NJT already owns the right of way, since around 2000. They bought it off a guy who wanted to tear up the fills and use it elsewhere. Chuck was a big advocate for getting it done.
I'm rejoicing in the Lord and happy that they are going to rebuild the old New Jersey bridge for the brand new Acela Amtrak train s That was cool. Im praying to God that they would do the same thing for the old rail road abandoning Rail ways they sure need more Rail road trains besides the trailways They could always put the rails and trailers right along side so when people riding their bikes or joking they could hear the train wisle or horns that would be fun
That's you told them right let the Acela Amtrak go through that bridge it wasn't mint for those trucks and cars go on that bridge may be they could make a bike trailer along side of something like that so people could get some train action and the freight trains could run on that bridge to late nights
This is a major tragedy that such a well engineered route should be abandoned. Thank you for bringing the people this excellent and very informative video.
Toronto Buffalo Rochester Syracuse Binghamton Scranton Poconos Parsippany Secaucus Junction Penn Station would be the best route. Cuomo or whomever the gov may be is gonna try to force Albany in there tho!🙄😞
@@mrgooglethegreat We need a network like was across the country. Not a few lines here and there with a train or two. They all have reservations today, so when full people are turned away. Or they would be standing in the aisles again.
When I was a student pilot in northern NJ, we used to use this as a ground reference for certain training exercises. It's easy to spot from the air, straight as an arrow, and miles long. Exactly what you needed for practicing S-turns.
Yes, Trinca's airport. I grew up on just the other side of the tracks on Pequest rd. watching the single engines bank over the top of the cut- off to line up for landing. My Grandpa Les Devens use to take us up in the J-3 piper just for fun, what a trip. Thanks Grandpa
This guy is absolutely spot on, here in the U.K. in the 1960s and 70s many lines were closed and sold off to private developers because they weren’t viable at the time. With the massive rise of rail travel here there’s now great demand for those lines to reopen but because short sighted councils and governments sold them off, the cost to reinstate them is far greater than it would’ve been if we preserved them. Don’t make the same mistake as we did.
@David I'd also add that when the Government decided to rid the UK of the land bank that the former railways created it managed another own goal. For example, a farmer could purchased the two sections of land either side of a road, however they were allowed to say they did not wish to purchase the bridge (and section of track bed) that split the land in half. Or people could purchase every part of the land, apart from the viaduct that crossed the river. What that means is that the UK tax payer pays for thousands of structures that it has no legal access to, or can ever use again, but has to keep repairs under taken on. A really poor state of affairs!
Daniel Field - Unfortunately we've already made that same mistake many, many, times. Our rail infrastructure is somewhat a shell of its former self. It's hard to predict the future but it seems that these abandonment actions are taken swiftly based on the moment without any foresight towards the future.
It appears to me that we have to solve the infrastructure and freight train problems first before we tackle HSR for passengers. Remember, we’ve invested a lot into automobile travel and our culture is based upon it as well thanks to marketing and so called “modernity”. We need to not only restructure our infrastructure but also our thinking about mass transportation.
@@americanace96 Most modern US-locomotives are meant to handle it, it's mostly a factor limiting speeds. For example, New York's new electric locomotive is a slightly modified Siemens Vectron/Smartron
Well, thanks to Uncle Sam, and other factors efficient passenger rail service has all but gone the way of the steam loco. The current infrastructure of this nation's Railroads is sufficient for freight trains, not so much the passenger trains that use lines owned by freight hauling companies, like UP.
@@jed-henrywitkowski6470 Correction: _Passenger_ service has gone the way of the steam loco in the US, freight is as strong as ever. And you can blame the freight-hauling lines for that - in the US, a railroad's effectiveness is solely determined by the amount of freight it can move, rather than the amount of passengers like in Europe. Europe actually has the same problem with freight service that we do with passenger service.
I'm a German and I'm living next to a railroad line that connects two medium-sized cities. In the 70s and 80s, seven lines that it was connected to were closed and abandoned with only one being kept in shape by volunteers. It's pretty sad to see the other ones rot away, especially while officials talk about how important the railway is without doing anything about it
Very nice job in giving the amazing Chuck Walsh credit for his hard work in getting the Cut-Off documented. I’ve enjoyed all of his episodes. His daughter Larissa has done a fine job of videography. Really enjoyed this episode of Armchair Urbanist. Thank you!
When I fly my plane east out of the Poconos' I always look down at the Cutoff and continue to be impressed by the engineering and scale of the structures.
The way the Lackawanna Cutoff was built, and it way it traverse the mountains in Northern NJ and Northeastern PA, one could easily say that it also served as a reference point in how the Interstate Highway System was built (itself based off of the German Autobahn and the original 110-mile section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike - the latter built on most of the abandoned South Pennsylvania RR right-of-way).
Remember when people built things because why not? I miss those days.... Hell, even when a modern project starts, people drag their feet and drag it out as long as possible. And then wonder why it costs so much....
People can still build things it's just not in the best interest of a few. Some countries have learned to harness the private sector for the benefit of the masses, US on the other hand believes what's good for the billionaires is good for the people unfortunately. I am amazed that this gentleman even won with his efforts considering the type of people and the big money he was fighting against.
I think another great example of a high speed alignment that's old is the Great Western Mainline in Britain, from London to Bristol. It was completed in 1841 and it was so straight and so level it was nicknamed "Brunel's billiard table". The line today sees trains going on it at 125mph and that's the max speed at most of the line.
@@mattevans4377 Are you sure about that? I rode the GWR between Bristol and Paddington a few times (new Hitachi trainsets) and at 125 mph you could feel some serious vibes (literally).
@@mattevans4377 Actually they could go faster, large sections of most of the UK mainlines are up to a standard that could support 150-160mph but, as you say, that would require more advanced signalling. The class 91 Intercity 225 was tested and achieved a speed of 162mph, although it was designed for up to 140mph running.
I used to live along that line when I was little and lived in the UK. The Box Tunnel is really cool, apparently Brunel aligned it such that the sun shines all the way through it on his birthday.
Kudos to Chuck for keeping up the fight after so many years. Must get discouraging after a while, but this makes me hopeful for the fate of big projects like this all over the country.
Dang son! You're drone skills make me jealous! Also, that vaporwave made legitimately lol. This is a fascinating piece of infrastructure that I knew nothing about. Fantastic video!
Also, I have it on good authority that Amtrak would routinely run 100 MPH plus in the early days through Nebraska. Too bad the northeast has all those pesky mountains lol
@@alanthefisher It was all jointed at one time, there is NO danger. Infact it's safer than ribbon rail due to the sun kinks ribbon gets in the hot summers. That result in summer speed restrictions /
Well then, let's hope some day we see some Chargers or ACS-64s push-pulling a nice set of Venture cars up and down that beautiful viaduct at 110 mph. Yeah, I guess I'm a dreamer. (But I'm not the only one), etc.
I already talked to him, at a event last year about it. I also gave him a Lackawanna time table. Joe has ridden over the cut off in the past. Like I have . I think I have been over it up to 100mph when the train was late making up time.
@Joshua Halsted Amtrak before the virus had record demand only limited by services offered. There are reservations on ALL intercity trains to keep people from standing in the aisles. That is not allowed anymore. The cut back underfunded Amtrak has been this way for years. Why would Scranton to NY be any different that Portland (same size as Scranton and distance 113 miles vs 135 miles to Scranton?) Portland had 800,000 riders on the little Downeaster. First trains to run in 50 years. Track there was improved from 30mph to 79mph. Yes there would be demand, you know the development that has occurred in the Pocono's in 50 years! That is why there is all that traffic. It's houses and traffic instead of wild strawberry fields.
I’m sure there are plenty of abandoned rail corridors that Amtrak could purchase to build a network exclusively for themselves. For example, the former CNW in and around Madison, Wisconsin could be rebuilt to serve passenger rail between Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and the Twin Cities. Additionally, former CNW right-of-ways could connect Milwaukee to Green Bay.
