mountain during this period.[15][16] By 1960, service consisted of the following trains: the daytime Laurentian and overnight Montreal Limited between New York City and Montreal, unnamed local trains between Albany and Rouses Point and Albany and Binghamton, and a commuter train between Albany and Saratoga Springs.[17] The D&H discontinued the Rouses Point locals in July 1960, the Albany–Saratoga commuter train in late 1962, and the Binghamton train on January 24, 1963.[18][19] The Laurentian and Montreal Limited remained in operation through the 1960s until April 30, 1971, when Amtrak thereafter assumed most long-distance passenger-train service.[20] After more than three years of lapsed service, Amtrak introduced the daytime Adirondack over the D&H line on August 6, 1974.[21]
Delaware and Hudson Railway (1968–1988)
The Laurentian passing Train 9, The Montreal Limited, near Delson, Quebec, in September 1968Delaware and Hudson's Montreal Limited at Windsor Station in Montreal, in August 1970
In 1964, Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) filed an application to purchase the Nickel Plate Road and the Wabash Railroad. The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) approved their purchase, under the condition that they take over the D&H and the Erie Lackawanna Railway (EL). The N&W subsequently placed the EL and D&H under their new holding company, Dereco, and the D&H company was reorganized as the Delaware and Hudson Railway. Following the bankruptcy of numerous northeastern U.S. railroads in the 1970s, including EL, N&W lost control of Dereco stock. After several merger plans fell through, EL petitioned for and became included in the formation of the federal government's nascent Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail). The D&H was left out of Conrail to maintain a semblance of competition in the northeast. While the D&H was still owned by N&W, they were given financial support and told to "sink or swim" as an independent railroad again.
In 1980, Conrail sold their former DL&W main line from Binghamton to Scranton to the D&H; being a more level and direct route to Scranton, this acquisition allowed the D&H to abandon its famed Penn Division between Carbondale and their former Erie/EL connection at Jefferson Junction. The success of this action has often been discredited, since the D&H was too small to compete with the services provided by Conrail, and the railroad doubled in size by gaining trackage rights over Conrail to Newark, Philadelphia, Buffalo, and Washington, D.C.. The remainder of the Penn Division from Lanesboro, Pennsylvania, to Nineveh, New York, was abandoned after the Belden Hill tunnel was enlarged in 1986.
In 1984, Guilford Transportation Industries purchased the D&H as part of a plan to operate a larger regional railroad from Maine and New Brunswick in the east, to New York City and the Midwest in the west, Montreal in the north, and the Philadelphia and Washington metropolitan areas to the south. Guilford paid for the D&H for $500,000, a price that reflected the D&H's poor financial problems and the poor condition of its physical plant. At the time of the purchase, the D&H had little remaining freight traffic, relying on federal and state money to continue operations. Guilford's plans for expanded operations did not come to fruition. On June 20, 1988, following two intense labor strikes, Guilford filed the D&H for bankruptcy, and they disbanded all of the D&H's operations and assets.[22] Guilford stated that the D&H's assets were worth $70 million at the time of the bankruptcy. Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, officials purchased the Carbondale-Scranton route, and it later began to serve a growing number of industries in the valley under the auspices of the designated operator, Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad.
The ICC opted to arrange for the D&H to be absorbed into Conrail. Walter G. Rich, the president and CEO of the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway (NYS&W), quickly lobbied against the arrangement, since the D&H had a contract in place to jointly operate intermodal trains with the NYS&W and CSX Transportation.[22] The federal bankruptcy court agreed to appoint the NYS&W to assume control of the D&H, until another buyer could be found.[22] CSX provided financial support for the NYS&W's takeover, and they underwrote all financial losses from the D&H.[22]
Canadian Pacific era (1991–present)
DH 7303, an EMD GP38-2, while under Canadian Pacific's ownership in WinnipegCP 7306, a repainted D&H locomotive, in Winnipeg in January 2019
In 1991, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) purchased the D&H for $25 million to provide a connection between Montreal and the New York City area, for their transcontinental system. The CPR assumed all operations of the D&H system and eventually phased out the use of the D&H name and logos on locomotives or rolling stock. Under CPR, the D&H trackage was upgraded, and excess trackage was ripped up. The D&H briefly became profitable under CPR ownership, but by 1996, they experienced financial losses again. CPR quickly placed the D&H and other unprofitable trackage in the eastern U.S. and Canada into a separate subsidiary called the St. Lawrence and Hudson Railway. In 2000, the St.L&H was absorbed into CPR.
