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128-647: DLW can stand for: the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad in the United States the Delhi Waveriders , a field hockey franchise based in Delhi Doubly labeled water , water made of uncommon isotopes, used for tracing purposes Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

256-684: A Radisson hotel ) in Scranton the following year. A new terminal was constructed on the waterfront in Buffalo in 1917. The "Lackawanna Railroad of New Jersey", chartered on February 7, 1908, to build the Lackawanna Cut-Off (a.k.a. New Jersey Cutoff or Hopatcong-Slateford Cutoff), opened on December 24, 1911. This provided a low-grade cutoff in northwestern New Jersey. The cutoff included the Delaware River Viaduct and

384-516: A blast furnace . They wanted to take advantage of a recent technological innovation in iron smelting, the " hot blast ". Developed in Scotland in 1828, the hot blast preheats air before it is pumped through molten iron, substantially lowering fuel needs. The Scrantons also intended to experiment with using anthracite coal to make steel, rather than existing methods which used charcoal or bituminous coal . The most likely successful first use of

512-531: A company town in 1901, but it lacked most services. The housing stood empty for many years. In December 1900, the Lackawanna Coal & Coke Company was incorporated in Pennsylvania as a subsidiary to provide coke. Coal mines and coke ovens were opened in the company town of Wehrum, Pennsylvania , named after company general manager Henry Wehrum . The coal was not of high quality and there

640-577: A massive fire struck the Industrial Materials Recycling facility located in the plant's former galvanizing, cold mill, and hot mill buildings. The fire, which began at about 7 AM after a lightbulb exploded over flammable materials, was fought by more than 100 firefighters from Lackawanna, Buffalo, and Hamburg. Several explosions were caused by the fire, which collapsed the roof of the structure and caused other heavy damage to it. Federal and state environmental officials rushed to

768-415: A 10 percent wage hike. The union struck again from May 11, 1902, to October 23, 1902, and won a second wage increase as well as better working conditions. A second factor was the increasing cost of shipping iron ore to Scranton and a lack of rail lines from Scranton to the company's newly emerging markets. In 1899, Lackawanna Iron and Steel Company move its facilities to West Seneca, New York , drawn by

896-464: A Canadian owned manufacturer of steel tubing, built and opened a new plant in 2013 in the western portion of the facility. Three small fires struck the former Lackawanna works between 2014 and 2016. The first fire occurred in 2014, with additional fires in February and October 2016. All three fires occurred at a mulch-grinding facility owned and operated by Zoladz Construction. On November 9, 2016,

1024-561: A bank and the City of Scranton's gas and water works . During the 1870s, American railroads began buying track rails again from Europe. The reason was the high quality of steel rail produced in Europe, thanks to the invention in 1855 of the Bessemer process for steelmaking. This drastically reduced the fuel costs and amount of time needed to make steel, as well as significantly improving

1152-538: A body of miners from the mines one afternoon, he was attacked by a mob and in the ensuing fight, two of the rioting strikers were killed. The state militia was called in to restore order, protect the strikebreakers, and help reopen the mines. The strike began to collapse in April 1871 as strikebreakers opened more mines, and the strikers and their families began to starve. Violence flared again in early May, and state troops were once more called to restore order. Within

1280-564: A cost of $ 2 million, including a massive machine and erecting shop measuring 582 by 342 feet. To handle the increasing roster of coal and other freight cars, new car shops were built outside Scranton at Keyser Valley in 1904. A passenger car shop was added in Kingsland, New Jersey, nine miles from New York City, in 1906. The company built a Beaux-Arts terminal in Hoboken, New Jersey , in 1907, and another Beaux-Arts passenger station (now

1408-408: A cousin from Connecticut , and John Howland , a banker and businessman from New York . The Scranton family retained 51.6 percent of the company's stock. Quality control problems plagued the company and nearly drove it to bankruptcy again. By summer 1844, the furnace averaged five to seven tons of pig iron a day. Scrantons and Grant initially used the pig iron to produce nails and iron plates, but

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1536-496: A division of the Livonia , Avon , and Lakeville Railroad). Shorter main line remnants are Groveland -Greigsville (Genesee & Wyoming) and Lancaster - Depew (Depew, Lancaster & Western). The Richfield Springs branch was scrapped in 1998 after being out of service for years; much of the right of way was purchased in 2009 by Utica, Chenango and Susquehanna Valley LLC of Richfield Springs, New York, which as of 2022 operates

1664-533: A few days, the strike had largely been broken and most miners returned to work. William Scranton was arrested twice for his role in leading the strikebreakers, but acquitted at trial each time. A second large strike hit the company in 1877. The Long Depression began with the Panic of 1873 and did not end until 1896. By 1877, thousands of miners, steel workers, and railroad employees were out of work and wages had been slashed repeatedly. On July 23, 1877, workers in

1792-481: A large passenger traffic for the Lackawanna. All of this helped justify the railroad's expansion of its double-track mainline to three and in a few places four tracks. Changes in the region's economy undercut the railroad, however. The post- World War II boom enjoyed by many U.S. cities bypassed Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and the rest of Lackawanna and Luzerne counties. Fuel oil and natural gas quickly became

1920-679: A merger agreement with the Erie Railroad , the DL&;W's longtime rival (and closest geographical competitor), forming the Erie Lackawanna Railroad . The merger was formally consummated on October 17, 1960. Shoemaker drew much criticism for it, and would even second-guess himself after he had retired from railroading. He later claimed to have had a "gentlemen's agreement" with the EL board of directors to take over as president of