Definitely worth preserving the right of way. In the UK we cut a lot of lines in the 1960s and 1970s, decisions that were reasonable at the time, but building was allowed on the abandoned routes (the UK has more of a land shortage). Now, rail travel has expanded but we can't rebuild easily because of houses and other buildings obstructing the lines.
The downfall of the Cutoff was the collapse of Anthracite Coal as a home heating fuel. That's what created the wealth to build the cutoff in the first place. Without that it was just a railroad to nowhere. Currently NS has filed to abandon the signaling on the second DL&W megaproject west of Scranton, the Nicholson Cutoff, so the economic rationale for the corridor has not improved.
But passenger rail travel is increasing and people want to ride trains again. It's perceived as both a transportation option and a recreational activity. Coal freight may be dead, but passenger rail is rising from the dead. We even have some private companies trying to build high speed rail all over the country now!
@@dknowles60 The issue is that they bought a line with more traffic than that, then worked to kill it. The good news is that they have withdrawn the signal abandonment.
Nice video! Gentle-ish curves are still important in modern fast and high speed passenger rail, but gentle grades, not so much. Modern electric locomotives are relatively light and extremely powerful compared with steam and even modern diesel locomotives. They can deal with significant grades and still mange very high speeds.
Ehm. If we talk real high speed, rest-of-the-world-style high speed, grade is important. There is a reason why we dig all those base tunnels here in Europe.
@@appa609 the Frankfurt- Köln high speed line has 4% max grade with 300 km/h max speed. And it's possible to hold that speed over nearly the entire line.
In the 1960's we took a class trip to Buffalo and Niagara Falls by train which went via the cutoff and Scranton when it was the EL. It was also a very scenic route. Later we moved to Sussex county and my Dad used the EL from Blairstown to NY to commute to his job until he retired. I hope NJT and Amtrak do revive it.
Thanks for the video. I was aware of this route and was told Conrail abandoned it and took up the track to help prevent a competing short line railroad from buying it and operating a competing service over the line. That is also why they looked to sell it to developers. If things were built on the right of way there would be little chance of it ever being used as a railroad again. Thanks to New Jersey buying it and considering expanding commuter service over the line it’s future is more secure to be returned to all types of passenger and even high speed freight service. The interstate highways even today are overloaded with both passenger cars and trucks in this area. So reopening the line makes more sense today than any time recently. We just need the political will and funding to make this happen.
The problem with the Cutoff is you can't get to it. In the old days the DL&W Railroad - owner of the Cutoff - had their main line running through Paterson in a fairly straight line from Hoboken (or New York) to the east end of the Cutoff, but that line has been removed, and paved over in part in the form of Interstate Route 80. So we are left with only one option currently, The Morris & Essex Line mentioned by Chuck as being part of the the original DL&W Main Line, which is circuitous and slow. The timetable only goes out to about 10 minutes before the Cutoff starts, but if you figure the time to get to Netcong on a different branch as being similar at about the same distance, it's 1 hour, 56 minutes. In order to have competative rail service to Scranton for instance - even to compete with the bus - you'd have to have something a lot quicker than that. I've examined a few options which involve upgrading and reinstating parts of some existing lines, to get it down to less than an hour, which still isn't very favorable as compared to driving right from you house if you're anywhere near Route 80. I've "published" a couple of these ideas on Facebook in seeing range of Chuck - including a couple of pie-in-the-sky speedy options, and he's as aware as I am about the improbability of ever getting something like that done. However, if you going to have competitive passenger service on the Cutoff it's a necessity.
@@williamoverton1548 No - total rail foamer, certified: Here's a link to one of my Cutoff Access solutions (If you can get past the screed about recent Montclair Terminal machinations ((there's an expediting link)) - www.rail-nyc-access.com/montclair-terminal
@@brucehain Lol, how is this guy both a rail advocate and someone who cares about there not being enough parking spots and housing developments having too much density?
@@TheLazySleeperLives Not mutually exclusive problems - in fact, they're very much related. Not having enough open parking in areas with rail stations actually reduces ridership, since people who live too far away from the station won't be able to access it. Large, dense housing developments full of single-family homes make this problem worse due to how they sprawl out and increase distances between home and services, vs apartments and condos which keep everyone in close proximity to said service and mitigate the parking issue. It's basic systematics applied to urban design. Rail doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Can't you just use the Morristown and Montclair-Boonton Lines and only have the Lackawanna Service stop at certain stations and skip the rest. Pretty much how the Port Jervis Line only stops at Secaucus Junction, Ramsey Route 17, and Suffern along the Main and Bergen County Lines.
The Lackawanna Cut-Off was the 0.5 version of high-speed grade separated and straight right of way, which was constructed many decades before Japan’s Ministry of Railways built the first Shinkansen or bullet train line.
I want my local rail line to be reopened for passenger use. This is the old Erie-Lackawanna Line stretching from Chicago to New York going through southern New York State. I have always said that this is a neglected area that relies heavily on highways for everything. Trains would be especially good since most of the people who live in those small towns work in Buffalo, Rochester, and even Utica. Also, it's kinda weird that the plant that produces the Acela II in Hornell, doesn't have some sort of passenger connection. I just hope that as Buffalo City Terminal reopens, they will start to reopen old routes, and bring back the things that made train travel great in the first place.
Some of them are, especially on lines that use both electrified and non-electrified track - I know there’s a few around NYC as the underground stations in the city typically require electric running but the trains run on non-electrified lines outside the city. I’m sure the specific locomotive you pointed out was a predecessor to the modern ones on a similar line.
From what I've read it was the Erie-Lackawanna's decision to sever the Boonton line, the high speed freight bypass of the Morristown line that fed the cutoff that doomed it under Conrail. Trains had to be able to handle the tighter curves and steeper grades of the feeder line negating the benefits of the cutoff, especially when Conrail had other options from the PRR and NYC. Hope it does get restored fully to service to Scranton and maybe one day even beyond. A rail connection would really benefit northeastern PA and the southern tier of NY. The following is from one of the Lackawanna's "Phoebe Snow" ads advertising the cutoff: Each cut and fill Cross dale and hill Has made the shortest Shorter still. I now delight Like Arrow's flight To speed o'er Road of Anthracite
It would be worth talking about in a different video how many of these railroads didn't have much future planning beyond either "we'll merge with this other RR later", or "once we find a way to fiance this, we'll build it". In many ways this initial planning or lack of, crippled them later on. And then eventually Conrail had to figure out the mess. And then the whole question begins on weather or not conrail did it right and if they where left to sort through scraps without help.
We lived not far from this cut off line when I was a kid, I guess it was still in service then, but it was farther out than the nearest train station to our town, (Mt. Arlington), and I was clueless to any train lines west of that. I hope that they get this thing going again, and yeah, the thought of straight line high speed rail between NYC and Buffalo, and then on to Toronto is intriguing.
I remember going up to Newton on 206 and seeing this huge imposing but oddly straight hill directly in front of me. The road goes through this short tunnel and pops out the other side. I realized the "hill" was not part of the local topography but was indeed man-made. It's cool to find out what it is and what it was used for!
Great video. I live not far south of the fill and have walked much of it. Have a spike I found sitting on my desk. The story of that fill is an amazing one, and I don't think anything like it could be done today. Imaging proposing to pile dirt three miles across a valley now! You'd be in court for 50 years. With respect to the deficiencies of the original line I've always read the major problem was not the extra distance but the bottleneck at Oxford getting over Tunnel Hill, and later through the single bore tunnel built beneath it.
I feel that if this would be restored, it would be something like the northeast corridor, it would be able to gain very high speeds for North American standards and possibly even reach true "high speed" status. I do hope that Amtrak would take over restoration and ownership of the cutoff, they could make some great passenger trains with this!
