Lackawanna Cut-Off

The Lackawanna Cut-Off (also known as the New Jersey Cut-Off or Hopatcong-Slateford Cut-Off) was a rail line built by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad (DL&W). Constructed from 1908 to 1911, the line was part of a main line between Hoboken, New Jersey, and Buffalo, New York. It ran west for from Port Morris Junction in Port Morris, New Jerseynear the south end of Lake Hopatcong, about west-northwest of New York Cityto Slateford Junction in Slateford, Pennsylvania, near the Delaware Water Gap.
When it opened on December 24, 1911, the Cut-Off was considered a "super-railroad"a state-of-the-art rail linehaving been built using large cuts and fills and two large concrete viaducts, allowing what was considered high-speed travel at that time. It was shorter than the Lackawanna Old Road, the rail line it superseded; it had a much gentler ruling gradient (0.55% vs. 1.1%); and it had 42 fewer curves, with all but one permitting passenger train speeds of or more. It also had no railroad crossings at the time of its construction. All but one of the line's 73 structures were built of reinforced concrete, a pioneering use of the material. The construction of the roadbed required the movement of millions of tons of fill material using techniques similar to those used on the Panama Canal.
Operated through a subsidiary, Lackawanna Railroad of New Jersey, the Cut-Off remained in continual operation for 68 years, through the Lackawanna's 1960 merger with the Erie Railroad to form the Erie Lackawanna Railroad, and the EL's conveyance into Conrail in 1976. Conrail ceased operation of the Cut-Off in January 1979 and filed for abandonment of the line in 1983, citing its excess east-west routes. It removed the track in 1984, then sold the right-of-way to private developers. A project to restore service on the east end of the Cut-Off to Andover, New Jersey, is projected to be complete in 2025.
History.
Before the Cut-Off (1851–1905).
The line's origin involves two men who most likely never met: John I. Blair and William Truesdale. Blair built the DL&W's Warren Railroad, chartered in 1851 and completed in 1862, to provide a connection between the mainlines of the DL&W in Pennsylvania and the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) in New Jersey. But when the Lackawanna-CNJ merger fell through and the Lackawanna merged with the Morris & Essex Railroad in New Jersey instead, the Warren Railroad became part of a circuitous patchwork of rail lines connecting two unanticipated merger partners.
The route (later known as the "Old Road" after the New Jersey Cut-Off opened) had numerous curves that restricted trains to . The bigger operational problem, however, was caused by the two tunnels on the line: Manunka Chunk Tunnel, a twin-bore tunnel whose eastern approach occasionally flooded with heavy rains; and the single-bore Oxford Tunnel, which was double-tracked in 1869 and reduced to gauntlet track in 1901. As more and more traffic moved over the line, Oxford Tunnel became the Lackawanna Railroad's worst bottleneck.
Truesdale became DL&W president on March 2, 1899 with a mandate to upgrade the entire railroad. Early on, the railroad focused on increasing freight capacity by using larger locomotives and cars, as well as strengthening bridges to handle these larger loads. Although Truesdale recognized early on that the Old Road needed to be replaced, it really wasn't until after 1905 that the railroad was in a position to take up the project in earnest. This led Truesdale to authorize teams of surveyors to map out potential replacement routes westward from Port Morris, New Jersey, to the Delaware River for what would be the railroad's largest project up until that time.
Planning and construction (1905–1911).
During 1905–06, 14 routes were surveyed (labeled with letters of the alphabet), including several that would have required long tunnels. On September 1, 1906, a route without tunnels was chosen. This New Road (Route "M") would run from the crest of the watershed at Lake Hopatcong at Port Morris Junction to south of the Delaware Water Gap on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River at Slateford Junction.
At , the line would be about shorter than the Old Road. The new route would have only 15 curves42 fewer curves than the Old Road, the equivalent of more than four complete circles of curvaturewhich increased speeds and decreased running timemoreso for freight, but for passenger trains as well. The ruling grade was cut in half from 1.1% to 0.55%. The new line would also be built without railroad crossings to avoid collisions with automobiles and horse-drawn vehicles.
Uncertain national economic conditions in 1907 delayed the official start of construction until August 1, 1908. The project was divided into seven sections, one for each contracting company. Sections 3–6 were each; Sections 1–2 and 7 were of varying lengths. (Theoretically, to divide the line evenly, the seven sections should have been just over four miles each, but that would have placed the Pequest Fill entirely within Section 3 and the two viaducts within Section 7.) The amount of work per mile varied; the largest share apparently went to David W. Flickwir, whose Section 3 included Roseville Tunnel and the eastern half of the Pequest Fill. DL&W chief engineer George G. Ray oversaw the project, although given the size and remote location of the project, Assistant Chief Engineer F.L. Wheaton was assigned the task of overseeing the construction in person.
To accommodate the labor gangs, deserted farmhouses were converted to barracks, with tent camps providing additional shelter. These workers, many of whom came from Italy and other foreign countries or other parts of the U.S., were recruited and would move on to other projects after their work on the Cut-Off was completed. These workers were viewed with suspicion by the local populace in Warren and Sussex counties, with the town of Blairstown going as far as hiring a watchman at $40 per month for the duration of the project. Supervisory personnel and skilled laborers stayed in local hotels, boarding houses, or local farmhouses, usually at exorbitant rates ($1–2 per day) during the years of construction.