2048-420: A merger which would create a billion-dollar company. Bethlehem Steel said it would spend $ 10 million improving the Lackawanna mills, which were described as "obsolete" due to a lack of investment. The combined company controlled about 10 percent of the steel output of the United States, while U.S. Steel controlled about 45 percent. A lengthy antitrust investigation followed. The United States Senate asked

2176-499: A merger with the Cambria Steel Company , Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company , Youngstown Sheet and Tube , and Inland Steel . But despite the agreement of the steel companies, federal regulators, and others, the banks carrying the debt for these companies refused to approve the merger and the plan was dropped. The company's financial status varied considerably in the late 1910s. The stock set new highs and

2304-637: A narrow-gauge tourist railway Richfield Springs Scenic Railway on a portion of the line and a walking trail on another section. The Cortland- Cincinnatus Branch, abandoned by Erie Lackawanna in 1960, was partially-rebuilt for an industrial spur about 1999. As of 2018, the Reading Blue Mountain and Northern operates the former Keyser Valley branch from Scranton to Taylor, as well as the former Bloomsburg branch from Taylor to Coxton Yard in Duryea . The Luzerne and Susquehanna Railway operates

2432-443: A nationwide strike in the fall of 1919 to organize the entire steel industry. The strike began on September 22, with the union claiming 8,000 of the plant's 9,000 workers had struck and the company asserting only half the workers had walked out. The same day, three riots broke out in the city. Late in the afternoon, during the shift change, a crowd of 7,000 pro-union strikers and supporters began throwing rocks, bottles and debris at

2560-621: A short segment of the Boonton Branch by Garret Mountain in Paterson, New Jersey , was sold off to the state of New Jersey to build Interstate 80 . Ultimately, the west end of the Boonton Branch was combined with the Erie's Greenwood Lake Branch, while the eastern end was combined with the Erie's main line, which was abandoned through Passaic, New Jersey . Sacrificed was the Boonton Branch, a high-speed freight line thought to be redundant with

2688-513: A tremendous financial drain on the Lackawanna and other railroads that ran through the state: a situation that would not be remedied for another two decades. To save his company, Lackawanna president Perry Shoemaker sought a merger with the Nickel Plate Road , a deal that would have created a railroad stretching more than 1,100 miles (1,800 km) from St. Louis, Missouri and Chicago, Illinois to New York City and would have allowed

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2816-453: A year, the company's assets had expanded to include three furnaces, a steel-making puddling mill , a foundry , two blacksmith shops, two carpentry shops, a saw mill , a grist mill , company store, 200 dwellings (to house workers), a boarding house , iron ore mines, coal mines, a tavern , and a hotel . The company also expanded into the railroad business in 1853. Needing a secure way of getting products to market without having to pay

2944-654: The Central Railroad of New Jersey abandoned all its operations in Pennsylvania (which by that time were freight-only), causing additional through freights to be run daily between Elizabeth, NJ on the CNJ and Scranton on the EL. The trains, designated as the eastbound SE-98 and the westbound ES-99, travelled via the Lackawanna Cut-Off and were routed via the CNJ 's High Bridge Branch . This arrangement ended with

3072-610: The Erie Lackawanna Railroad that would be taken over by Conrail in 1976. Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad was first incorporated as Leggett's Gap Railroad on April 7, 1832, though it was dormant for several years following its incorporation. The company was chartered on March 14, 1849, and organized on January 2, 1850. On April 14, 1851, its name was changed to Lackawanna and Western Railroad . The line opened on December 20, 1851, and ran north from Scranton, Pennsylvania , to Great Bend, Pennsylvania , just south of Pennsylvania 's border with New York state . From Great Bend,

3200-784: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department to investigate the merger the day after it was announced, which the FTC did on May 14. As the merger was approved by the two companies in mid-May, the Senate and FTC each conducted separate investigations. On June 5, 1922, the FTC issued a report concluding that the merger was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act . However, United States Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty overruled

3328-668: The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 already raging) Hayes agreed to send them at the governor's request. Violence broke out on July 29: The head house of the Penn Coal Co.'s short-line railroad was firebombed, a local bridge was burned, and many of the coal mines owned by the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Co. were flooded. The next day McKune threatened to call out the federal troops, but also offered his own services as an arbitrator. The two sides met throughout

3456-594: The Kearny Connection , opened in 1996. This facilitates part of NJ Transit's popular Midtown Direct service. Formerly, the line ran solely to the DL&W's historic terminal in Hoboken and a transfer to underground rapid transit was required to pass under the Hudson river into Manhattan, or a ferry. This is the only section of former Lackawanna trackage that has more through tracks now than ever before. Since

3584-543: The Lehigh & New England Railroad , the DL&W was profitable during the first half of the 20th century, but its margins were gradually hurt by declining Pennsylvania coal traffic, especially following the 1959 Knox Mine Disaster and competition from trucks following the expansion of the Interstate Highway System in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1960, the DL&W merged with rival Erie Railroad to form

3712-664: The Midland Railroad and the Sussex Railroad , of which he was part-owner. Taylor wanted to link his railroads with the Scranton-owned Delaware & Lackawanna, and believed the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Co. could turn his pig iron into finished steel—but only if the company adopted the Bessemer process. Together, Moses Taylor and W.W. Scranton convinced the company's other investors to adopt

3840-557: The North Jersey suburbs to Hoboken on the Boonton , Gladstone , Montclair and Morristown Lines. Early publicity for the passenger service featured a young woman, Phoebe Snow , who always wore white and kept her clothing clean while riding the "Road of Anthracite", powered by the clean-burning coal known as anthracite . The most profitable commodity shipped by the railroad was anthracite coal . In 1890 and during 1920–1940,