Near me, in Huntsville, a school was *buried* in the process of making that Pequest fill. My housemate showed me the historic photos of how they just erected this triangle-frame assembly of timbers and filled with dirt to make this enormous artificial ridge to create that very flat top the video explained. You'd think viaducts, but apparently in the long run a *solid* ridge like that is cheaper. Instead of mere underpasses, tunnels were bored under it for roads, railroads, and watercourse to pass north-south. Impressive! One of the old rail tunnels is being used as storage space by NVE since it adjoins their lot at Airport and Whitehall Roads, while the others are still active roads (e.g. US 206), rail trail, and the Pequest River. I don't know what they did to the Pequest during the time they were building the ridge line and before they bored the tunnel for it; probably they'd've diverted it around where they were building that part, then bored the tunnel to reconnect it, then built over where they'd temporarily diverted it. I've got to get up on that thing some time, maybe this summer, before they fence it off to re-lay track.
The closure of the old Boonton Line East of Wayne could also be attributed to the closure. This moved all traffic over to the Erie Greenwood Lake Branch until Mountain View where it switched onto the Boonton Line which connects to the M&E in Denville and continues to Port Morris where the cutoff split off. The gradients after this closure were detrimental to the line as it meant it was just easier for the EL and Conrail to run up the Erie line entirely. They then sold off the route North of Scranton which was a continuation of the Lackawanna's route that involved a similar cutoff to the Delaware and Hudson. This all now seems like a waste of perfectly good railroad, but it overall was just to turn the railroads into sustainable entitys.
My grandfather and great grandfather worked for the Lackawanna RR. I’m pro-Scranton. However, unless Scranton becomes a business, education, or tourist hub, there’s no compelling reason to connect the city with Hoboken and the rest of northern New Jersey via passenger train. Realistically, MORE people could use the Lackawanna cutoff for recreation and exercise than commutation. I was on top of the cutoff last week. Tree cutting and stone dust are all that’s needed to make the cutoff ready for running, biking, and equestrian use. The cutoff would make a great addition to the network of rail trails in NJ.
The hope is that by reopening the line to Scranton, it will make the city desirable, as it would now be possible to commute into the New York City area. I agree on your perspective of biking though, although I value passenger rail just a bit more. Perhaps the ROW could be shared? Other rail-trails already exists that use the same ROW as active rail. Restoring the line will take time, and they haven't announced plans yet to go further than Andover. Putting in a bike trail would allow for the rest of the line to be prepared for when service is eventually restored, while also allowing recreational use of the ROW in the mean time.
@Pot Black There's no major manufacturing industry in Scranton or any near-by region. Amtrak can't even turn a profit despite all the subsidies it gets as a Government Sponsored Corporation.
This cutoff reminds me of an abandoned corridor through the Ottawa Valley in Ontario, Canada that bypasses Toronto. Both CN and CP abandoned a route and ripped out their lines that were both transcontinental routes. One of those routes should be restored and used by multiple carriers including passenger service. If the Lackawanna cutoff is being considered for reinstatement, the Ottawa Valley route should be considered at some point
I really hope that viaduct doesn't get demolished, awe inspiring structure. of course it would be great to see a modern high speed line going over it...
Having trained around Europe on highspeed rail, at 185mph, I would love to see it in the USA. However... as long as the petrochemical industry controls our government, I cannot see that happening any time soon. You can see them trying to throw restrictions on EV's and by looking at how the funding in the pending infrastructure bill is allocated.
@@JugSouthgate What killed the trains was loss of mail. The last train the Lake Cities ran at night because mail moved at night. The day train the Phoebe Snow was very popular but with out that mail revenue it was hopeless.
@@JugSouthgate Conrail should never have happened. Many of these railroads went broke before and they were not ripped up. This time was different. Bond holder which by the 1970's were only the brokerage houses and banks wanted their money! They wanted NO competition to raise rates. And kind of a Government bailout. Conjob stole every dollar they could from passenger operators too including Amtrak. Those bonds trading for nothing paid off at face value a 1000 dollars a bond. It was in the Tens of millions of dollars.
The reason why this corridor was abandoned isn’t complicated. It was basic de-population and de-industrialization of the rust belt. Heavy industry moved out if the Delaware, Lockawanna valleys, the NY Southern Tier and the Erie Canal areas and that whole region consistently lost need for rail, passenger first, then freight. While there was substantial population growth in the Poconos since the early 2000’s, enough to justify commuter service from NYC to that area, there is still ZERO need for Amtrak regional service to the area. The population isn’t there. Bringing Amtrak to Scranton was simply a political promise of Biden to get back the Pennsylvania vote that was lost to Trump before.
The most lavish rail infrastructure is a drop in the ocean compared to what we're spending just keeping highways from falling to pieces. Build the train.
@@surplusplanet5481 no the NJCL ends on a barrier island. The easiest way to get to cape may by rail today would be from NYC/NEWARK run the line on the NEC make a left @Monmouth junction, make a right @ farmingdale, thru Lakewood, thru the Wharton St. Forrest all the way to Winslow Jct. and then continue on via abandonded ROWs to Cape May. Sadly, not gonna happen
At age 10 my father had legal business in Buffalo and he did work as a lawyer for this rail line so he took me on the overnight from NY area to Buffalo I still remember that the gravy at dinner was best I ever had , the beef was great too ! This was in the 1950 s In my 70 s now but I still remember that trip .
@@stuarthirsch rail bank is better than letting them go, but can be just as problematic. People will fight their walking trails being turned into railroads. Which ultimately is the same issue. This happened in Ohio when the NS allowed so double track to be singled and turned into trails, the local government concreted he path, which the rail did not want. So NS came back and put a fence around several miles of right of way to stop the trespassing. Best of intensions, wrong result.
Update: Amtrak completed a study aimed at potentially reviving rail service to Scranton via this exact same cutoff. They estimate that upgrades to the PNRRA segment could cost 100 million to 175 million (The cost of rebuilding the remainder of the Lackawanna cutoff has yet to be determined), while buying two or three new Airo trains for the line could cost between 70 million & 90 million. Amtrak also wants to run trains as fast as 110 MPH on the rebuilt cutoff, so if that goes to plan, we could see a 110 MPH rebuilt Lackawanna Cutoff line in the near future.
Great to see that this historic line will be brought back into use! Especially that rather impressive viaduct! Kind of reminds me of the old high speed Great Central line in the UK, sadly parts of the old line have now been completely built over, but part of it does run as a heritage railway.
When Steamtown moved from Bellows Falls, Vermont to Scranton, PA. they brought their collection of steam locomotives with them. One of them was Union Pacific Big Boy no. 4012. They posed it atop the NIcholson viaduct in 1985 in the middle of the bridge and above the name LACKAWANNA R. R. Tunkhannok, although not part of the cutoff is much, much larger than the Paulinskill viaduct. Believe it or not there were plans to run the Big Boy on the 28.5 miles of the cutoff from Scranton before ConRail lifted the rails. 🤔
Thats a very hilly part of nj. It made sense to keep it flat. You would be going up and down constantly without it. I hope they restart service to Scranton on it
An interesting story. I personally enjoy trains, especially high-speed rail, I've experienced many rail systems in Europe (Spain, Italy, France, Netherlands). It is a great way to travel fast. Regarding the Lackawanna Cutoff, it would be awesome to have a high speed rail link from New York City (NYC) to Buffalo, this could be pitched to the tourist market for Canadian travellers wanting an alternative travel mode to NYC. There is a big NYC tourist market in Southern Ontario! Wish everyone the best of luck to make this happen. Let's hope this initiative is not bogged down under the false believe that this is just another socialist idea, don't let the vocal few who love to complain and turn down this a good idea.
7:48 - To Conrail, this ' Lackawanna Cutoff' line was built to serve passenger trains better, and did not have enough freight customers to serve. .. ??
@@JugSouthgate that was during Stakeholder Capitalism, business looked to improve the community it operated in. We now have Shareholder Capitalism which is only concerned with profits over the next quarter.
@@odb_roc_hound4186 well, sort of. When the Cutoff was built, the only competition railroads had was other railroads. And The Government hadn't yet built major roads for the few autos that were around back then. The New York Central had a profitable passenger business in New York State into the 1950s. And then the New York State Thruway opened, and their passenger business started losing money big time because people had cars and drove everywhere. This happened all over the USA. The Interstate Highway System and the airlines took the passenger business, and the trucks took much of the freight business, particularly the smaller/lighter loads.