The D&H operates in some of the most rural areas of New York, and very few industrial customers between Binghamton and Rouses Point remain. However, the railroad's current prognosis is arguably better than it has been in a long time. Along with the New York City connection, haulage agreements with other railroads are greatly increasing traffic. CPR has been steadily using its high-power alternating current traction locomotives on its road trains on the D&H line, instead of its aging SD40-2 models. This is an indication of the increasing importance of reliable service. Also, major signal and track projects are underway to modernize the former D&H lines.
As of 2012, various trackage and haulage rights were assigned to Norfolk Southern Railway (NS) over the D&H between Sunbury and Mechanicville, New York, as was a connection to Canadian National via Rouses Point, New York. NS incorporated the former bridge-line route into its "Patriot Corridor", and the majority of the traffic on the D&H became that of the NS.
In 2017, CPR finished installing an updated signaling system on the line. In 2018, CPR started doing extensive work on the line, possibly in preparation for increased traffic.
Partial Lines Purchase by Norfolk Southern
In October 2014, Canadian Pacific's Delaware & Hudson put a portion of its lines south of CP's Mohawk Yard in Glenville, New York, to Sunbury, Pennsylvania, and the former Albany Main from Delanson, New York, to Voorheesville, New York, up for sale. Voorheesville Track is operated under contract by SMS Rail Services. Under the purchase agreement, CP/D&H would retain the Freight Mainline Sub from Mechanicville, New York, to South Schenectady, NY (Mohawk Yard), the Canadian Mainline from Rouses Point, New York, to connection with the Freight Main, and the Colonie Mainline from Mechanicville, NY to Albany, NY to retain lucrative Bakken crude oil traffic. The majority of the current traffic on the offered routes already consisted of NS Intermodal Containers and Auto Rack trains bound for Ayer, Massachusetts, via Pan Am Southern.[23] On November 17, 2014, NS acquired the Schenectady, New York, to Sunbury, Pennsylvania, and Delanson to Voorheesville, New York, segments for $217 million.[24] On September 19, 2015, NS assumed ownership and operations of its newly-purchased portion of the old D&H mainline.[25]
The Delaware and Hudson companies' transportation services enabled Carbondale, Pennsylvania to become one of the first American mining centers that supplied the fuel that gave rise to the American Industrial Revolution.
The Delaware and Hudson was one of the longest-operating class I railroads in American history. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, D&H President L.F. Loree ordered many of the railway's larger locomotives to be taken off the main line and serviced with the sole reasoning being to keep men working so they did not lose their jobs. Most of these engines were in excellent condition and did not need repairs.[26] Also in 1939, the railroad experimented with welded rail before many other railroads.[citation needed]
The city of Delson in Quebec was named in honor of the D&H, which runs through the town. The origin of the name Delson comes from a contraction of "DELaware and HudSON".
The Village of Delanson, New York, through which the D&H's Susquehanna Division ran, was also named in honor of the D&H. The name was coined by D&H Superintendent C.D. Hammond in 1893 from the railroad's name DELaware ANd hudSON. The village served as a junction point for the railroad and was the location of a large coal pocket (storage yard).[30]
The Delaware and Hudson locomotive roster was particularly unique in having models from Alco, GE, EMD, and Baldwin. The Delaware and Hudson also served Alco's main plant at Schenectady, NY making it a popular road to spot Alco locomotives in operation.
Delaware Canal - A sister canal from the mouth of the Lehigh River and canal terminus, feeding urban Philadelphia connecting with the Morris and Lehigh Canals at their respective Easton terminals.
