{"id":1093,"date":"2012-03-20T08:22:08","date_gmt":"2012-03-20T12:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mattforsyth.com\/?page_id=1093"},"modified":"2016-05-26T22:31:27","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T02:31:27","slug":"penn-division-history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/mattforsyth.com\/?page_id=1093","title":{"rendered":"Penn Division History"},"content":{"rendered":"

About the D&H Penn Division:<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/h2>\n

The D&H\u00a0Penn Division ran from its connection with the PRR (Pennsylvania Railroad)\u00a0at Buttonwood Yard in Wilkes-Barre, PA, 70 miles north to a connection with the Erie Railroad’s mainline at Jefferson Junction near Lanesboro, PA,\u00a0and continuing north, eventually\u00a0merged\u00a0with the D&H’s own \u00a0Susquehanna Division at Nineveh, NY., 23 miles later (a total distance of 93 miles from Wilkes-Barre to Nineveh).<\/p>\n

FYI, the border and header colors used on this site (medium gray-green and dark green) are examples of the actual D&H Steam-era two-tone Company colors, that would have\u00a0been used to paint stations, towers, \u00a0freight houses, water tanks,\u00a0yard offices, etc. The orchre yellow header and trim color repesent that\u00a0color as used to letter the sides of steam loco tenders\u00a0and early diesel loco hoods, as well as the striping that was applied to both types of locomotive cabs. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

In its day,\u00a0the D&H Penn\u00a0Division (Erie Jefferson\u00a0Division)\u00a0boasted one of the longest grades in the\u00a0Eastern U.S., and a\u00a0never ending parade\u00a0of pushers were used to get heavy coal and merchandise tonnage out\u00a0of the\u00a0anthracite fields of the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valleys, up over the summit\u00a0of Ararat Mountain, and on to upstate New York, New England and eventually\u00a0Montreal,\u00a0Canada. Hoppers full of hard and soft coal were the primary northbound commodities, destined for the towns and cities of New England and Canada,\u00a0with boxcars of Canadian newsprint, bound for the major metorpolitan regions along the\u00a0eastern\u00a0seaboard,\u00a0coming south.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Erie Railroad actually owned the trackage from Lanesboro to Carbondale. The D&H leased that portion of the line from the Erie, had running rights,\u00a0\u00a0and performed all the track maintenance. Erie and D&H trains plied the rails together, both operating under D&H rules, and the authority of the D&H\u00a0dispatcher at Carbondale.\u00a0The\u00a0D&H ran one scheduled symbol freight every hour, either north or south (approx. 24 trains a day), with the Erie running 3-5 trains per day [one northbound (AY-91)\u00a0and one southbound (AY-78)\u00a0scheduled symbol freights, and 2-3 coal-extras].<\/p>\n

The\u00a0north and southbound ruling grades to the top of the summit at Ararat were not the steepest in the U.S., but what\u00a0they lacked in slope, they made up for in length. The northbound grade from the yard at Carbondale, PA to the top of Ararat\u00a0averaged a continuous 1.2 to 1.4%, but was\u00a019 miles in length!!! The stiffer southbound grade, from Cascade Wye near Lanesboro,\u00a0PA to the top of Ararat is 1.3 to 1.5%, and is 17 miles long.<\/p>\n

Typical trains from both companies were on average 90 to 110 cars. On the\u00a0Erie, the southbound symbol from Susquehanna Yard\u00a0was mostly empties\u00a0and would rate just two locomotives. Usually a huge R-2 or R-3 class, 2-10-2\u00a0 Santa Fe, and a large 2-8-2 Mike. Both locos were\u00a0placed on the head end of the train (no pushers) with four to six cars in between. The reason for this (per the D&H Employee Timetable)\u00a0was the weight restrictions on the Little Starrucca(Buck Creek) steel viaduct, just south of the village of Starrucca. Northbound was a different story, especially with all cars loaded.\u00a0Typical power would be a 2-10-2 on the point, with one, two or even three\u00a0massive S-Class 2-8-4 Berkshires pushing, and sometimes a fourth loco in the form of an extra 2-10-2.<\/p>\n

