Lackawanna Old Road - The Old Road

The Old Road

After it lost mainline status, the Old Road was used primarily as a branch line for local freight shipments. The Old Road regained its former mainline status temporarily in 1941 when a massive rockslide on the Lackawanna Cut-Off closed that line for a month. The 1955 Hurricane Diane ravaged much of the DLW railroad as well as others and flooded the Manunka Chunk Tunnels. The route below Portland to the Delaware River was rebuilt, but tracks on the double track bridge at Delaware, New Jersey, to the Manunka Chunk Tunnels were dismantled soon after the flood. A PRR connection from Belvidere, New Jersey, north to Manunka Chunk where it connected with the Old Road was also removed. DLW did not dismantle sections of track in the Manunka Chunk Tunnels because Hurricane Diane cause the ceilings to collapse. Tracks from the south end of the Manunka Chunk Tunnels to Oxford were removed as well.

The Old Road remained in operation until a short section near Oxford, NJ, washed out in a 1968 storm. Except for short sections of trackage in Washington, NJ, and Delaware, NJ, all trackage in New Jersey on the Old Road was removed in 1970. All of the trackage in Pennsylvania—from the bridge over the Delaware River to Slateford Junction—has been retained and remains in operation. The concrete bridge over U.S. Route 46 just east of the railroad's river crossing was dismantled during the 1990s.

It served businesses on the line until 1968, when heavy rains washed out some track. In 1958, the DLW abandoned the Hampton Branch, which was part of the original mainline that ran from Washington, NJ, to a connection with the CNJ at Hampton, NJ, In April 1970, the Erie Lackawanna Railway abandoned the line and removed the tracks between the towns of Delaware and Washington. Conrail took over operation of the remaining active trackage in 1976. In 1982, NJ Transit assumed operation of the trackage between Port Morris Junction and Netcong, NJ, for commuter service. In 1984, with the removal of the track on the Lackawanna Cut-Off, Port Morris Junction would cease to exist until the junction was re-established in 2011. By In the 1980s and 1990s, Warren County removed the bridges and abutments spanning roads and highways between Delaware and Washington for safety. In 1992, commuter rail service was re-established to Hackettstown by NJ Transit, although the operation west of Netcong was under trackage rights granted by Conrail and then later Norfolk Southern Railway.

Some vestiges of the Warren Railroad still remain: telegraph poles, tunnels, and a concrete viaduct spanning the Pequest River and the abandoned Lehigh and Hudson River Railway right-of-way near the intersection of State Route 31 and U.S. Route 46 near Buttzville. The steel bridge across the Delaware is still used by coal trains serving the PPL power plant on the river in Portland, PA.