With several thousand men working on the project for over three years, the area all along the Cut-Off, and as far west as Portland, Pennsylvania, benefitted financially.
As many as 30 workers may have lost their lives building the Cut-Off. Most of their names remain unknown because they were registered with their contractor by number only. In 1910, for example, five workers were killed in a single blasting mishap near Port Morris, one of several deadly accidents that involved dynamite. Other workers died in machinery or cable car accidents, or landslides. At least one worker is known to have died of typhoid fever.
Sections.
 The Cut-Off's reinforced concrete structures (73 in all), which consumed of concrete and 735 tons of steel, include underpasses, culverts, and the two large viaducts on the western end of the line.
Some of dynamite were used to blast the cuts on the line. A total of of fill material was required for the project, more than could be obtained from the project's cuts. This forced the DL&W to purchase of farmland for borrow pits. Depending on the fill size, material was dumped from trains that backed out onto track on wooden trestles or suspended on cables between steel towers. During construction, several foreign governments sent representatives on inspection tours to study these new techniques.
The Pequest Fill extended west of Andover to Huntsville, New Jersey. It was at its maximum height tall and was long, requiring of fill. Armstrong Cut was deep and long, mostly through solid rock. The line's deepest cut was Colby Cut (immediately west of what would become Roseville Tunnel) at deep. The tunnel was not in the original plans for the Cut-Off, and in fact much of the cut above the tunnel had already been blasted when in October 1909 unstable anticline rock was encountered, leading to a decision to abandon the cut and to blast what would become a tunnel instead. Contractor David W. Flickwir, whose section included Roseville Tunnel and the eastern half of the Pequest Fill, worked around the clock during the summer of 1911 when construction fell behind schedule.
Stations were built in Greendell, Johnsonburg and Blairstown; the Greendell area was already being served by the nearby Lehigh & Hudson River Railroad in Tranquility. Interlocking towers were built at Port Morris Junction and Greendell, New Jersey, and Slateford Junction in Pennsylvania.
The final cost of the project was $11,065,512 in 1911 US dollars, equal to $ today. Although exact modern comparisons of cost are difficult, it is estimated that the same project today might cost upwards of $1 billion US dollars.
Heyday (1911–1958).
The first revenue train to operate on the Cut-Off under the new timetable that went into effect at 12:01 a.m. on December 24, 1911, was No. 15, a westbound passenger train that passed through Port Morris Junction at about 3:36 a.m. Most long-distance trains that traversed the Old Road shifted to the Cut-Off, effectively downgrading the older line to secondary status.
The Cut-Off was built to permit unrestricted speeds for passenger trains of (heavier rail that was installed later allowed speeds to increase to ). Sidings were built at Slateford, Hainesburg, Johnsonburg, Greendell, Roseville, and Port Morris; about 25% of the route contained additional sidings. With upwards of 50 trains a day, towermen often ordered freight trains to take a siding or even be rerouted over the Old Road. As traffic decreased, Hainesburg, Johnsonburg and Roseville sidings were altered or removed. The remaining sidings remained in use until 1979.
Roseville Tunnel posed occasional problems, especially during the winter with snow and ice buildup. Rockslides were a constant threat west of the tunnel. In recognition of this, a detector fence was installed west of Roseville Tunnel in 1950 to change trackside signals to red if rocks fell. The most serious rockslide to ever occur on the line, however, would take place within Armstrong Cut (just west of Johnsonburg) in 1941, closing the line for nearly a month, and causing trains to be rerouted via the Old Road. The north side of Armstrong Cut was trimmed back to prevent further rockslides.
Passenger.
 The Cut-Off was a scenic highlight for passenger trains. Early in the 20th century, the DL&W's woman in whitePhoebe Snowwas featured in a poster that touted the new line and the Pequest Fill. At that time, and into the early diesel era (late 1940s), the "Lackawanna Limited" was the railroad's premier train. It was later joined by the "Pocono Express", the "Owl", and the "Twilight". While the Lackawanna only operated mainline passenger trains between Hoboken, New Jersey, and Buffalo, New York, passengers could transfer to and from other railroads at Buffalo. For example, the Nickel Plate offered through sleeper service to St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri, via the Lackawanna.
In 1949, the Lackawanna began modernizing its mainline passenger coaches. The railroad had already begun replacing steam engines with diesels in 1946, starting with mainline passenger trains. The "Lackawanna Limited" was also modernized and renamed the "Phoebe Snow", helping breathe freshness back into a passenger train program that had seen only modest improvements since the 1930s. The Phoebe Snow would run for 11 years as a DL&W train and then as an Erie Lackawanna train from 1963 until November 1966. The "Lake Cities", ironically a former Erie Railroad train, became the last regularly scheduled passenger train on the Cut-Off, making its last run on January 6, 1970.