@@JugSouthgate Lackawanna Railroad of New Jersey built it. Bonds were sold and in the 1970's the Erie Lackawanna couldn't pay the bond interest. Which bankrupted them. Assets were sold to pay the face value of bonds that were worthless before. Con rail brought the east end of the railroad for 600 million dollars. The west end was sold off or ripped up.
@@JugSouthgate What killed train after train, was the loss of US Mail revenue. When it went to trucks it was over. The last mail across the country was in Oct 1967. That bankrupted the whole private rail system. Underfunded cut back Amtrak was the result. 600 trains were dropped the first day. Some trains running with 40 cars like the UP Cities trains were dropped. Because the decline was to continue. Not have record ridership like 2019 had.
It will never truly be high speed rail unless you find another way of going from East Stroudsburg up to Mount Pocono. But NJT has purchased stations along the line to Tobyhanna to start commuter service to the city. Also the line is single tracked up the mountain and all the way to Scranton.
Not a hundred years ago. Closer to 150 years. Brunel's GWR London to Bristol was built as flat, straight and low slope as possible. These have the widest flattest brick arch bridge every built just west of London. The idea bridge the gap across river with no change in elevation. This was started from London in the 1840s. These methods were used all the way to Bristol and (later) beyond.
the Cutoff was a hell of a road, New York to Scranton or all the way to Buffalo over the old Phoebe Snow schedule with some adjustments to help with how the Erie's the road into Buffalo could be a nice trip, and a good addition to the long distance services around that whole route for NY-Buff. Another thing to take note is that the Cutoff wasn't most notable swept down by the PC collapse, but also due to how after the EL merger, more traffic was shifted over the Erie than the old DL&W, which made more sense since the Erie had the better way out of Jersey. the Cutoff was good, but rarely needed by the time Agnes hit in 1972.
As someone who lives in a town directly on the old Erie-Lackawanna train route, looking back and seeing what my area of NY used to have and now it's been forgotten is just a massive blackpill. Having friends located in other areas of NY that can take passenger trains along the I-90 is nice, but having no direct line from the Southern Tier to anywhere else in New York, or even Pennsylvania and New Jersey makes it difficult and practically forces Upstate NY residents to drive everywhere for commutes / travel when 60 - 100 years ago we had the Road of Anthracite at our leisure. It also helps that I genuinely love trains and knowing I live in a once great area for train travel, and having it in ruins it just bittersweet I guess
It might be worthwhile to make it a passenger *and* freight line. In many ways I think rebuilding the freight infrastructure would bring more benefits, even though passenger travel is more visible, poetic & romantic. Especially if we built more localized container transfer points (the biggest problem being the transfer on & off of containers without large structures, and making smaller container options for localized deliveries).
Interesting video! I had seen the viaduct on another RUclips video but didn't know about the Fills, et al. I love knowledgeable history guys like Chuck.
![Stroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere) [ST05]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ORzNZUeUHAM/mqdefault.jpg)
Great job, thanks for the interview!
6:12 - Yeah, steam trains could, and can, go fast. Really fast.
ruclips.net/video/5o26WD1vGcY/видео.htmlm20s
The King 👑
There would be no new cutoff without Chuck's incredible efforts over many years.
Awesome seeing infrastructure shit come to life!
🤡
I'm calling it right now. Once NJT has the right of way, they're gonna build a high speed bus guideway. That way no one is happy.
NJT already owns the right of way, since around 2000. They bought it off a guy who wanted to tear up the fills and use it elsewhere. Chuck was a big advocate for getting it done.
I'm rejoicing in the Lord and happy that they are going to rebuild the old New Jersey bridge for the brand new Acela Amtrak train s That was cool. Im praying to God that they would do the same thing for the old rail road abandoning Rail ways they sure need more Rail road trains besides the trailways They could always put the rails and trailers right along side so when people riding their bikes or joking they could hear the train wisle or horns that would be fun
The truckers years ago wanted a truck only highway on it. When Trenton wouldn't do it they demanded all the 74 bridges on it be removed!
That really is a idea Exon push years ago. And the truckers wanted to have a truck only highway built on it. But Trenton wouldn't go for it.
That's you told them right let the Acela Amtrak go through that bridge it wasn't mint for those trucks and cars go on that bridge may be they could make a bike trailer along side of something like that so people could get some train action and the freight trains could run on that bridge to late nights
This is a major tragedy that such a well engineered route should be abandoned. Thank you for bringing the people this excellent and very informative video.
Even if it is not used by rail, it could be used for rails-to-trails.
@@robertewalt7789 As a cyclist I do enjoy them, but I'd rather see it put back to railway use if possible.
there was a big Problem of the big rail road grades at Scranton
@@dknowles60 at least they weren't hauling 30,000 pounds of bananas into Scranton Pennsylvania
@@robertewalt7789 stupid no
Imagine a high speed rail line between Toronto and New York. A man can dream.
Remember most riders on trains and even highways don't go between ends. There's alot in between.
New York to Chicago to Sanfran is a must.
@@thebabbler8867 Yes and avoid as many stops and cities as you can. So you have very few riders.
Toronto Buffalo Rochester Syracuse Binghamton Scranton Poconos Parsippany Secaucus Junction Penn Station would be the best route. Cuomo or whomever the gov may be is gonna try to force Albany in there tho!🙄😞
@@mrgooglethegreat We need a network like was across the country. Not a few lines here and there with a train or two. They all have reservations today, so when full people are turned away. Or they would be standing in the aisles again.
When I was a student pilot in northern NJ, we used to use this as a ground reference for certain training exercises. It's easy to spot from the air, straight as an arrow, and miles long. Exactly what you needed for practicing S-turns.
Let me guess. s turns,
Yes, Trinca's airport. I grew up on just the other side of the tracks on Pequest rd. watching the single engines bank over the top of the cut- off to line up for landing. My Grandpa Les Devens use to take us up in the J-3 piper just for fun, what a trip.
Thanks Grandpa
This guy is absolutely spot on, here in the U.K. in the 1960s and 70s many lines were closed and sold off to private developers because they weren’t viable at the time.
With the massive rise of rail travel here there’s now great demand for those lines to reopen but because short sighted councils and governments sold them off, the cost to reinstate them is far greater than it would’ve been if we preserved them. Don’t make the same mistake as we did.
*E M I N E N T D O M A I N*
@David I'd also add that when the Government decided to rid the UK of the land bank that the former railways created it managed another own goal.
For example, a farmer could purchased the two sections of land either side of a road, however they were allowed to say they did not wish to purchase the bridge (and section of track bed) that split the land in half. Or people could purchase every part of the land, apart from the viaduct that crossed the river.
What that means is that the UK tax payer pays for thousands of structures that it has no legal access to, or can ever use again, but has to keep repairs under taken on. A really poor state of affairs!
Daniel Field - Unfortunately we've already made that same mistake many, many, times. Our rail infrastructure is somewhat a shell of its former self. It's hard to predict the future but it seems that these abandonment actions are taken swiftly based on the moment without any foresight towards the future.
It appears to me that we have to solve the infrastructure and freight train problems first before we tackle HSR for passengers.
Remember, we’ve invested a lot into automobile travel and our culture is based upon it as well thanks to marketing and so called “modernity”. We need to not only restructure our infrastructure but also our thinking about mass transportation.
Train travel is pointless
When Amtrak tested the ICE 1 in the 90s the main problem was that apparently the US has some pretty shoddy/bumpy tracks.
It still does and that's the problem.
Yet they keep pushing for new rolling stock.
@@americanace96 Most modern US-locomotives are meant to handle it, it's mostly a factor limiting speeds.
For example, New York's new electric locomotive is a slightly modified Siemens Vectron/Smartron
Well, thanks to Uncle Sam, and other factors efficient passenger rail service has all but gone the way of the steam loco.