3968-563: The Pan-American Exposition , and many property owners assumed the land purchases were for the Exposition. Construction of the massive new steel mill began on July 14, 1900, and nine months later equipment was arriving from Scranton. The company dredged a ship canal and built miles of track to link the plant with the railroads which would bring iron ore and coke to the plant. Lackawanna Iron and Steel began building

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4096-677: The Paulinskill Viaduct , as well as three concrete towers at Port Morris and Greendell in New Jersey and Slateford Junction in Pennsylvania. From 1912 to 1915, the Summit-Hallstead Cutoff (a.k.a. Pennsylvania Cutoff or Nicholson Cutoff ) was built to revamp a winding and hilly system between Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania , and Hallstead, Pennsylvania . This rerouting provided another quicker low-grade line between Scranton and Binghamton. The Summit Cutoff included

4224-601: The "Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad", on March 11, 1853. On the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, the Warren Railroad was chartered on February 12, 1851, to continue from the bridge over the river southeast to Hampton , on the Central Railroad of New Jersey . That section got its name from Warren County , the county through which it would primarily run. The rest of the line, now known as

4352-442: The 1860s, bringing new technological innovations to the firm. William Walker Scranton , son of Joseph Scranton, was born in 1844. At the age of 23, William Walker Scranton had already become superintendent of one of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company's steel mills. After Joseph Scranton's death in 1872, William took control of the entire family business empire, which now included (in addition to large numbers of coal and iron mines)

4480-673: The 1999 breakup of Conrail, the former DL&W main line from Scranton south-east to Slateford in Monroe County has been owned by the Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Railroad Authority (PNRRA). The Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad and Steamtown National Historic Site operates freight trains and tourist trains on this stretch of track, dubbed the Pocono Mainline (or Pocono Main). Under a haulage agreement with Norfolk Southern,

4608-470: The 20th century. In the 1940s, the Lackawanna steel mill employed over 20,000 people, and was the world's largest steel factory. In the 1970s and 1980s, Bethlehem Steel allowed the Lackawanna Steel plant to become obsolete. Foreign competition made it financially impossible to continue to manufacture most of the products produced at Lackawanna. Bethlehem Steel also disliked the high tax rates of

4736-453: The Bessemer process in 1875, and to merge the Taylor and Scranton railways in 1881. The first "blow" (or pouring of molten steel from the Bessemer furnace into molds) occurred on October 23, 1875, and the first Bessemer steel rolled in the mill on December 29, 1875. During the 1870s and the recession, the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company suffered from significant labor problems. The company

4864-693: The D-L runs unit Canadian grain trains between Scranton and the Harvest States Grain Mill at Pocono Summit, Pennsylvania and wood deliveries to Bestway Enterprises in Cresco . Other commercial customers include Keystone Propane in Tobyhanna. Excursion trains, hauled by visiting Nickel Plate 765 and other locomotives, run from Steamtown to Moscow and Tobyhanna (with infrequent extensions to East Stroudsburg or Delaware Water Gap Station, both on

4992-617: The DL&W main line portion between Scranton and Binghamton (which includes the Nicholson Cutoff ) bought by the Delaware and Hudson Railway . The D&H was purchased by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1991. CPR continued to run this portion of the DL&W main line until 2014, when it sold it to the Norfolk Southern . The Syracuse and Utica branches north of Binghamton were sold by Conrail to

5120-483: The DL&W shipped upwards of 14% of the state of Pennsylvania's anthracite production. Other profitable freight included dairy products, cattle, lumber, cement, steel and grain. The Pocono Mountains region was one of the most popular vacation destinations in the country—especially among New Yorkers—and several large hotels sat along the line in Northeastern Pennsylvania , generating

5248-640: The DL&W, which owned a substantial block of Nickel Plate stock, to place one of its directors on the Nickel Plate board . (The Nickel Plate would later merge with the Norfolk and Western Railroad .) Shoemaker next turned, in 1956, to aggressive but unsuccessful efforts to obtain joint operating agreements and even potential mergers with the Lehigh Valley Railroad and the Delaware and Hudson Railway . Finally, Shoemaker sought and won

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5376-685: The Delaware Otsego Corp., which operates them as the northern division of the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway . In 1997, Conrail accepted an offer of purchase from CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Railway . On June 1, 1999, Norfolk Southern took over many of the Conrail lines in New Jersey, including most of the former DL&W. It also purchased the remnants of the former Bangor & Portland branch in Pennsylvania. Norfolk Southern continues to operate local freights on

5504-525: The EL's decline. By 1976, it was apparent that the EL was at the end of its tether, and it petitioned to join Conrail : a new regional railroad that was created on April 1, 1976, out of the remnants of seven bankrupt freight railroads in the northeastern U.S. The EL's rail property was legally conveyed into Conrail on April 1, 1976. Labor contracts limited immediate changes to the freight schedule, but in early 1979, Conrail suspended through freight service on

5632-531: The EPA entered into an administrative consent order requiring Bethlehem Steel to identify the nature and extent of any releases of hazardous waste and mitigate any emergency situations that might be discovered during the course of the investigations. Bethlehem Steel and its successor corporations have been submitting RCRA Facility Investigation (RFI) reports since then. Although the RFI was due to be completed in 2004, it still

5760-466: The Erie's main line, was abandoned in favor of joint operations, while the Lackawanna Cut-Off in New Jersey was single-tracked in anticipation of the upcoming merger. On the other hand, the Erie's Buffalo, New York and Erie Railroad was dropped from Corning to Livonia in favor of the DL&W's main line. Most passenger service was routed onto the DL&W east of Binghamton, with the DL&W's Hoboken Terminal serving all EL passenger trains. In addition,