On\u00a0D&H trains, a southbounder\u00a0would rate a 4-6-6-4 Challenger on the front, and\u00a0another one on the rear, sometimes supplemented with an\u00a00-8-8-0, or one of their giant 2-8-0’s.\u00a0 North was the\u00a0BIG\u00a0push, with a 4-6-6-4 on the head head, and one, two, or\u00a0three more 4-6-6-4’s on the rear, and one additional locomotive tagged onto the back of the caboose, that ran with the train from the yard at Carbondale, and dropped off at Forest City. This\u00a0tail-end helper\u00a0was known as the “Forest City Kicker”.<\/p>\n

Day in and day out the\u00a0D&H\u00a0and Erie operated trains up and down this\u00a0line until its abandonment in the early 1980’s. The entire line saw passenger service from the D&H until 1928, and the Erie until 1931.\u00a0D&H passenger service, known as the “Miner’s Local” \u00a0continued on the southern end of the line from Scranton to\u00a0Carbondale\u00a0and return, until January of 1952.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

A Change in Ownership:<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

Anthracite coal production in Pennsylvania hit its peak in the late 1920’s, but large quantities of coal were still being mined in the Lackawanna and Wyoming\u00a0Valleys of PA\u00a0from the ’30’s well\u00a0into the 50’s and beyond. Bituminous coal production, however, in the rest of the eastern U.S. did not peak until the middle 50’s. The Erie, who owned the line as far south as Carbondale,\u00a0 had no connection with the PRR on the southern end, as did the D&H. In the ’50’s, the PRR was still supplying the D&H at Wilkes-Barre with large quantites of soft coal, mined from Western PA, Maryland, and West Virginian, that needed to be transported to the markets in New England and Canada.<\/p>\n

As anthracite mining in the valley continued to dwindle, and more and more of its transportation went over to trucks, the Erie\u00a0found that\u00a0having a\u00a0coal-hauling R.R. presence in the heart of Anthracite Country (Avoca, PA)\u00a0was becoming far less lucrative.\u00a0 And even though the 1950’s were\u00a0an industrial and manufacturing\u00a0boom-time for many other regions of the US, the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre area\u00a0saw little of that new-found prosperity.<\/p>\n

With loads dropping off, and revenues diminsishing, the Erie decided to rid itself of the Jefferson Division. Even though the\u00a0Jefferson Division offered a nearly direct connection (running rights\u00a0on a portion of the D&H)\u00a0from Avoca to the Erie’s Delaware Division Mainline at Susquehanna, their Wyoming Division trackage, that\u00a0ran directly from Avoca to\u00a0the Delaware Division Mainline at Lackawaxen,\u00a0PA was still in-place, active and well maintained.<\/p>\n

In 1954 the Erie made an offer to the D&H to purchase the Jefferson Division outright. The D&H agreed, and in 1955, ownership of “the Jeff” was transferred to the D&H, at a price of 3.5 million dollars. The Erie was still able to retain trackage rights, and\u00a0had the right to service the local customers still on the line at Forest City,\u00a0Thompson, and Starrucca.<\/p>\n

In the next couple of years, the D&H would tear out the old mechanical semaphores, interlocking and signal system, and would install new CTC and modern searchlight signals. By 1960 the tower operators at BS (Burnwood South), YD (Ararat), and MR (Stevens Point)\u00a0would also be eliminated. A small “shack” at JN, that serviced the connection to the Erie’s mainline at Jefferson Junction would be maintained and manned by the Erie.<\/p>\n

Bridge traffic from the PRR and other connections, handed to the D&H\u00a0at Wilkes-Barre was\u00a0continuing to\u00a0decline all though the late ’50’s and into the ’60’s.\u00a0The Erie’s Jefferson Division, now owned by the D&H was renamed the D&H Jefferson Branch. The Division had been double tracked all its life, but the decline in traffic meant that double tracking was no longer needed. After the installation of cTc (Centralized Traffic Control) and in\u00a0an\u00a0effort to save money on both maintenance and taxes to the Commonwealth of PA, the D&H single tracked a large portion of the Jefferson Branch in 1959.<\/p>\n