The current infrastructure of this nation's Railroads is sufficient for freight trains, not so much the passenger trains that use lines owned by freight hauling companies, like UP.
@@jed-henrywitkowski6470
Correction: _Passenger_ service has gone the way of the steam loco in the US, freight is as strong as ever. And you can blame the freight-hauling lines for that - in the US, a railroad's effectiveness is solely determined by the amount of freight it can move, rather than the amount of passengers like in Europe. Europe actually has the same problem with freight service that we do with passenger service.
American Rail: Hey what if our modern rails are actually slower and worse than like 100yr old rails
I'm a German and I'm living next to a railroad line that connects two medium-sized cities. In the 70s and 80s, seven lines that it was connected to were closed and abandoned with only one being kept in shape by volunteers. It's pretty sad to see the other ones rot away, especially while officials talk about how important the railway is without doing anything about it
Obsolete railways make great bicycling and hiking roads and highways, especially for e-bikes and e=scooters.
Very nice job in giving the amazing Chuck Walsh credit for his hard work in getting the Cut-Off documented. I’ve enjoyed all of his episodes. His daughter Larissa has done a fine job of videography.
Really enjoyed this episode of Armchair Urbanist. Thank you!
When I fly my plane east out of the Poconos' I always look down at the Cutoff and continue to be impressed by the engineering and scale of the structures.
The way the Lackawanna Cutoff was built, and it way it traverse the mountains in Northern NJ and Northeastern PA, one could easily say that it also served as a reference point in how the Interstate Highway System was built (itself based off of the German Autobahn and the original 110-mile section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike - the latter built on most of the abandoned South Pennsylvania RR right-of-way).
The interstate highway was built on a route Lackawanna rejected. But highways have unlimited funding of the Federal government so they picked it.
New York was building highways (then called “parkways”) years before the first autobahn.
@@ClockworksOfGL Yes like the West Side highway with a green strip in the middle that was the green in this parkway!
@@ClockworksOfGL yes but that’s not what the interstate highway system is based off
@@Westerner78, they _used_ to have unlimited funding. Now most of that goes to the welfare state and the over-bloated bureaucracy.
Remember when people built things because why not? I miss those days....
Hell, even when a modern project starts, people drag their feet and drag it out as long as possible. And then wonder why it costs so much....
People can still build things it's just not in the best interest of a few.
Some countries have learned to harness the private sector for the benefit of the masses, US on the other hand believes what's good for the billionaires is good for the people unfortunately.
I am amazed that this gentleman even won with his efforts considering the type of people and the big money he was fighting against.
@@davidemmyg
Not really.
When was it that "people built things because why not?"
@@JugSouthgate look up the Exposition Universelle and the World's Columbian Exposition, New York World's Fair etc.
@@Freshbott2 World's Fairs? Really?
I think another great example of a high speed alignment that's old is the Great Western Mainline in Britain, from London to Bristol. It was completed in 1841 and it was so straight and so level it was nicknamed "Brunel's billiard table". The line today sees trains going on it at 125mph and that's the max speed at most of the line.
And they could even do 140 mph, with in cab signalling......
@@mattevans4377 Are you sure about that? I rode the GWR between Bristol and Paddington a few times (new Hitachi trainsets) and at 125 mph you could feel some serious vibes (literally).
@@alexverdigris9939 Well, the class 43s could do 140 mph ;)
@@mattevans4377 Actually they could go faster, large sections of most of the UK mainlines are up to a standard that could support 150-160mph but, as you say, that would require more advanced signalling. The class 91 Intercity 225 was tested and achieved a speed of 162mph, although it was designed for up to 140mph running.
I used to live along that line when I was little and lived in the UK. The Box Tunnel is really cool, apparently Brunel aligned it such that the sun shines all the way through it on his birthday.
Kudos to Chuck for keeping up the fight after so many years. Must get discouraging after a while, but this makes me hopeful for the fate of big projects like this all over the country.
Dang son! You're drone skills make me jealous! Also, that vaporwave made legitimately lol. This is a fascinating piece of infrastructure that I knew nothing about. Fantastic video!
Also, I have it on good authority that Amtrak would routinely run 100 MPH plus in the early days through Nebraska. Too bad the northeast has all those pesky mountains lol
@@TheFourFoot oh yeah, there where so many places where speed was higher, back when we didn't care if doing 100mph on jointed rail was dangerous lol.
@@TheFourFoot That is what Tilt trains are for. And banked curves. The curves were flatten out to save money years ago.
@@alanthefisher It was all jointed at one time, there is NO danger. Infact it's safer than ribbon rail due to the sun kinks ribbon gets in the hot summers. That result in summer speed restrictions /
@@TheFourFoot Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah and other places. With 20 year old units E-8's
Well then, let's hope some day we see some Chargers or ACS-64s push-pulling a nice set of Venture cars up and down that beautiful viaduct at 110 mph.
Yeah, I guess I'm a dreamer. (But I'm not the only one), etc.
HSR actually allows for steeper grades (up to 4%), thanks to the inertia and the higher power to weight ratio!
I think you mean ‰ there 😂 this is also the reason why the HSR Köln-Rhein/Main in Germany is not used for freight train, it is just too steep.
@@martinum4Frankfurt - Köln has 40 ‰, check it out!
Steeper grades, but more gradual transitions in and out of those grades. You don't want to effectively turn your HSR network into a roller coaster.
But more gradual grade transition.
@@VestedUTuber Unless you do ;)
We need a part 2 this was so interesting
Very well made video. I live very close to the cutoff and would love to see it in service again.
Me too, even if I have ridden it 40 times! I was even on the last Phoebe Snow and Lake Cities.
Scranton? Joe’s going to like this.
He does love trains. And Scranton. So, yep, this is gonna probably get some federal funding
He needs wake up from his nap first.
I already talked to him, at a event last year about it. I also gave him a Lackawanna time table. Joe has ridden over the cut off in the past. Like I have . I think I have been over it up to 100mph when the train was late making up time.
@@Westerner78 Is that before or after Joe changes his Depends and has a bowl of lime jello?
@Joshua Halsted Amtrak before the virus had record demand only limited by services offered. There are reservations on ALL intercity trains to keep people from standing in the aisles. That is not allowed anymore. The cut back underfunded Amtrak has been this way for years. Why would Scranton to NY be any different that Portland (same size as Scranton and distance 113 miles vs 135 miles to Scranton?) Portland had 800,000 riders on the little Downeaster. First trains to run in 50 years. Track there was improved from 30mph to 79mph. Yes there would be demand, you know the development that has occurred in the Pocono's in 50 years! That is why there is all that traffic. It's houses and traffic instead of wild strawberry fields.
Let’s hope this gets used. The right of way is still there. Maybe some of the bridges might need to be replaced but the ridge is still good
I’m sure there are plenty of abandoned rail corridors that Amtrak could purchase to build a network exclusively for themselves. For example, the former CNW in and around Madison, Wisconsin could be rebuilt to serve passenger rail between Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and the Twin Cities. Additionally, former CNW right-of-ways could connect Milwaukee to Green Bay.
Definitely worth preserving the right of way. In the UK we cut a lot of lines in the 1960s and 1970s, decisions that were reasonable at the time, but building was allowed on the abandoned routes (the UK has more of a land shortage). Now, rail travel has expanded but we can't rebuild easily because of houses and other buildings obstructing the lines.
The downfall of the Cutoff was the collapse of Anthracite Coal as a home heating fuel. That's what created the wealth to build the cutoff in the first place. Without that it was just a railroad to nowhere.
Currently NS has filed to abandon the signaling on the second DL&W megaproject west of Scranton, the Nicholson Cutoff, so the economic rationale for the corridor has not improved.
The destruction of the coal industry has been one of the major contributing factors in making railway lines obsolete.
But passenger rail travel is increasing and people want to ride trains again. It's perceived as both a transportation option and a recreational activity. Coal freight may be dead, but passenger rail is rising from the dead. We even have some private companies trying to build high speed rail all over the country now!