5888-477: The Erie's mainline. This would haunt EL management less than a decade later (and Conrail management a decade after that). Soon after the merger, the new EL management shifted most freight trains to the "Erie side", the former Erie Railroad lines, leaving only a couple of daily freight trains traveling over the Lackawanna side. Passenger train traffic would not be affected, at least not immediately. This traffic pattern would remain in effect for more than ten years—past

6016-411: The FTC on June 22. The merger finally took effect on October 10, 1922. Six decades later, financial analysts observed that Bethlehem Steel probably purchased Lackawanna Steel for less than half what the company was worth. Over the next decade, Bethlehem Steel spent more than $ 40 million modernizing the Lackawanna site. Lackawanna continued to be a center for the manufacture of steel throughout most of

6144-538: The Lackawanna Iron and Coal Co. By 1880, the company was the second-largest producer of iron in the United States. But, Scranton wanted the company to expand, a proposal which the board of directors rejected in 1881. Scranton quit the company and formed the Scranton Steel Co. with his brother, Walter Scranton, in 1881. Within 10 years, the Scranton Steel Co. had become so successful that the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Co. entered into negotiations to merge with

6272-538: The Lackawanna side. Indeed, as very little on-line freight originated on the Erie side (a route that was more than 20 miles longer than the DL&W route to Binghamton), once the Gateway was closed (eliminating the original justification for shifting traffic to the Erie side) virtually all the EL's freight trains were shifted back to the Lackawanna side. After the New England Gateway closed, EL's management

6400-600: The Lackawanna side. The railroad removed freight traffic from the Hoboken-Binghamton mainline and consolidated the service within its other operating routes. Railroad officials said the primary reasons were the EL's early-1960s severing of the Boonton Branch near Paterson, New Jersey , and the grades over the Pocono Mountains. The Morristown Line is the only piece of multi-track railroad on

6528-494: The Lackawanna to retain the 200 miles (320 km) of double-track mainline between Buffalo and Binghamton, New York . The idea had been studied as early as 1920, when William Z. Ripley , a professor of political economics at Harvard University , reported that a merger would have benefited both railroads. Forty years later, however, the Lackawanna was a shadow of its former financial self. Seeing no advantage in an end-to-end merger, Nickel Plate officials also rebuffed attempts by

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6656-561: The Lackawanna, however, were dealt by Mother Nature . In August, 1955, flooding from Hurricane Diane devastated the Pocono Mountains region, killing 80 people. The floods cut the Lackawanna Railroad in 88 places, destroying 60 miles (97 km) of track, stranding several trains (with a number of passengers aboard) and shutting down the railroad for nearly a month (with temporary speed restrictions prevailing on

6784-656: The M&;E lease came several branch lines in New Jersey, including the Boonton Line , which opened in 1870 and bypassed Newark for through freight. The railroad acquired the Syracuse, Binghamton and New York Railroad in 1869 and leased the Oswego and Syracuse Railroad on February 13, 1869. This gave it a branch from Binghamton north and northwest via Syracuse to Oswego , a port on Lake Ontario . The "Greene Railroad"

6912-595: The Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Rail Authority to accelerate the resumption of passenger train service between New York City and Scranton. Most of the main line west of Binghamton in New York State has been abandoned, in favor of the Erie's Buffalo line via Hornell . The longest remaining main line sector is Painted Post -Wayland, with shortline service provided by B&H Railroad ( Bath & Hammondsport ,

7040-438: The Pocono Mainline). The D-L also runs Lackawanna County 's tourist trolleys from the Electric City Trolley Museum , under overhead electrified wiring installed on original sections of the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley Railroad that was also purchased by Lackawanna County. It also runs trains on a remnant of the DL&W Diamond branch in Scranton. In 2006, the Monroe County and Lackawanna County Railroad Authorities formed

7168-413: The Scranton family, it was once the second-largest steel company in the world (and the largest company outside the U.S. Steel trust). Scranton, Pennsylvania , developed around the company's original location. When the company moved to a suburb of Buffalo, New York , in 1902, it stimulated the founding of the city of Lackawanna . At the beginning of the 1800s, the Lackawanna Valley in Pennsylvania

7296-401: The Southern Division, opened on May 27, 1856, including the Warren Railroad in New Jersey . A third rail was added to the standard gauge Central Railroad of New Jersey east of Hampton to allow the railroad to run east to Elizabeth via trackage rights (the CNJ was extended in 1864 to Jersey City ). On December 10, 1868, the company acquired the Morris and Essex Railroad unit 1945 it

7424-591: The afternoon with a crowd of about 3,000 striking workers. At 5:50 p.m., after being pelted with rocks and glass bottles, company police fired more than 50 12- gauge shotguns blasts into the crowd. "[F]rantic signals to cease firing" by the Lackawanna Police, who were in the middle of the crowd trying to restore order, "were disregarded by the plant guards". The company guards killed two and injured three. The plant remained closed through September 28, with only 500 employees reporting for work. Lackawanna Steel, which had employed only 72 African Americans prior to

7552-405: The amount of taxes paid by Bethlehem Steel fell from 66 percent of the city's revenue to just 8 percent. In addition, the city owed the company more than $ 5 million in tax overcharges. The United Steelworkers later successfully sued Bethlehem Steel for prematurely terminating the fringe benefits of the laid-off steelworkers. Bethlehem Steel, which maintained a small presence in Lackawanna after

