Lackawanna Excursion Train Route

[pajrr]

Hi, I just saw an ad for a special train excursion from 1911. It was a Lackawanna trip from Scranton, PA to Atlantic City, NJ. The trip was advertised as a through train. The fare was $5.65 from Scranton. Dos anyone know how the train  would have gotten to Atlantic City from Scranton?

[MidlandMike]

I might guess that they could have used the connection with the PRR at Manunka Chunk, NJ, along the Delaware River a little south of the Water Gap.  The PRR line followed the River down to Trenton and beyond.

[Overmod]

Mike (or others) -- where did the DL&W Old Road actually interchange with the BelDel?

I was born JUST too late to see traffic on either that part of the Old Road or the part of the BelDel north of its cramped little Rt 46 bridge -- I think it was Hurricane Diane that "did the business" for both lines in that area.  For years we drove under the substantial (and low) double-track bridge -- the concrete viaduct just south of which remains! -- and then curved around to the river to run parallel to the elevated grade and substantial stone arches of the ex-PRR, on the way to Wilkes-Barre (via 611 and Brodheadsville before Rt. 80 was built to the intersection with 115).  Gradually each of those bridges was 'daylighted' and removed as road traffic increased, and now there is almost no trace that a railroad ran there...

[Firelock76]

OK, I went into the archives here at the "Fortress Firelock" and pulled out a First World War era map of New Jersey, which has the rail lines on it.  With the aid of a magnifying glass I've found what was the possible route.

On the Lackawanna, from Scranton PA to Manunka Chunk NJ, there was a connection with the PRR there in those days.  Down the PRR on the east side of the Delaware River (must have been really scenic back then, probably not too much different from Washington's time) to Camden, then east on the PRR to Winslow Junction, then east again, a straight shot on the (then) Atlantic City Railroad. 

Later the Reading and the PRR went "halfies" on the ACRR and it became the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Line, but that was after the 1911 excursion.

I'm from New Jersey originally and honestly I'd never heard of Manunka Chunk until I became a railfan.  Sounds to me like a good name for a candy bar, although I think it's an Indian name that translates as "hungry bear."  The town's still there on Route 46, between Bridgeville and (the town of) Delaware.

There were other ways a Lackawanna train could have gotten to AC, but they would have been pretty convoluted compared to the above route.

[MidlandMike]

Overmod

Mike (or others) -- where did the DL&W Old Road actually interchange with the BelDel?

I was born JUST too late to see traffic on either that part of the Old Road or the part of the BelDel north of its cramped little Rt 46 bridge -- I think it was Hurricane Diane that "did the business" for both lines in that area.  For years we drove under the substantial (and low) double-track bridge -- the concrete viaduct just south of which remains! -- and then curved around to the river to run parallel to the elevated grade and substantial stone arches of the ex-PRR, on the way to Wilkes-Barre (via 611 and Brodheadsville before Rt. 80 was built to the intersection with 115).  Gradually each of those bridges was 'daylighted' and removed as road traffic increased, and now there is almost no trace that a railroad ran there...

 

My SPV railroad atlas shows the PRR line to the junction with DL&W at Manunka Chunk, NJ.  The map indicates it was abandoned in the PC era, however, my 1965 Official Guide shows the PRR line ending at Belevidere.  Hurricane Diane would put it before 1955.  The line to MC shows on older (1:250,000?) USGS maps.

http://www.mytopo.com/maps/?lat=40.8645&lon=-75.04582&z=11

If you + the scale, you will see the location of Manunka Chunk.  I don't know if the actual interchange of cars took place at the junction, if that is what you are asking.

[Overmod]

The topo map answers part of what I needed to know.

The actual track layout where the L&HR came off the BelDel and crossed the Old Road was in Buttzville on your topo map, and the map does not at all describe the physical reality there.  The Old Road at that point was elevated on bridges (over the creek, the L&HR, and Rt. 46); in fact, there was a traffic light and major junction UNDER the double-track bridge at that point -- and usually a horrific traffic jam which gave me more time to look at the bridge and 'hope for a train'.  The L&HR was DRAMATICALLY lower, down in the creek ... so far down that you were surprised to find it there if you didn't expect it.

Note where the BelDel is indicated to cross Rt. 46 on the map -- this is part of what was destroyed by Diane.  So if the junction of the line coming up to the BelDel as the remaining piece of the Old Road is where I see it, north of that point, the connection would have been severed and that piece of the Old Road abandoned around that time.  (The section of Rt. 46 has been tremendously widened out and improved at that point, and you would never know even walking it today that a railroad grade had gone through there.)

I understand that the PRR regularly switched the powerplant at Martins Creek until sometime in 1957 (I have, somewhere, a dated picture of an early Geep on the short bridge over the Delaware into the plant grounds).  I remember traffic on the L&HR (with, of all things, a Jersey Central RS unit!) which had to have connected with the line in Belvidere, and that was probably the effective terminus of the BelDel at that time except perhaps for local service a bit north.

[timz]

Turns out the PRR passenger train from East Stroudsburg to Trenton ended in 1952. It was then Sunday-and-holidays-only -- leave Trenton in the morning to connect to the DL&W westward train, return in the afternoon.

The Bel-Del book says Belvidere-Manunka Chunk was abandoned 1955-- so far I haven't seen a mention of how Diane was involved.