Lackawanna Cut Off - Part 21F: "Missing" 21 Miles (Delaware River Viaduct to Slateford Jct.)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 18 вер 2024
- This is the final segment in the six-part mini-series covering the "missing" 21 miles of the Lackawanna Cut-Off between what will be NJ Transit's station at Andover, NJ and the connection to existing trackage in Pennsylvania. In this segment, Chuck trudges from the Delaware River Viaduct to Slateford Jct., the possible location where the "golden spike" would be driven to reconnect the Cut-Off to the Pocono mainline to Scranton, Pennsylvania. Finally, at the end of the video, stayed tuned for a quick peek at Part 22.
Congratulations Chuck. What an amazing series! I've enjoyed every minute of your journey. This will live as an important historical documentary when scholars take a look at this rail line.
Me too! :-)
Chuck your a trooper ! Nether snow or ice or mud and brush fallen trees and the dreaded poison ivy will stop you from getting the word out about this project and its history ! Keep on keeping history alive ! The country needs more people like you and your daughter to show us what has been built in the past that can still be useful today and the future. Bandit
Phenomenal series, and the accompanying historical pictures are really neat. Thank you for posting these. The curve was passable in the very early 90s and my buddies and I spent lots of time there finding really cool railroad artifacts etc. This took me back in time and I really appreciate it!
Thanks for the video update Chuck! Loved every minute of the miniseries! Keep up the FANTASTIC work!!
Thanks! It brings back wonderful memories...traveling between Scranton and Hoboken on the Phoebe Snow in the 40’s and 50’s!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Watching a lot of your old videos and really enjoying it. Crazy how you went in just shorts 😂 great perspective Chuck
It was typically warm out there.
@@LackawannaCutOff I meant about all the ticks and bugs 🙏
The production conversation was really insightful. I felt like was included in the inner workings of production. That’s one of the things I really love about this video project. It has an inclusive “You Are There” quality.
I'm glad you liked that. As you would have heard, I was torn as to what to do. In the end, I figured why edit it out?
If the missing 21 miles ever get re-laid, we must certainly ride it as a group with Spencer Albee "Wait Through The War" blasting the whole way. ;)
:-)
Nice update. Thanks again Chuck.
Thanks for a great tour!
Glad you enjoyed it!
>^. .^< Mr. Walsh, Rest asured that some of us watched every second of every segment starting long ago with # 1. AND thank you for the Musical Treat at the end just now. And, don't forget to have someone check for tiny PA deer ticks on your back a couple of times since lime desease is horrible stuff. Aloha, Glennnnn
Yes, I do assiduously check for ticks.
Old rte 66 has an abandoned chain of rocks bridge that spanned the Mississippi connecting Illinois and Missouri. Similar features.
Awesome video as always, Chuck. Thanks for all of your hard work!
Thank you so much for all the work you put into this. I've learned a lot.
This is ma first knowabouts and toure of the Lackawanna cut off
I've ridden my mtn bike across the viaduct. Can be done ... just need some good tires & balance.
Awesome vids tho !
EndlessMtnFab, I knew the bike would be of no use west of the viaduct, so I decided against the challenge of the deep ballast which would have been tough on a hybrid bike.
@@LackawannaCutOff Makes sense. I started at the bridge and went east bound.
Welcome to wonderland. :D
Thank you for very informative facts of the lacawanna cut. You have covered a question I had of what the short tunnel on rt 206 in Andover area. Thank you well done
As far as the DRV not being built with a curve, I think it is fairly obvious. It would take far more engineering design time and therefore cost. But more importantly it would take special concrete forms for construction and additional rebar bending.
Now let us assume the engineers did a design that is a much wider bridge that could envelope a curved track.
Such a design would lead to bigger river footings, far more concrete and far more rebar.
In addition speed reduction would likely be reduced on a DRV curve. If for some reason the train could not slow on a curve on a bridge, it increases the risk of a derailment. A derailment on a bridge could be much more catastrophic than on land. And much more time consuming to recover from.
So I think it is clear why the Delaware River Viaduct was straight and not curved.
PS Have very much enjoyed the videos and appreciate your comments that can be thought provoking. (Yes, my background is engineering)
I remember you mentioned something about visiting the "Pennsylvania cutoff" in a previous video is that something we could expect to see a video on soon?
lazarus fernandez, yes, already filmed, but it has several videos in the queue in front of it.
I willy hope this ex rail line cutoff gets rebuilt very soon !
great reporting I rode the Lake Cities from Dover to Meadville pa 1968 and 1969 wish they put the sevice back
the slateford bridge was never removed was demolished,, and lays where it stood ,,my hillyard blocked the tracks after kids threw rocks into his new house
i wonder if the second track will ever get relaid and if a high speed train will be established on this line, since it is possible.....
Joseph Miele, difficult to say. The first priority would be to reestablish the link. Whatever improvements could be made would come along later.
@@LackawannaCutOff okay
Chuck, I've really enjoyed watching all of your Lackawanna Cut-Off videos. I grew up in a small eastern Indiana town on the Erie/EL West End mainline. I used to stand on the railway ROW and try to imagine where the tracks went both to the east and west.
Question: why would anyone have ever needed to use a turntable at Slateford Junction? Seems like a very unlikely place for it. Was there ever other railway support facilities in that location served by the turntable?
In some of your previous videos you briefly talked about the lines that connected the cutoff to Hoboken. One I've been looking at in particular is what I think is the Greenwood branch of the old Erie, which from the way it sounded was a far fetched idea to reactivate it. Looking at google earth (5/2018) map the line from Montclair to just north of Nicholas Galvanizing near Hoboken is mostly intact with portions only recently being covered over with asphalt.