7680-426: The area were organized by the American Federation of Labor (although Lackawanna officials estimated there were far fewer union members). Lackawanna Steel officials, fearing that immigrant union members would become violent, asked for and received protection from the New York State Police . The Lackawanna Steel organizing drive was part of a nationwide organizing effort by the union, and the union resolved to launch

7808-426: The area's easy access to Great Lakes shipping and the numerous rail lines in the area. Scranton decided to move his operation to the Buffalo suburb, located on Lake Erie. To avoid speculation in land, the Lackawanna Steel Company employed John J. Albright , president of the Ontario Power Company , to purchase land on its behalf. Scranton, Albright and several others met in Buffalo on March 23, 1899, to discuss

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7936-500: The back as they tried to flee. Mayor McKune, although badly injured, helped restore order around 2 p.m. The following day, 3,000 federal troops arrived from Pittsburgh and entered the city. Martial law was imposed, and the strike ended several uneventfully weeks later with no agreement. The sheriff and several posse members were arrested and tried on the charge of manslaughter , but were acquitted. The company's labor troubles were supplanted by an internal struggle for control within

8064-418: The bar, rod and wire plants from Bethlehem and began manufacturing automobile steering columns under its subsidiary, Bar Technologies. This operation has since been taken over by Republic Steel , which manufactures hot rolled bars and coils and employed 270 people in 2018. This plant, which was shut down in 2023, represented the last steel production in former Bethlehem facilities in Lackawanna. Welded Tube,

8192-403: The charge. The mixture of iron ore and coal , when melted, created pig iron. Two other Pennsylvanians, Sanford Grant, a Belvidere, New Jersey , businessman, and Philipp Mattes, a bank manager from Easton, Pennsylvania , also invested in the new company, named Scranton, Grant, and Co. Henry bought 503 acres (2.04 km ) near Slocum's Hollow, and began building the furnace. The blast furnace

8320-399: The cold-short ore they used was ideal for manufacturing rail tracks, the Scrantons sought new investors whose money would permit it to build a rail track rolling mill. Benjamin Loder , president of the New York and Erie Railroad ; industrialist William E. Dodge ; and eight others invested $ 90,000 in the firm. The Scrantons and Grant reorganized again on November 7, 1846, and began calling

8448-502: The company Scrantons and Platt. Grant was bought out, and Howland asked to have his investment returned. The company quickly began turning out rails for the Erie Railroad, becoming the first company in the United States to mass-produce T rails . The firm's decision to manufacture rail tracks changed the fundamental nature of transportation in the United States, accelerated rail use, and eliminated American dependence on England for railroad track. Rail production began in August 1847, and

8576-508: The company began operating the Erie and Central New York Railroad , a branch of the Oswego line from Cortland Junction east to Cincinnatus . That same year, it also began to control the Bangor and Portland Railway . By 1909, the company controlled the Bangor and Portland Railway . This line branched from the main line at Portland , southwest to Nazareth , with a branch to Martins Creek . The primary locomotive and car shops were located in Scranton . In 1910 they were enlarged and upgraded at

8704-412: The company continued to see wide swings in profitability. In 1920, the company's profits fell again, and a merger was rumored. The company declared itself profitable in late 1920, and then reported large deficits in 1921. Rumors that the company might sell itself emerged in mid-October 1921, but in fact the firm went on a buying spree and snapped up a pig iron manufacturer and a steel bridge maker. Over

8832-424: The company doubled its profits in 1917 and the first half of 1918, but in late 1918 and throughout 1919 the company fell on hard financial times. Although Lackawanna Steel had moved to New York in part to avoid unionization, the unions followed the company. An attempt to unionize the company was made in 1919 by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers . Lackawanna's Democratic mayor , John Toomey,

8960-439: The company lost between $ 6,000 and $ 7,000 in the year ending June 1843, but the total may have been as high as $ 10,000. George Scranton took control of the works from William Henry, and twice rebuilt the furnace. Near bankruptcy, the partners sought new sources of capital. In May 1843, a $ 20,000 loan permitted the company to continue operating. After many failures and two years of low-level and low-quality production of pig iron,

9088-439: The company soon employed more than 800 mostly Welsh , Irish , and German workers. Shipments of rail track were hauled overland through the snow to the New York and Erie Railroad, arriving just in time to save the line from bankruptcy. In 1851, Slocum's Hollow changed its name to Scranton in honor of the owners of the iron works. The Scrantons had won approval from the townspeople some years before to rename Slocum's Hollow as

9216-534: The company's guards, and city police were called in to break up the disturbance. At 7:20 p.m., a crowd of 3,000 unionists and their supporters intercepted a group of 200 strikebreakers leaving the plant, and chased them through the surrounding neighborhood before police intervened and stopped them. Later in the evening, a small crowd of men beat a man who announced he would work for the company's private police force, and city police once more were called in. On September 23, 1919, company police clashed twice late in

9344-510: The cost of new trainsets. A 7.3-mile section of the Cut-Off between Port Morris and Andover, New Jersey , which was under construction, was delayed until 2021 due to environmental issues on the Andover station site ; the Cut-Off between Port Morris and Andover is slated to re-open for rail passenger service no earlier than 2025. In 1979, Conrail sold most of the DL&W in Pennsylvania, with

9472-412: The creation of Conrail on April 1, 1976. During its time, the EL diversified its shipments from the growing Lehigh Valley and also procured a lucrative contract with Chrysler to ship auto components from Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania . The EL also aggressively sought other contracts with suppliers in the area, pioneering what came to be known as intermodal shipping. None of this could compensate for