Final Disposition:<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

With its\u00a0never-ending\u00a0maintenance requirements due to having been originally built through a swampy area, and with excessive groundwater run-off causing on-going troubles with errosion of the railbed, abandonment of the Penn\u00a0began in 1981, shortly after the D&H\u00a0purchased the old DL&W\u00a0Scranton-to-Binghamton mainline. Thereafter, the\u00a0Company quickly downgraded the Penn, and\u00a0started sending Wilkes-Barre trains over this\u00a0newly acquired\u00a0line.\u00a0However, not all traffic was\u00a0re-routed to the old DL&W\u00a0until 1982.<\/p>\n

By the end of 1982, all traffic had been diverted off the Penn and as a result, the rails between Carbondale and Stevens Point were torn up, severing the link between the D&H’s Susquehanna Division in New York State, \u00a0and the southern half of Penn Division in PA. \u00a0The line from Nineveh, NY\u00a0to Stevens Point, PA\u00a0remained in\u00a0place and was used for High-Wide loads\u00a0that\u00a0were too large to\u00a0pass through the Binghamton-to-Albany Susquehanna Division’s tunnel near Belden Hill, NY, re-routing these loads to Stevens point, and up the Erie’s Jefferson Connection to the Erie Main and on to Binghamton and points west.\u00a0\u00a0In 1986, after the rebuilding of the Belden Tunnel, Guilford Corporation (who had purchased the D&H)\u00a0tore up the remaining trackage from Stevens Point \u00a0to Nineveh, as well as removing several bridges.\u00a0 And so ended the Penn Division in its entirety.<\/p>\n

Today, the tracks from Nineveh, NY to Carbondale PA and almost all the structures are gone, but the visible roadbed remains.\u00a0A single track, from\u00a0Carbondale south,\u00a0through the towns, of Mayfield, Peckville, Archbald, Dickson City, and\u00a0points south\u00a0remains. It is owned by the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley Rail Authority, and operated by the Delaware-Lackawanna R.R., a local, 85 mile shortline owned by the Genesee Valley Transportation Corp. D-L hauls a lot of crushed stone and sand to Carbondale, that is then used by many of the natural gas drilling outfits that are operating in the Marcellus Shale in Wayne, Susquehanna, Wyoming, Bradford, Tioga, and Lycoming Counties. \u00a0Those rails also seen an occasional excursion from Steam Town in Scranton to Carbondale, or the annual “Santa Express”.<\/p>\n

Over the last decade\u00a0the stretch of railbed between Forest City,\u00a0PA north to the New York\u00a0State border above Lanesboro has\u00a0been acquired by the Rail-Trail Council of Northeastern PA. The Council, through private donations and state and federal grants has been improving and restoring the railbed surface, converting the old line into a recreational trail. Although no longer hosting high-speed Challenger-powered freights, the old D&H Penn Division still lives on\u00a0though this re-purposing project.<\/p>\n

Through my “O” scale (P:48)\u00a0efforts, it is my intention to bring the D&H Penn Division\/Erie Jefferson Division, back to life as an historical, operating railroad display in 1\/4″ scale (1:48), as it would have existed in the late summer of 1952.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About the D&H Penn Division: The D&H\u00a0Penn Division ran from its connection with the PRR (Pennsylvania Railroad)\u00a0at Buttonwood Yard in Wilkes-Barre, PA, 70 miles north to a connection with the Erie Railroad’s mainline at Jefferson Junction near Lanesboro, PA,\u00a0and continuing north, eventually\u00a0merged\u00a0with the D&H’s own \u00a0Susquehanna Division at Nineveh, NY., 23 miles later (a total […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1093","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattforsyth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattforsyth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattforsyth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattforsyth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattforsyth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1093"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/mattforsyth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1553,"href":"http:\/\/mattforsyth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1093\/revisions\/1553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattforsyth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}