Why do you need a signal 🚦 system for 2 trains 🚂 a day
@@dknowles60 The issue is that they bought a line with more traffic than that, then worked to kill it. The good news is that they have withdrawn the signal abandonment.
@@dknowles60 The Federal Railway Administration requires signals for trains running faster than 49 miles an hour.
Nice video!
Gentle-ish curves are still important in modern fast and high speed passenger rail, but gentle grades, not so much. Modern electric locomotives are relatively light and extremely powerful compared with steam and even modern diesel locomotives. They can deal with significant grades and still mange very high speeds.
Not power limited. Grip.
0.4 friction coefficient x locomotive weight / train weight gets you about 2% for a 20 car setup
Ehm. If we talk real high speed, rest-of-the-world-style high speed, grade is important. There is a reason why we dig all those base tunnels here in Europe.
@@appa609 the Frankfurt- Köln high speed line has 4% max grade with 300 km/h max speed. And it's possible to hold that speed over nearly the entire line.
where are you going to get the megawatts from. the north east has had a lot of blackouts
@@dknowles60Trains barely use any energy to operate
In the 1960's we took a class trip to Buffalo and Niagara Falls by train which went via the cutoff and Scranton when it was the EL. It was also a very scenic route. Later we moved to Sussex county and my Dad used the EL from Blairstown to NY to commute to his job until he retired. I hope NJT and Amtrak do revive it.
Thanks for the video. I was aware of this route and was told Conrail abandoned it and took up the track to help prevent a competing short line railroad from buying it and operating a competing service over the line. That is also why they looked to sell it to developers. If things were built on the right of way there would be little chance of it ever being used as a railroad again. Thanks to New Jersey buying it and considering expanding commuter service over the line it’s future is more secure to be returned to all types of passenger and even high speed freight service. The interstate highways even today are overloaded with both passenger cars and trucks in this area. So reopening the line makes more sense today than any time recently. We just need the political will and funding to make this happen.
That bridge is really cool nice video
The problem with the Cutoff is you can't get to it. In the old days the DL&W Railroad - owner of the Cutoff - had their main line running through Paterson in a fairly straight line from Hoboken (or New York) to the east end of the Cutoff, but that line has been removed, and paved over in part in the form of Interstate Route 80. So we are left with only one option currently, The Morris & Essex Line mentioned by Chuck as being part of the the original DL&W Main Line, which is circuitous and slow. The timetable only goes out to about 10 minutes before the Cutoff starts, but if you figure the time to get to Netcong on a different branch as being similar at about the same distance, it's 1 hour, 56 minutes. In order to have competative rail service to Scranton for instance - even to compete with the bus - you'd have to have something a lot quicker than that. I've examined a few options which involve upgrading and reinstating parts of some existing lines, to get it down to less than an hour, which still isn't very favorable as compared to driving right from you house if you're anywhere near Route 80. I've "published" a couple of these ideas on Facebook in seeing range of Chuck - including a couple of pie-in-the-sky speedy options, and he's as aware as I am about the improbability of ever getting something like that done. However, if you going to have competitive passenger service on the Cutoff it's a necessity.
Are you kidding? I guess you love route 80 becoming exactly what 46 and 611 are today...good greif!
@@williamoverton1548 No - total rail foamer, certified: Here's a link to one of my Cutoff Access solutions (If you can get past the screed about recent Montclair Terminal machinations ((there's an expediting link)) - www.rail-nyc-access.com/montclair-terminal
@@brucehain Lol, how is this guy both a rail advocate and someone who cares about there not being enough parking spots and housing developments having too much density?
@@TheLazySleeperLives
Not mutually exclusive problems - in fact, they're very much related. Not having enough open parking in areas with rail stations actually reduces ridership, since people who live too far away from the station won't be able to access it. Large, dense housing developments full of single-family homes make this problem worse due to how they sprawl out and increase distances between home and services, vs apartments and condos which keep everyone in close proximity to said service and mitigate the parking issue. It's basic systematics applied to urban design. Rail doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Can't you just use the Morristown and Montclair-Boonton Lines and only have the Lackawanna Service stop at certain stations and skip the rest. Pretty much how the Port Jervis Line only stops at Secaucus Junction, Ramsey Route 17, and Suffern along the Main and Bergen County Lines.
That's the joke of it all,. The USA HAD high speed rail.
The Lackawanna Cut-Off was the 0.5 version of high-speed grade separated and straight right of way, which was constructed many decades before Japan’s Ministry of Railways built the first Shinkansen or bullet train line.
I want my local rail line to be reopened for passenger use. This is the old Erie-Lackawanna Line stretching from Chicago to New York going through southern New York State.
I have always said that this is a neglected area that relies heavily on highways for everything. Trains would be especially good since most of the people who live in those small towns work in Buffalo, Rochester, and even Utica.
Also, it's kinda weird that the plant that produces the Acela II in Hornell, doesn't have some sort of passenger connection.
I just hope that as Buffalo City Terminal reopens, they will start to reopen old routes, and bring back the things that made train travel great in the first place.
That viaduct is a visually gorgeous piece of engineering.
7:59
Has anyone told you that some of your electric locomotives look like someone glued a pantograph to a diesel engine?
Some of them are, especially on lines that use both electrified and non-electrified track - I know there’s a few around NYC as the underground stations in the city typically require electric running but the trains run on non-electrified lines outside the city. I’m sure the specific locomotive you pointed out was a predecessor to the modern ones on a similar line.
Kind of like how European diesels look like electrics that went under a low bridge?
They certainly were ugly
From what I've read it was the Erie-Lackawanna's decision to sever the Boonton line, the high speed freight bypass of the Morristown line that fed the cutoff that doomed it under Conrail. Trains had to be able to handle the tighter curves and steeper grades of the feeder line negating the benefits of the cutoff, especially when Conrail had other options from the PRR and NYC. Hope it does get restored fully to service to Scranton and maybe one day even beyond. A rail connection would really benefit northeastern PA and the southern tier of NY.
The following is from one of the Lackawanna's "Phoebe Snow" ads advertising the cutoff:
Each cut and fill
Cross dale and hill
Has made the shortest
Shorter still.
I now delight
Like Arrow's flight
To speed o'er
Road of Anthracite
It would be worth talking about in a different video how many of these railroads didn't have much future planning beyond either "we'll merge with this other RR later", or "once we find a way to fiance this, we'll build it".
In many ways this initial planning or lack of, crippled them later on. And then eventually Conrail had to figure out the mess. And then the whole question begins on weather or not conrail did it right and if they where left to sort through scraps without help.
Great video. I've lived near the 3 mile fill my whole life and never knew of the history behind them. It's incredible to think they were man made.
Another example of how truly massive Penn Central was and how impactful it's failure was.
It was never Penn Central, it was the Delaware Lackawanna and Western railroad, later the Erie Lackawanna Railroad then torn up by Conrail.
@@joeynova3550 ah
We lived not far from this cut off line when I was a kid, I guess it was still in service then, but it was farther out than the nearest train station to our town, (Mt. Arlington), and I was clueless to any train lines west of that. I hope that they get this thing going again, and yeah, the thought of straight line high speed rail between NYC and Buffalo, and then on to Toronto is intriguing.
I remember going up to Newton on 206 and seeing this huge imposing but oddly straight hill directly in front of me. The road goes through this short tunnel and pops out the other side. I realized the "hill" was not part of the local topography but was indeed man-made. It's cool to find out what it is and what it was used for!
I love your content! I can't get out as much to explore the rails anymore so I appreciate stuff like this.
TF2, fpv, urbanism, and shit posts this truly is the optimum channel...
INJECT IT INTO MY VEINS!
Great video. I live not far south of the fill and have walked much of it. Have a spike I found sitting on my desk. The story of that fill is an amazing one, and I don't think anything like it could be done today. Imaging proposing to pile dirt three miles across a valley now! You'd be in court for 50 years. With respect to the deficiencies of the original line I've always read the major problem was not the extra distance but the bottleneck at Oxford getting over Tunnel Hill, and later through the single bore tunnel built beneath it.