9600-415: The creation of extensive tracts of extremely substandard housing and severe public health problems (including outbreaks of cholera , typhoid and influenza ). To save the town, West Senecans proposed separating the area around the steel mill as its own incorporated municipality. Lackawanna Steel opposed the incorporation of the proposed municipality (to be named Lackawanna), but it relented in 1909 after

9728-480: The damaged sections of railroad for months), causing a total of $ 8.1 million in damages (equal to $ 92,128,696 today) and lost revenue. One section, the Old River line (former Warren Railroad), was damaged beyond repair and had to be abandoned altogether. Until the mainline in Pennsylvania reopened, all trains were canceled or rerouted over other railroads. The Lackawanna would never fully recover. In January, 1959,

9856-462: The day, and to everyone's surprise a tentative agreement was reached that evening. Although a majority of the steel workers appeared ready to accept the tentative agreement, a mob of 6,000 men formed on August 1 in downtown Scranton and resolved to reject it. When McKune appeared outside the mayor's office to try to calm the mob, shots were fired. McKune was clubbed and stoned . His lower jaw broken and his upper jaw fractured, McKune tried to flee but

9984-461: The decline in coal shipments, however, and, as labor costs and taxes rose, the railroad's financial position became increasingly precarious although it was stronger than some railroads in the eastern U.S. The opening of Interstates I-80 , I-380 , and I-81 during the early 1970s, which in effect paralleled much of the former Lackawanna mainline east of Binghamton, New York , caused more traffic to be diverted to trucks. This only helped to accelerate

10112-633: The discontinuation of passenger service on January 6, 1970—and was completely dependent on the lucrative interchange with the New Haven Railroad at Maybrook, New York . The January 1, 1969 merger of the New Haven Railroad into the Penn Central Railroad changed all this: the New England Gateway was downgraded, and closed on May 8, 1974 by fire damage to the New Haven's Poughkeepsie Bridge, causing dramatic traffic changes for

10240-451: The entire 900-mile Lackawanna system that has not been reduced to fewer tracks over the years. It was triple-tracked nearly a century prior , and remains so today. The Lackawanna Cut-Off was abandoned in 1979 and its rails were removed in 1984. The line between Slateford Junction and Scranton remained in legal limbo for nearly a decade, but was eventually purchased, with a single track left in place. The Lackawanna Cut-Off's right-of-way, on

10368-466: The exorbitant fees charged by the railways, the company purchased a controlling interest in the Delaware and Cobb's Gap Railroad and the Lackawanna and Western Railroad. They reorganized the combined subsidiary into the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad , beginning vertical integration of their industry. A second generation of Scrantons took control of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company in

10496-573: The final nail was driven in the Lackawanna's coffin by the Knox Mine Disaster , which flooded the mines along the Susquehanna River and all but obliterated what was left of the region's anthracite industry. The Lackawanna Railroad's financial problems were not unique. Rail traffic in the U.S. in general declined after World War II as trucks and automobiles took freight and passenger traffic. Declining freight traffic put

10624-483: The firm began producing significant amounts of pig iron in 1843. The company installed a rolling mill , five reverberatory furnaces , 20 nail manufacturing machines, and one spike manufacturing machine. Needing more cash, the company was reorganized in September 1846, taking the new name of Scrantons and Grant. New partners were brought in, including Joseph H. Scranton , a cousin from Georgia , Erastus C. Scranton,

10752-442: The firm. The two companies merged on January 9, 1891, forming the Lackawanna Iron and Steel Company. Although the merger created nearly $ 1.2 million in debt for the new company, Lackawanna Iron & Steel proved to be so financially successful that it paid off the debt within a year. At the turn of the century, the Lackawanna Iron and Steel Company began to consider moving out of the Scranton area. The company's economic condition

10880-522: The first steel in early 1903. The company's property in Scranton was sold to the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley Railroad , which scrapped all the remaining equipment and tore down all the buildings except for the oldest stone blast furnaces. The economic coup which William Walker Scranton had engineered did not please the board of directors, however, who replaced him in late 1904 with Edward A. Clarke. The company continued to expand, and in 1906 bought

11008-707: The former Morris & Essex Railroad to Gladstone and Hackettstown. In 2002, the transit agency consolidated the Montclair Branch and Boonton Line to create the Montclair-Boonton Line . NJ Transit also operates on the remaining portion (south of Paterson) of the original Boonton Line known as the Main Line . NJ Transit's hub is at Hoboken Terminal. Trains on the Morristown Line run directly into New York's Pennsylvania Station via

11136-494: The former Bloomsburg branch from Duryea to Kingston . The North Shore Railroad (Pennsylvania) operates the former Bloomsburg branch from Northumberland to Hicks Ferry. Lackawanna Steel Company The Lackawanna Steel Company was an American steel manufacturing company that existed as an independent company from 1840 to 1922, and as a subsidiary of the Bethlehem Steel company from 1922 to 1983. Founded by

11264-533: The hot-blast technique in the U.S. was carried out in 1835 at Oxford Furnace in Warren County, New Jersey , by William Henry, Seldon Scranton's father-in-law . By 1838, Henry had moved to the Lackawanna Valley, where he was experimenting with using anthracite coal in steelmaking. The Scrantons and Henry formed a partnership in 1840 to develop a hot blast furnace that used anthracite coal in

11392-584: The huge New York steel mill's aging equipment. In 1922, Lackawanna Steel Co. was acquired by the Bethlehem Steel Company, ending the company's 62-year independence. Merger rumors had plagued the company for several years by then. Rumors of an impending merger among two or more of the "Little Steel" companies—the seven steel companies largest in size next to U.S. Steel—continued in November and December 1921 and into 1922. In late April 1922,