Delaware and Raritan Canal – A New Jersey canal connection to the New York & New Jersey markets shipping primarily coal across the Delaware River. The D&R also shipped Iron Ore from New Jersey up the Lehigh.
Lehigh Canal – the coal canal along the Lehigh Valley that fed the United States early Industrial revolution energy needs directly and via the Delaware Canal businesses all along the forty miles to Philadelphia from Easton, Pennsylvania.[e]
Pennsylvania Canal System - ambitious collection of far flung canals, and eventually railroads authorized early in 1826.
↑ This was also a project backed by White and Hazard, with White sitting on its board.[2]
↑ The 1825 total may reflect parts of 1824 mine production stockpiled while the Lehigh Canal's severe flooding and ice damages were being repaired. But, the 2,300,000 long tons (2,300,000t) figure conveyed in 1855 makes the matter of little moment.
1 2 Note until the completion of the Delaware Canal, the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company was forced to ship boats one way, and sell off the lumber in Philadelphia, so it had to constantly build new 'arks', which were hinged together to lengths of 110 feet (34m), the Lehigh Canal locks built to 120 feet (37m) minimum. There was no feasible way for a two-man barge crew to return such boat-trains against the current of the Delaware River over 60 miles back to the canal at Easton.[4]
↑ If the Lehigh Canal hadn't been built, the Delaware Canal would have had nothing worth the expense to ship, so the investment would never have happened. The principle customer of the Delaware was the coal barges coming down the Lehigh shipped by Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, which also came to manage the Delaware Canal into the 1960s.
↑ The Schuylkill Canal was long delayed by investors quarreling over the best way to proceed. Disgusted, White and Hazard explored tapping Anthracite via the Lehigh, and ended up incorporating the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company which spearheaded many technological initiatives.
1 2 Bartholomew, Ann M.; Metz, Lance E.; Kneis, Michael (1989). DELAWARE and LEHIGH CANALS, 158 pages (Firsted.). Oak Printing Company, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: Center for Canal History and Technology, Hugh Moore Historical Park and Museum, Inc., Easton, Pennsylvania. pp.4–5. ISBN0930973097. LCCN89-25150.
↑ "In the year 1806, William Turnbull had an ark constructed at the mouth of the Nesquehoning Creek which took to Philadelphia about three hundred bushels of coal. A portion of this cargo was sold to the managers of the water works, located in Center Square, where the city hall now stands. [i.e. 1884] Upon trial there, it was deemed rather an extinguisher of fire than anything else, was rejected as worthless, and was broken up to be spread on the walks of the fake surrounding garden in place of gravel." (Brenckman, pp. 76-79)
1 2 3 4 Brenckman (1884), History of Carbon County, general discussions point.
↑ Fred Brenckman, Official Commonwealth Historian (1884). HISTORY OF CARBON COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA (2nd (1913)ed.). Archived from the original on 3 June 2016. Retrieved 12 June 2016. The Connecticut pioneers of the Wyoming Valley were the first to learn of the existence of coal in that portion of the region, while its presence was early suspected on the headwaters of the Schuylkill.
1 2 Fred Brenckman (1884). HISTORY OF CARBON COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA. J. Nungesser, Harrisburg, PA (1913 Edition, Ancestry.com selective excerpt e-reprint). pp.595–597. Archived from the original on 3 June 2016. Retrieved 12 June 2016. Early Lehigh Canal shipping tonnages summarized from text: •1820 -- 365 short tons (331t), 1821 -- 1,073 short tons (973t), 1822 -- 2,240 short tons (2,030t),... • 1825 -- 28,393 short tons (25,758t), & 1831 -- 40,966 short tons (37,164t); and further, Brenckman discusses that long before 1831 LC&N managers were both having and projecting further inability to timber fast enough to build enough one way coal 'Arks' to keep up with the increases in demand. ... In the last year forty thousand nine hundred and sixty-six tons of coal were sent down, which required the building of so many boats that had they all been put together, end to end, they would have extended more than 13 miles (21km).