I feel that if this would be restored, it would be something like the northeast corridor, it would be able to gain very high speeds for North American standards and possibly even reach true "high speed" status. I do hope that Amtrak would take over restoration and ownership of the cutoff, they could make some great passenger trains with this!
Near me, in Huntsville, a school was *buried* in the process of making that Pequest fill. My housemate showed me the historic photos of how they just erected this triangle-frame assembly of timbers and filled with dirt to make this enormous artificial ridge to create that very flat top the video explained. You'd think viaducts, but apparently in the long run a *solid* ridge like that is cheaper. Instead of mere underpasses, tunnels were bored under it for roads, railroads, and watercourse to pass north-south. Impressive!
One of the old rail tunnels is being used as storage space by NVE since it adjoins their lot at Airport and Whitehall Roads, while the others are still active roads (e.g. US 206), rail trail, and the Pequest River. I don't know what they did to the Pequest during the time they were building the ridge line and before they bored the tunnel for it; probably they'd've diverted it around where they were building that part, then bored the tunnel to reconnect it, then built over where they'd temporarily diverted it.
I've got to get up on that thing some time, maybe this summer, before they fence it off to re-lay track.
So when you live in the US, a more than 100 years old bridge needs to teach you about high speed rail? made my day!
The closure of the old Boonton Line East of Wayne could also be attributed to the closure. This moved all traffic over to the Erie Greenwood Lake Branch until Mountain View where it switched onto the Boonton Line which connects to the M&E in Denville and continues to Port Morris where the cutoff split off. The gradients after this closure were detrimental to the line as it meant it was just easier for the EL and Conrail to run up the Erie line entirely. They then sold off the route North of Scranton which was a continuation of the Lackawanna's route that involved a similar cutoff to the Delaware and Hudson. This all now seems like a waste of perfectly good railroad, but it overall was just to turn the railroads into sustainable entitys.
My grandfather and great grandfather worked for the Lackawanna RR. I’m pro-Scranton. However, unless Scranton becomes a business, education, or tourist hub, there’s no compelling reason to connect the city with Hoboken and the rest of northern New Jersey via passenger train. Realistically, MORE people could use the Lackawanna cutoff for recreation and exercise than commutation. I was on top of the cutoff last week. Tree cutting and stone dust are all that’s needed to make the cutoff ready for running, biking, and equestrian use. The cutoff would make a great addition to the network of rail trails in NJ.
The hope is that by reopening the line to Scranton, it will make the city desirable, as it would now be possible to commute into the New York City area. I agree on your perspective of biking though, although I value passenger rail just a bit more. Perhaps the ROW could be shared? Other rail-trails already exists that use the same ROW as active rail. Restoring the line will take time, and they haven't announced plans yet to go further than Andover. Putting in a bike trail would allow for the rest of the line to be prepared for when service is eventually restored, while also allowing recreational use of the ROW in the mean time.
@Pot Black There's no major manufacturing industry in Scranton or any near-by region.
Amtrak can't even turn a profit despite all the subsidies it gets as a Government Sponsored Corporation.
This cutoff reminds me of an abandoned corridor through the Ottawa Valley in Ontario, Canada that bypasses Toronto. Both CN and CP abandoned a route and ripped out their lines that were both transcontinental routes. One of those routes should be restored and used by multiple carriers including passenger service. If the Lackawanna cutoff is being considered for reinstatement, the Ottawa Valley route should be considered at some point
I really hope that viaduct doesn't get demolished, awe inspiring structure. of course it would be great to see a modern high speed line going over it...
With it being owned by NJT and NJDOT i highly doubt it. In fact it'll probably be refurbished like the Roseville Tunnel.
Love that place, grew up in the area and have visited nearly all of the cutoff's features over the years.
Having trained around Europe on highspeed rail, at 185mph, I would love to see it in the USA. However... as long as the petrochemical industry controls our government, I cannot see that happening any time soon. You can see them trying to throw restrictions on EV's and by looking at how the funding in the pending infrastructure bill is allocated.
Or in the case of the california rail to nowhere, political corruption and embezzlement
How much ridership could this line generate?
Scranton is a sad, sad city. One of the greatest rail roading cities without a single train running through it.
Scranton-Wilkes Barre was built on the anthracite coal industry. When the demand for anthracite went away, there were serious hard times there.
@@JugSouthgate What killed the trains was loss of mail. The last train the Lake Cities ran at night because mail moved at night. The day train the Phoebe Snow was very popular but with out that mail revenue it was hopeless.
In the 1970's ALL THE EASTERN RAILROADS IN THE NORTHEAST CORRIDOR WENT BANKRUPT ALL OF THEM! The answer was CONJOB
@@Westerner78 I know, I was there and saw it happen. Conrail was the solution.
The problems went all the way back to about 1929.
@@JugSouthgate Conrail should never have happened. Many of these railroads went broke before and they were not ripped up. This time was different. Bond holder which by the 1970's were only the brokerage houses and banks wanted their money! They wanted NO competition to raise rates. And kind of a Government bailout. Conjob stole every dollar they could from passenger operators too including Amtrak. Those bonds trading for nothing paid off at face value a 1000 dollars a bond. It was in the Tens of millions of dollars.
You can see another bridge like it in Sidney Ohio, The Big Four Bridge.
One thing that can definitely be done for the Lackawanna Cutoff is for it to be Electrified. Electric passenger & freights. It is what is needed.
The reason why this corridor was abandoned isn’t complicated. It was basic de-population and de-industrialization of the rust belt. Heavy industry moved out if the Delaware, Lockawanna valleys, the NY Southern Tier and the Erie Canal areas and that whole region consistently lost need for rail, passenger first, then freight. While there was substantial population growth in the Poconos since the early 2000’s, enough to justify commuter service from NYC to that area, there is still ZERO need for Amtrak regional service to the area. The population isn’t there. Bringing Amtrak to Scranton was simply a political promise of Biden to get back the Pennsylvania vote that was lost to Trump before.
The most lavish rail infrastructure is a drop in the ocean compared to what we're spending just keeping highways from falling to pieces. Build the train.
What's worse is we had a pretty nice passenger rail infrastructure that was left to rot and now we're tearing them up to build bike trails.
Now if we're talking about reopening rail lines in jersey, I'd love to see a route back down to cape may 🥴
Oh that's a story for another episode! But I do mention that in my Philly episode....
@@alanthefisher oh damn!? I'll go take a look at that right now!
You mean extending the North Jersey Coast Line?
@@davidfrischknecht8261 I guess you can put it like that, yeah.
@@surplusplanet5481 no the NJCL ends on a barrier island. The easiest way to get to cape may by rail today would be from NYC/NEWARK run the line on the NEC make a left @Monmouth junction, make a right @ farmingdale, thru Lakewood, thru the Wharton St. Forrest all the way to Winslow Jct. and then continue on via abandonded ROWs to Cape May. Sadly, not gonna happen
At age 10 my father had legal business in Buffalo and he did work as a lawyer for this rail line so he took me on the overnight from NY area to Buffalo I still remember that the gravy at dinner was best I ever had , the beef was great too ! This was in the 1950 s
In my 70 s now but I still remember that trip .
Hopefully you will be able to take this train again
Railroad right of ways should NEVER be retired. Too hard to put back.
They should be rail banked. Turned into bicycle and walking paths and roads until required for other uses.
@@stuarthirsch rail bank is better than letting them go, but can be just as problematic. People will fight their walking trails being turned into railroads. Which ultimately is the same issue. This happened in Ohio when the NS allowed so double track to be singled and turned into trails, the local government concreted he path, which the rail did not want. So NS came back and put a fence around several miles of right of way to stop the trespassing. Best of intensions, wrong result.
Update: Amtrak completed a study aimed at potentially reviving rail service to Scranton via this exact same cutoff. They estimate that upgrades to the PNRRA segment could cost 100 million to 175 million (The cost of rebuilding the remainder of the Lackawanna cutoff has yet to be determined), while buying two or three new Airo trains for the line could cost between 70 million & 90 million. Amtrak also wants to run trains as fast as 110 MPH on the rebuilt cutoff, so if that goes to plan, we could see a 110 MPH rebuilt Lackawanna Cutoff line in the near future.