11520-501: The iron and steel mills owned by the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Co. struck, seeking a 25 percent wage increase. The strike spread to rail workers the next day, and on July 25 the company's mine workers also walked out and demanded a similar wage increase. The company asked Scranton Mayor Robert McKune for police protection the same day, and McKune asked Governor John F. Hartranft for troops. On July 26, Governor Hartranft asked President Rutherford B. Hayes for federal troops, and (with

11648-478: The large Pennsylvania coal mining firm of J.W. Ellsworth Company. Lackawanna Steel Co. had a rocky relationship with the town of West Seneca. The company demanded large investments in sewer, water, gas and road improvements but refused to pay for them (even though the company was much wealthier than the town). The large influx of workers from the company's old Pennsylvania site swelled the Town's population, leading to

11776-549: The lines. In 2014, it purchased the former DL&W main from Taylor, PA to Binghamton, NY from the Canadian Pacific Railway, which it continues to operate to this day. NJ Transit Rail Operations took over passenger operations in 1983. The State of New Jersey had subsidized the routes operated by the Erie Lackawanna, and later Conrail . NJ Transit operates over former DL&W trackage on much of

11904-460: The mass layoffs in 1982, ended coke production at the Lackawanna site in 2001, leaving a galvanized steel finishing plant employing about 250 people. Upon Bethlehem's bankruptcy in 2003, the plant was acquired by International Steel Group . It merged with Mittal Steel Company in 2004. In 2006, the plant came under the ownership of ArcelorMittal , which eventually ended its operations at Lackawanna in 2009. In 1993, Veritas Capital purchased one of

12032-438: The massive Tunkhannock Viaduct and Martins Creek Viaduct . The Lackawanna's cutoffs had no at-grade crossings with roads or highways, allowing high-speed service. The railroad ran trains from its Hoboken Terminal , its gateway to New York City , to its Scranton , Binghamton, Syracuse , Oswego, and Buffalo stations and to Utica Union Station . Noteworthy among these were: The railroad also ran commuter operations from

12160-502: The nearby New York, Ontario and Western Railroad and Lehigh & New England Railroad out of business in 1957 and 1961, respectively. Over the next three decades, nearly every major railroad in the Northeastern US would go bankrupt . In the wake of Hurricane Diane in 1955, all signs pointed to continued financial decline and eventual bankruptcy for the DL&W. Among other factors, property taxes in New Jersey were

12288-465: The new railroad. After he was pushed aside in favor of Erie managers, however, he left in disillusionment and became the president of the Central Railroad of New Jersey in 1962. Even before the formal merger, growing ties between the Erie and Lackawanna led to the partial abandonment of the Lackawanna's mainline trackage between Binghamton and Buffalo. In 1958, the main line of the DL&W from Binghamton west to near Corning , which closely paralleled

12416-404: The next several years, the Lackawanna plant continued to expand physically, its works now rambling over more than two miles (3 km) of shoreline and spilling over into the nearby town of Hamburg . Lackawanna Steel paid about 75 percent of the taxes in the city of Lackawanna, effectively controlling city government. In 1922, Lackawanna Steel reported very large deficits, driven primarily by

12544-457: The other hand, was purchased by the state of New Jersey in 2001 from funds approved within a $ 40 million bond issue in 1989. (A court later set the final price at $ 21 million, paid to owners Jerry Turco of Kearny, New Jersey and Burton Goldmeier of Hopatcong, New Jersey.) NJ Transit has estimated that it would cost $ 551 million to restore service to Scranton over the Cut-Off: a price which includes

12672-470: The preferred energy sources. Silk and other textile industries shrank as jobs moved to the southern U.S. or overseas. The advent of mechanical refrigeration squeezed the business from ice ponds on top of the Poconos . Even the dairy industry changed. The Lackawanna had long enjoyed revenues from milk shipments; many stations had a creamery next to the tracks. Perhaps the most catastrophic blows to

12800-467: The purchase of land. The group explored several nearby sites on March 24, and that same day chose an undeveloped shoreline area on Lake Erie in what was then the western part of the Town of West Seneca. Albright began purchasing land on April 1, 1899, and by the end of the month had obtained nearly all the required property for the extremely low price of $ 1.1 million. Albright was often accompanied on his purchasing visits by John G. Milburn , President of

12928-475: The quality of the ore—" red-short " rather than the required close-grained "cold-short"—prevented the smelting of high-quality pig iron. The company's finances spiraled downward. Railroad networks in the U.S. were tripling in size during the 1840s, and the railroads required large quantities of rails . But until 1844, the U.S. had no factories capable of manufacturing rails, and all rails had to be imported and shipped by sea from Great Britain . Realizing that

13056-521: The quality of the steel produced. Scranton took a leave of absence from the firm and secretly went to Britain and then Germany, where he became a puddler and learned the secrets of making "Bessemer steel". But Scranton could not convince his business partners to adopt the Bessemer process. Meanwhile, industrialist Moses Taylor , a protégé of John Howland's, had organized the Franklin Iron Company to supply pig iron for rail tracks to

13184-503: The railroad obtained trackage rights north and west over the New York and Erie Rail Road to Owego, New York , where it leased the Cayuga and Susquehanna Railroad to Ithaca on Cayuga Lake on April 21, 1855. The C&S was the reorganized and partially rebuilt Ithaca and Owego Railroad , which had opened on April 1, 1834, and was the oldest part of its system. The whole system was built to 6 ft ( 1,829 mm ) broad gauge ,