My thought is if the option to reactivate it was on the table NJ might be able to get cooperation from one of the freight services, like Norfolk Southern, to rebuild the cutoff with NJT building from Lake Hopatcong and NS from Slateford.
This is assuming the Greenwood branch is reasonably salvageable and Hoboken is still a major port. I'm not from NJ so this is all speculation from satellite images.
The main area of question with the Greenwood branch appears to be where it runs through Newark NJ where it was paved over at some point after 11/2012. Aside from that the tracks appear mostly there, if not maintained and overgrown, as of 5/2018.
Graugger, freight service on the Cut-Off is pretty much off the table for discussion. There are all sorts of hurdles to using the Greenwood Lake/Montclair-Boonton Line for freight. There’s overhead catenary (with severe height restrictions) between Dover and Denville as well as east of Great Notch. The line west of Great Notch to Denville is almost all single track. Being a commuter line that alone makes long freights iffy at best. But there’s more. The line east of Montclair is out if service with the bridge over the Passaic River being basically condemned. So, there’s no way to get to Croxton Yard. And Hoboken and Jersey City yards no longer exist. West of the Cut-Off there are the 1.5% grades over the Poconos and west of Scranton. Bottom line, there’s no chance of freight returning. I guarantee you that NS has absolutely no interest in the line other than delivering cars to Taylor Yard near Scranton for the Delaware-Lackawanna.
@@LackawannaCutOff Thank you for the information, reply, and this series on the Lackawanna Cut Off.
Being from a generation after these railroads went out of existence they fascinate me and I always like history and information on them. Watching your series has made the Lackawanna one of the most interesting railroads for me. Hearing that New Jersey is going to reuse the cutoff is excellent for both improving transportation and preserving a piece of history. There are abandoned rail lines where I'm at that are built over and gone so the cutoff is a rare piece of gold in my eyes.
Chuck Walsh Grauggers question is exactly what I was thinking also, which you thoroughly answered, but to beat a dead horse, pun intended, could NS or even DL be interested in intermodal at Port Morris? Taylor yard seems quite busy. Thanks, Al from Moscow PA
@@alankerway134 I think the activity there is probably passenger not intermodal. Its not only a matter of activity but the type, value (must be enough revenue to warrant investment), time, rail traffic (passenger service is priority and delays because of freight would be unwanted), and destination. If the freight is going from point A to point B why would you need a route to point C.
All of this has probably been considered by NJT, my question mas posed with the desire to see if there was someone they could cooperate with to speed up construction. I suppose with the hurdles he explained the most optimal way to assist would be to get into contact with our PA state reps and press them to work with NJ on the cutoff. After all the cutoff is being rebuilt for passenger service to alleviate congestion on the interstate which it would succeed in doing. Consider trains are more economical in fuel usage and as such are also environmentally beneficial. Its that type of thinking, we not only need to press our representatives about it, we have to sell the idea to them as being good.
Graugger, well, there’s an economic benefit to passenger / commuter rail service. Some of it is direct (ridership and an economic boost because of the housing market). But there are indirect benefits as well where business investment increases in the area because of the rail service.
I've often wondered myself why the Delaware River Viaduct was not built curved to avoid the tight curve at the end. Probably a cost saving measure.
One theory was that it had to do with the stability of the bridge with the force of water on it. There are numerous curved bridges on the planet, but clearly straight bridges over water are the norm. The fact that the bridge curves once it is over land in PA suggests that. But we would need to see the engineering records to settle this question.
At 31:30 I was sooo hoping this was the reprise of the “crazy lawn furniture guy” spotted at Port Morris in a much earlier episode. Get that man a S.A.G. card if you see him again.
Lawn chair guy is my favorite blooper by the way.
Which episode was lawn chair guy in? I don't recall him for some reason.
@@Ken_in_Wisconsin, off the top of my head I believe it was Freight Trains Over the Cut-Off.
@@Ken_in_Wisconsin, Part 12 - Freight Trains Over the Cut-Off. Lawn Chair man makes his entrance at 50:20.
Oh yes ok. I remember him now. :)
Way to go Chuck. Jerry
At 33:38 appears to be a circular cement structure in the ground. Could this possibly be remains of the turn table? Very interesting...
Not sure. Have to look at photos that were taken before all the overgrowth took over.
Great eye Samuel! It seems to be too much of a coincidence not to be.
22:00 1989? did they leave trackage on this portion for some time? If i recall, the other portion was removed in 84-85.
The trackage at 22:00 was never removed.
And will the Lackawanna cut off be a passenger rail service line and a train historic train ride n exsturtion train ride or all the above?
Probably passenger service only. Any train on it will require PTC.
@LackawannaCutOff that's cool A would love ta see more passenger train service come back again especially steam train passenger service
It would also benefit NJ TRASIT
Does trains still run on the old road or is it abandoned or out of service?
Abandoned and tracks removed in 1970.
@LackawannaCutOff it's sad ta see lines like that disappear passenger rail lines from the 1800s and 1900s are historical n especially the train stations that's just rotting away on abandoned lines they're historical it's ashame that they don't fix them up n have historic train rides excursions or passenger train service on them
I don't think the rail line will ever be completed.
Robert Varner, I wish I had a dollar for every person that has said that.
@@LackawannaCutOff I just don't have any optimism in the way NJT operates. I would love that line to be completed just to take a rail journey. I'm 65 years old so I remember the EL. My father used to take me on train rides back in the early 60's. You should do a series on the line that went through Main Street in Passaic, NJ.
Robert Varner, NJT is only part of the equation. I agree that they are in a state of upheaval. That will take time to resolve.
Why be so deplorable towards atv riders? the whole cutoff is gonna be done over anyway is it not?