The only station on the Cut-Off at which mainline passenger trains would stop was Blairstown. Blairstown was also the first stop on westbound trains where passengers were permitted to disembark (i.e. westbound passengers boarding and detraining east of Blairstown were required to use suburban train service instead). This explains why Blairstown was the first stop listed on the destination board at the boarding gate at Hoboken for trains travelling via Scranton. In later years, Blairstown had a somewhat unusual facet of operation: any trains arriving after the station agent went home for the night would automatically activate the station platform lights as the train entered the signal block. This practice was abandoned after passenger service ended.
Freight.
Besides cutting travel time, the Cut-Off required fewer engines to pull eastbound freights up to the summit at Port Morris. For westbound freights, the challenge was keeping trains from going too fast. Initially, no speed limit existed on the Cut-Off, with engineers (both freight and passenger) being expected to exercise "good judgment". By the 1920s, however, most freights were restricted to or less, depending on the priority of the train and the type of locomotive and rail cars. By 1943, rail had been installed on the Cut-Off, which permitted fast freights to run at through the Erie Lackawanna years. After Conrail took over operations in 1976, the speed limit was decreased to 50 mph.
Local freights served customers at all three stations on the Cut-Off. Over the years, Blairstown handled the most local freight. The Johnsonburg creamery, built in anticipation of the opening of the line, served local dairy farmers for years. Another creamery, an ice house, and a stock yard were built at Greendell. The final local shipment was shipped in 1978 by Conrail: cattle feed for a customer in Johnsonburg that was delivered to Greendell, as the siding at Johnsonburg no longer existed.
Accidents.
There were two accidents on the Cut-Off:
There were three other accidents that did not occur on the Cut-Off itself but indirectly involved it:
Decline (1958–1979).
The DL&W was one of the most profitable corporations in the U.S. when it built the Cut-Off. That profitability declined sharply after World War II, leading to the 1960 merger with the Erie Railroad. DL&W single-tracked the Cut-Off in 1958 in anticipation of the Erie merger. The westbound track was removed, leaving a passing siding at Greendell and shorter sidings at Port Morris and Slateford. After the merger, most freight traffic shifted to the Erie's mainline through Port Jervis, New York. With the cessation of passenger service in 1970, the Cut-Off became relatively quiet for several years. In 1972, the CNJ abandoned operations in Pennsylvania, causing through freights to be run daily between Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Scranton, using the Cut-Off and the CNJ's High Bridge Branch. (This arrangement with the CNJ would end on April 1, 1976, with the creation of Conrail). As such, when Penn Central closed its Maybrook, New York Yard in 1970, the original reason for using the "Erie side" suddenly no longer existed. As a result, the EL looked to upgrade the "Scranton side", and by 1974 nearly all EL freights had been re-routed to the Scranton Division via the Cut-Off.
After Conrail took over, existing labor contracts kept EL's freight schedule largely unchanged. The railroad replaced many rotted ties, returning it to better physical condition. But Conrail eventually shifted all freight traffic to other routes, citing the grades over the Pocono Mountains and EL's early-1960s severing of the Boonton Branch near Paterson, New Jersey as reasons for moving rail traffic off of the route, leading Conrail to run its final through freights in late 1978 and officially ended service on the Cut-Off in January 1979. Routine maintenance on the line ceased, and the signal system was shut off. Scranton-Slateford freights continued running into 1980 when coal delivered to the Metropolitan Edison power plant in Portland, Pennsylvania, shifted from the Scranton Division to the former Bangor & Portland Railway.
Preservation and service restoration (1979–present).
Efforts to preserve the Cut-Off began shortly after Conrail ended service on it in 1979. An Amtrak inspection train ran on November 13th of that year, and counties in New Jersey and Pennsylvania made attempts to acquire the line. Nevertheless, Conrail removed the tracks on the Cut-Off in 1984, and in the following year sold the right-of-way to two different land developers. In 2001, the State of New Jersey acquired the right-of-way through eminent domain, and the short section in Pennsylvania was conveyed to the Monroe County Railroad Authority. Subsequent federal studies conducted on the Cut-Off and the mainline into Pennsylvania found a need for the restoration of passenger service.
In 2011, after a nearly three-decade effort to reactivate the line, NJ Transit launched the $61 million Lackawanna Cut-Off Restoration Project. The first phase aimed to link Port Morris Junction to Andover, New Jersey (Andover station), away. By December 2011, about of track had been installed from Port Morris Junction west to Stanhope, New Jersey. As of 2021, about of rail, in three unconnected sections, has been laid between Port Morris and Lake Lackawanna, and most of the right-of-way between Port Morris Junction and the lake had been cleared of trees and debris. All environmental issues have been resolved. Work on Roseville Tunnel, a two-year project, is anticipated to start in October 2021. Based on current projections, the earliest that commuter operations could begin would be 2023.
Although no specific plans have yet to be announced about the restoration of service west of Andover, a federal study has examined the feasibility of an extension into northeastern Pennsylvania, possibly as far as Scranton. Additionally, Amtrak has placed the New York City to Scranton, PA rail line on its proposed 2035 map.
Gallery.
From top left, photos depict scenes from east to west.