(erielack) Group discusses past and future of Lackawanna Cutoff

["J. Henry Priebe Jr." <root_@_net.bluemoon.net>]

Here's another article from the NJ Herald regarding the cut-off:

http://www.njherald.com/secure_story/359628520224369.php

Henry


Group discusses past and future of Lackawanna Cutoff

Wednesday, October 19, 2005
By JACLYN KOSAKOWSKI 

Herald Staff Writer 

GREEN — Many Sussex and Warren county residents are nostalgic about what Greendell resident Bill Swinson said was once the "fastest and best railroad in the east" — the Erie Lackwanna Cutoff. 

The cutoff, which county officials want to see back in operation, was the subject of reminiscing during Monday night's meeting of the Green Township Historical Society. 

Many have mixed feelings about putting the line back in operation. While some residents hope the railroad is rebuilt, others fear a lack of passenger interest will lead it to become a freight-only line. 

"I think it will eventually start up again," said Swinson, the society's guest speaker. 

Swinson spoke about his father, who was the first station agent in Greendell around 1912; what the trains were like growing up in the mid-1900s; and the village of Greendell that surrounded the train station. 

"My mother couldn't drive," Swinson said. "We'd take the 9 a.m. train to Dover and go shopping and then come back in the afternoon. You could get from Dover to Blairstown in less than two hours, and you can't do that now," he said, referring to the traffic on Interstate 80. 

Built between 1909 and 1912, the Lackawanna Cutoff stopped at Blairstown, Johnsonburg and Greendell. It cut right through the mountains and created a straighter path than the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, or DL&W lines. 

"They called it the cutoff because most railroads are designed to go with the curveature of the land," Township Committeewoman Dede Esenlohr said. "This one went straight through." 

The steam train hit speeds of about 65 to 70 mph and carried milk and coal from Scranton, Pa., through farm towns in New Jersey, to New York City. There was a creamery and an ice house right down the road from the station and farmers would bring their cans of milk to the creamery by horse and carriage. 

Charles Swinson, Bill's father, sold tickets and handled freight among his duties as a station agent. The station closed in the 1930s, but would still pick up passengers at a flag stop. 

"That's when someone held up a flag and the train stopped for passengers," Swinson said. 

A few residents remembered when the train derailed and spilled a bunch of frozen pigs on the ground. 

"I still remember those pigs," said Glenn Wershing, vice president of the Green Township Historical Society. "They were beautiful. Nice and white." 

Residents also remembered the Phoebe Snow, a luxury passenger train that was built soon after the Lackawanna Cutoff and used the same tracks. 

"We were all at the station when the last train went through," Esenlohr said about the last Phoebe Snow train in 1970. "We put pennies on the track." 

Esenlohr and Swinson believe that if the government were to rebuild the line, there would not be enough interest to make it a passenger train. Most of the people who would get on here work around Morristown and once they get there, they have no transportation to get to their businesses, Esenlor said. 

"Its purpose would be to take trucks off the highway," she said. 

Wershing, on the other hand, would like to see the line rebuilt, although he believes the train would stop in Andover and Blairstown, not Greendell. 

"We're hoping that they get a station in Green Township," Wershing said. "We were connected at one time and we hope to get that way again sometime." 

The decision to rebuild the rail line is still in its early stages. The purpose of Monday's meeting was to share memories of the cutoff, not discuss its future. 

"If you don't have history, you can't build a good, sound future," Esenlohr said.



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