Amtrak wants to purchase and reactivate the former and now defunct Mainline of the Central Railroad Of New Jersey.
Great to see that this historic line will be brought back into use! Especially that rather impressive viaduct!
Kind of reminds me of the old high speed Great Central line in the UK, sadly parts of the old line have now been completely built over, but part of it does run as a heritage railway.
Says Phoebe Snow about to go upon a trip to Buffalo: "My gown stays white from morn till night upon the Road of Anthracite."
7:50 Caramelldansen from another room! XD
Can confirm. Trains must slow when there are tight turns.
On flat curves
When Steamtown moved from Bellows Falls, Vermont to Scranton, PA. they brought their collection of steam locomotives with them. One of them was Union Pacific Big Boy no. 4012. They posed it atop the NIcholson viaduct in 1985 in the middle of the bridge and above the name LACKAWANNA R. R. Tunkhannok, although not part of the cutoff is much, much larger than the Paulinskill viaduct. Believe it or not there were plans to run the Big Boy on the 28.5 miles of the cutoff from Scranton before ConRail lifted the rails.
🤔
No I don't think so. They had so many issues bringing the big boy here. It derailed multiple times due to the curvature.
I actually had the opportunity to see the cut off in operation abandoned now refurbished. Interesting times we live in.
Who gives a thumbs down..sheesh. nice video- from W-KS
Former Lackawanna! I wish those ALP-44s sitting at the Lackawanna cutoff near Morristown yard would be reactivated
I've driven under that man-made fill many times taking NJ-94 from Vernon Township to its interchange with I-80 near the PA border.
Thats a very hilly part of nj. It made sense to keep it flat. You would be going up and down constantly without it. I hope they restart service to Scranton on it
An interesting story. I personally enjoy trains, especially high-speed rail, I've experienced many rail systems in Europe (Spain, Italy, France, Netherlands). It is a great way to travel fast. Regarding the Lackawanna Cutoff, it would be awesome to have a high speed rail link from New York City (NYC) to Buffalo, this could be pitched to the tourist market for Canadian travellers wanting an alternative travel mode to NYC. There is a big NYC tourist market in Southern Ontario! Wish everyone the best of luck to make this happen. Let's hope this initiative is not bogged down under the false believe that this is just another socialist idea, don't let the vocal few who love to complain and turn down this a good idea.
Americans want any speed on the few trains we have left.
7:48 - To Conrail, this ' Lackawanna Cutoff' line was built to serve passenger trains better, and did not have enough freight customers to serve. .. ??
7:51 caramelldansen :o
The demonic version of Caramelldansen when the intro of Conrail plays never gets old.
Private corporations only have short term profit as a goal.
The Cutoff was built by private corporations.
@@JugSouthgate that was during Stakeholder Capitalism, business looked to improve the community it operated in. We now have Shareholder Capitalism which is only concerned with profits over the next quarter.
@@odb_roc_hound4186 well, sort of. When the Cutoff was built, the only competition railroads had was other railroads. And The Government hadn't yet built major roads for the few autos that were around back then.
The New York Central had a profitable passenger business in New York State into the 1950s. And then the New York State Thruway opened, and their passenger business started losing money big time because people had cars and drove everywhere. This happened all over the USA. The Interstate Highway System and the airlines took the passenger business, and the trucks took much of the freight business, particularly the smaller/lighter loads.
@@JugSouthgate Lackawanna Railroad of New Jersey built it. Bonds were sold and in the 1970's the Erie Lackawanna couldn't pay the bond interest. Which bankrupted them. Assets were sold to pay the face value of bonds that were worthless before. Con rail brought the east end of the railroad for 600 million dollars. The west end was sold off or ripped up.
@@JugSouthgate What killed train after train, was the loss of US Mail revenue. When it went to trucks it was over. The last mail across the country was in Oct 1967. That bankrupted the whole private rail system. Underfunded cut back Amtrak was the result. 600 trains were dropped the first day. Some trains running with 40 cars like the UP Cities trains were dropped. Because the decline was to continue. Not have record ridership like 2019 had.
It will never truly be high speed rail unless you find another way of going from East Stroudsburg up to Mount Pocono. But NJT has purchased stations along the line to Tobyhanna to start commuter service to the city. Also the line is single tracked up the mountain and all the way to Scranton.
Hopefully it will be electrified instead of using diesel
I like that thumbnail and all . But the time the ALC-42's actually replaces all the p42's venture cars will fully replace horizons and anfleets
USA train enthusiast thinks of the awesome railroad no longer in use.
Me - laughs in Indian, Japanese, Russian, and Chinese
It's pretty in that area at all times of the year. Great footage!
I lived in Tobyhnna PA. There was always talk of getting this line back up and running to Scranton. I heard that some of it was running again.
I grew up 5 miles from this viaduct. It’s a great piece of engineering
Not a hundred years ago. Closer to 150 years. Brunel's GWR London to Bristol was built as flat, straight and low slope as possible. These have the widest flattest brick arch bridge every built just west of London. The idea bridge the gap across river with no change in elevation. This was started from London in the 1840s. These methods were used all the way to Bristol and (later) beyond.
I wish they would restore passenger railroads between the Hudson Valley of New York and Scranton, PA.
the Cutoff was a hell of a road, New York to Scranton or all the way to Buffalo over the old Phoebe Snow schedule with some adjustments to help with how the Erie's the road into Buffalo could be a nice trip, and a good addition to the long distance services around that whole route for NY-Buff.
Another thing to take note is that the Cutoff wasn't most notable swept down by the PC collapse, but also due to how after the EL merger, more traffic was shifted over the Erie than the old DL&W, which made more sense since the Erie had the better way out of Jersey. the Cutoff was good, but rarely needed by the time Agnes hit in 1972.
As someone who lives in a town directly on the old Erie-Lackawanna train route, looking back and seeing what my area of NY used to have and now it's been forgotten is just a massive blackpill. Having friends located in other areas of NY that can take passenger trains along the I-90 is nice, but having no direct line from the Southern Tier to anywhere else in New York, or even Pennsylvania and New Jersey makes it difficult and practically forces Upstate NY residents to drive everywhere for commutes / travel when 60 - 100 years ago we had the Road of Anthracite at our leisure.
It also helps that I genuinely love trains and knowing I live in a once great area for train travel, and having it in ruins it just bittersweet I guess
It might be worthwhile to make it a passenger *and* freight line. In many ways I think rebuilding the freight infrastructure would bring more benefits, even though passenger travel is more visible, poetic & romantic. Especially if we built more localized container transfer points (the biggest problem being the transfer on & off of containers without large structures, and making smaller container options for localized deliveries).
A major problem for nice rails, is also track maintenance which usually gets down graded.
Interesting video! I had seen the viaduct on another RUclips video but didn't know about the Fills, et al. I love knowledgeable history guys like Chuck.
I feel like we need a dedicated hours-long video of just conrail to vaporwave carameldansen
It's not carameldansen, but you're in luck
ruclips.net/video/pwWr_ManIzg/видео.html
Great lesson. Really hope they can reuse that section, cheaper than new.
The Lackwanna Cutoff that is being re-instated, must also be electrified at 25KV 60 HZAC from Dover NJ to Scranton PA.
Learning you can fly fpv took you from one of my favorite RUclipsrs to my favorite
I'm citing this in a paper, thanks for studyign the topic and sparking interest!
So does that mean the Radisson Lackawanna Hotel will once again be used as a train station, too? Because that would be awesome.
Preserving right-of-ways is a good idea for the future, whether for recreation or transit.
I've been biking around the Lackawanna Cutoff for 30 years without knowing what it was.
Oh snap.. Discussion of urban planning and fpv.. Just subbed
Nice feature , Sharing this to my FB Group , " Amtrak Southern Tier Service".