Slateford Junction
 | It has been suggested that this article be merged with Waltz & Reece Cut, Armstrong Cut, Bradbury Fill, Colby Cut, Jones Cut, Vail Fill, Ramsey Fill, Pequest Fill, Lubber Run Fill, Wharton Fill and McMickle Cut (Lackawanna Cut-Off) to Lackawanna Cut-Off. (Discuss) Proposed since September 2024. |
Slateford Junction was a railway junction in the small town of Slateford, Pennsylvania, that operated from 1911 to 1979.
It was built in 1911 to connect the mainline of the Lackawanna Railroad—the Old Road—with the new Lackawanna Cut-Off. The junction sat 28.5 miles (46 km) west of Port Morris Junction, where the Cut-Off connects with what is today New Jersey Transit's Morristown Line. When operations began on December 24, 1911, the junction merged four tracks (two main tracks and two sidings) from the Cut-Off with two from the Old Road.
An interlocking tower at the junction opened four days before the Cut-Off itself. The junction also included a 60-foot turntable, but this saw limited use; it was dismantled in the 1930s and its pit filled in shortly thereafter. The tower closed on January 11, 1951; the switches at the junction became hand-thrown with electric locks.[1][2]
Slateford ceased to function as a junction in 1979, when Conrail ended service over the Cut-Off.
Today, the Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Railroad Authority (PNRRA) owns the surviving tracks at Slateford Junction as well as the right-of-way of the Cut-Off on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River. The Delaware Lackawanna Railroad currently operates freight trains at Slateford Junction and over the rest of the PNRRA's tracks.
As of 2022, there are plans to restore service along the Cut-Off via NJ Transit and Amtrak.
References
[edit]- ^ Lackawanna's Silent Sentinels - Their Concrete Towers, by Bob Bahrs; Flags, Diamonds & Statues, Volume 21, No. 2 (April 2012).
- ^ Taber, Thomas Townsend; Taber, Thomas Townsend III (1981). The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad in the Twentieth Century. Vol. 2. Muncy, PA: Privately printed. p. 764. ISBN 0-9603398-3-3.