1 2 3 4 Stephens, Bill (January 1998). "The Susie-Q Saga". Trains. Vol.58, no.1. Kalmbach Publishing. p.46. Archived from the original on October 2, 2024. Retrieved September 25, 2024.
↑ "Warren County Bikeway". Warren County DPW. Warren County, NY. Retrieved 1 October 2016. The origin of the bikeway is a branch of the Delaware & Hudson Railroad line.
The New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway, also referred to as the Susie-Q or the Susquehanna, and formerly referred to as the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad, is an American Class II freight railway that operates over 400 miles (640 km) of trackage in the states of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad in the Northeastern United States built predominantly to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Northeastern Pennsylvania to major consumer markets in Philadelphia, New York City, and elsewhere.
The Coal Region is a region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is known for being home to the largest known deposits of anthracite coal in the world with an estimated reserve of seven billion short tons.
The Lehigh and Hudson River Railway (L&HR) was the smallest of the six railroads that were merged into Conrail in 1976. It was a bridge line running northeast–southwest across northwestern New Jersey, connecting the line to the Poughkeepsie Bridge at Maybrook, New York, with Easton, Pennsylvania, where it interchanged with various other companies.
The Main Line of Public Works was a package of legislation passed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1826 to establish a means of transporting freight between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It funded the construction of various long-proposed canal and road projects, mostly in southern Pennsylvania, that became a canal system and later added railroads. Built between 1826 and 1834, it established the Pennsylvania Canal System and the Allegheny Portage Railroad.
The Delaware and Hudson Canal was the first venture of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, which would later build the Delaware and Hudson Railway. Between 1828 and 1899, the canal's barges carried anthracite coal from the mines of northeastern Pennsylvania to the Hudson River and thence to market in New York City.
The Lehigh and New England Railroad was a Class I railroad located in Northeastern United States that acted as a bridge line. It was the second notable U.S. railroad to file for abandonment in its entirety after the New York, Ontario and Western Railway. It was headquartered in Philadelphia.
The Schuylkill Canal, or Schuylkill Navigation, was a system of interconnected canals and slack-water pools along the Schuylkill River in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, built as a commercial waterway in the early 19th-century. Chartered in 1815, the navigation opened in 1825, to provide transportation and water power.
The Belvidere-Delaware Railroad was a railroad running along the eastern shore of the Delaware River from Trenton, New Jersey north via Phillipsburg, New Jersey to Manunka Chunk, New Jersey. It became an important feeder line for the Lehigh Valley Railroad's join to the Central Railroad of New Jersey, which was constructed into Phillipsburg, New Jersey, at about the same time. This connected Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey at one end of the shortline railroad to the rapidly growing lower Wyoming Valley region, and via the Morris Canal or the CNJ, a slow or fast connection to New York City ferries crossing New York Harbor from Jersey City, New Jersey.
A predecessor to the Class I Delaware and Hudson Railway, the 1820s-built Delaware and Hudson Canal Company Gravity Railroad('D&H Gravity Railroad') was a historic gravity railroad incorporated and chartered in 1826 with land grant rights in the US state of Pennsylvania as a humble subsidiary of the Delaware and Hudson Canal and it proved to contain the first trackage of the later organized Delaware and Hudson Railroad. It began as the second long U.S. gravity railroad built initially to haul coal to canal boats, was the second railway chartered in the United States after the Mohawk and Hudson Rail Road before even, the Baltimore and Ohio. As a long gravity railway, only the Summit Hill and Mauch Chunk Railroad pre-dated its beginning of operations.
Black Creek is a 7.6-mile-long (12.2 km) brook tributary of the Lehigh River in Carbon County, Pennsylvania, in the United States,. Its waters start at the very south edge of Weatherly, Pennsylvania at the confluence of Beaver and Hazle Creeks, then runs nearly due east to its mouth on the Lehigh River in Maple Hollow at the former railroad depot of Penn Haven Junction just east of Hinkles Valley. The confluence was a waypoint along the 19th-century Lehigh & Susquehanna Turnpike Black Creek has two major tributaries joining within Weatherly, the 7 miles (11 km) long Beaver Creek The tributary Quakake Creek, is the more dispersed and disorganized source waters, originating in over half-a-dozen small streams; it is also listed by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) as a variant name for Black Creek.
The Lehigh Canal is a navigable canal that begins at the mouth of Nesquehoning Creek on the Lehigh River in the Lehigh Valley and Northeastern regions of Pennsylvania. It was built in two sections over a span of 20 years beginning in 1818. The lower section spanned the distance between Easton and present-day Jim Thorpe. In Easton, the canal met the Pennsylvania Canal's Delaware Division and Morris Canals, which allowed anthracite coal and other goods to be transported further up the U.S. East Coast. At its height, the Lehigh Canal was 72 miles (116 km) long.
The Sunbury Line, formerly known as Sunbury Subdivision, is a rail line owned and operated by Norfolk Southern Railway which in turn is owned by the Norfolk Southern Corporation. The line travels from Sunbury, Pennsylvania, to Binghamton, New York, connecting with Norfolk Southern's Southern Tier Line at Binghamton and Norfolk Southern's Buffalo Line at Sunbury.
The Pennsylvania Canal, sometimes known as the Pennsylvania Canal system, was a complex system of transportation infrastructure improvements, including canals, dams, locks, tow paths, aqueducts, and viaducts. The canal was constructed and assembled over several decades beginning in 1824, the year of the first enabling act and budget items.
The Susquehanna Canal of the Pennsylvania Canal System was funded and authorized as part of the 1826 Main Line of Public Works enabling act, and would later become the Susquehanna Division of the Pennsylvania Canal under the Pennsylvania Canal Commission. Constructed early on in America's brief canal age, it formed an integral segment of the water focused transportation system which cut Philadelphia-Pittsburgh (pre-railroad) travel time from nearly a month to just four days.
Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company was a mining and transportation company headquartered in Mauch Chunk, now known as Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. The company operated from 1818 until its dissolution in 1964 and played an early and influential role in the American Industrial Revolution.
Mountain Top yard or Penobscot yard is a rail yard in Mountain Top, Pennsylvania. It was built by the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N) in response to an 1837 bill authorizing a right of way and was established by 1840, at least as a construction camp for the Ashley Planes, in support of the construction of the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad trackage and operations to join the northern Anthracite Coal Region from barge loading docks along the Susquehanna in Pittston, in the Wyoming Valley, with the Lehigh Canal.
There are two types of coal found in Pennsylvania: anthracite, the hard coal found in Northeastern Pennsylvania below the Allegheny Ridge southwest to Harrisburg, and bituminous, the soft coal found west of the Allegheny Front escarpment). Anthracite coal is a natural mineral with a high carbon and energy content that gives off light and heat produced energy when burned, making it useful as a fuel. It was possibly first used in Pennsylvania as a fuel in 1769, but its history begins with a documented discovery near Summit Hill and the founding of the Lehigh Coal Mine Company in 1792 to periodically send expeditions to the wilderness atop Pisgah Ridge to mine the deposits, mostly with notable lack of great success, over the next 22 years.
The Lehigh Line is a railroad line in Central New Jersey, Northeastern Pennsylvania, and the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. It is owned and operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway. The line runs west from the vicinity of the Port of New York and New Jersey in Manville, New Jersey via Conrail's Lehigh Line to the southern end of Wyoming Valley's Coal Region in Lehigh Township, Pennsylvania.
The Canal Age is a term of art used by science, technology, and industry historians. Various parts of the world have had various canal ages; the main ones belong to Egypt, Ancient Babylon, and the historical empires of India, China, Southeast Asia, and mercantile Europe. The successes of the Canal du Midi in France (1681), Bridgewater Canal in Britain, and Eiderkanal in Denmark (1784) spurred on what was called in Britain "canal mania". In the Thirteen Colonies in 1762 legislation was passed supporting in the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania to improve navigation on the Schuylkill River through Philadelphia.
Railroads in italics meet the revenue specifications for Class I status, but are not technically Class I railroads due to being passenger-only railroads with no freight component.
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