13312-674: The same as the New York and Erie, although the original I&O was built to standard gauge and converted to wide gauge when rebuilt as the C&;S. The "Delaware and Cobb's Gap Railroad" was chartered December 4, 1850, to build a line from Scranton east to the Delaware River . Before it opened, the Delaware and Cobb's Gap and Lackawanna and Western were consolidated by the Lackawanna Steel Company into one company,

13440-423: The scene to monitor health hazards from the blaze, which caused the evacuation of a nearby neighborhood due to fire and the closure of two elementary schools due to smoke dangers. Burning debris fell on the city of Lackawanna and town of Hamburg. The fire was contained but still burning on the morning of November 10, requiring the continued evacuation of the neighborhood and the schools. The Lackawanna Steel plant

13568-552: The seven "Little Steel" firms began to openly discuss the merger of two or more of the companies as a means of challenging U.S. Steel. The chief executives and creditors of these firms visited one another's plants in order to appraise them and assess the financial viability of each company. Among those visited was the Lackawanna Steel Company plant in upstate New York. On May 11, 1922, Lackawanna Steel announced it had agreed to be purchased by Bethlehem Steel in

13696-528: The state of New York, and did not want to spend the millions of dollars in air and water pollution abatement which were required by state and federal authorities. The company built a new facility in Burns Harbor, Indiana , and stopped investing in new steel production methods at Lackawanna. In 1982, Bethlehem Steel announced the closing of nearly all production at the Lackawanna Steel plant in New York. Bethlehem Steel, like many American steel companies,

13824-586: The strike and some workers stayed out until June 1920. Nearly all the black strikebreakers were fired after the strike when the company took back its striking workers. The organizing campaign failed, but the company was eventually organized by the Steel Workers Organizing Committee in the late 1930s after passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. In the two years after the organizing drive,

13952-434: The strike, hired several thousand black strikebreakers and brought them to the city to maintain operations. Outraged, union workers turned to political activity. Toomey lost re-election in the city's regularly scheduled mayoral race on November 4, 1919, and John H. Gibbons , a Socialist , was elected. Although the national organizing committee called off the strike on January 8, 1920, Gibbons' election reinvigorated

14080-690: The title DLW . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=DLW&oldid=1137560026 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Like most coal-focused railroads in Northeastern Pennsylvania, including Lehigh Valley Railroad , New York, Ontario and Western Railroad , and

14208-448: The town of Harrison, in honor of U.S. President William Henry Harrison . The town was renamed Scrantonia in 1850, and the name shortened in 1851 to Scranton. The swiftly growing iron mill led to similar growth in Scranton, whose population soared from a few hundred in 1850 to 9,000 in 1860 to 35,000 in 1870. In 1853, the firm reorganized, doubling its capital investment and adopting the name Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company. Within

14336-420: The two-year-long Panic of 1907 nearly bankrupted the Town of West Seneca and imperiled the company's operations. The creation of U.S. Steel in 1901 supplanted Lackawanna Steel as the country's largest steel manufacturer. A number of the so-called "independent" steel companies considered merger over the next two decades as a response to U.S. Steel's formation. In late 1915, Lackawanna Steel nearly consummated

14464-501: The whole system was re-gauged to standard gauge in one day. The New York, Lackawanna and Western Railroad was chartered on August 26, 1880, and opened on September 17, 1882, to continue the railroad from Binghamton west and northwest to Buffalo. The main line ran to the International Bridge to Ontario , and a branch served downtown Buffalo. A spur from Wayland served Hornellsville (Hornell). On December 1, 1903,

14592-430: Was completed in the early autumn of 1841. The company's first effort at smelting iron was not successful. Many problems plagued the iron mill, including a furnace that was not hot enough, water that ran too low in the nearby creek to turn the waterwheel-powered bellows (and thus did not provide enough air to the furnace), unsuccessful experiments with charge mixtures, clogged tuyeres , and more. George Scranton estimated

14720-544: Was declared a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1988 after the EPA conducted a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Facility Assessment of the plant. The state of New York subsequently declared it a Class 2 Inactive Hazardous Waste Site, indicating the site poses a significant potential threat to human health and the environment. In August 1990, Bethlehem Steel (operating as Tecumseh Redevelopment, Inc.) and

14848-490: Was deteriorating; in September 1899, Andrew Carnegie wrote, "My view is that sooner or later Harrisburg, Sparrows Point, and Scranton will cease to make rails, like Bethlehem. The autumn of last year seemed as good a time to force them out of business as any other." Labor costs were rising. In 1897, the United Mine Workers organized most workers at the coal and iron mines, who successfully struck in 1900 for

14976-475: Was encountering significant financial problems. Although the company made several public attempts to reassess the plant's viability and keep the plant open in the late 1970s, closure was a foregone conclusion for many. On June 25, 1982, Bethlehem Steel announced it would close the Lackawanna facility and lay off its remaining 10,000 workers in six weeks. The news meant the laying off of an additional 8,000 workers in Lackawanna, West Seneca, and Buffalo. An attempt

15104-507: Was forced to downgrade the Erie side, and even considered its abandonment west of Port Jervis. In the meantime, the EL was forced to run its long freights over the reconfigured Boonton Line, which east of Mountain View in Wayne, NJ meant running over the Erie's Greenwood Lake Branch, a line that was never intended to carry the level of freight traffic to which the EL would subject it. In 1972,

15232-583: Was fully merged into the DL&W. This line ran east–west across northern New Jersey, crossing the Warren Railroad at Washington and providing access to Jersey City without depending on the CNJ. The M&E tunnel under Bergen Hill opened in 1876, relieving the Morris and Essex Railroad and its owners, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, from having to use the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railway 's tunnel to reach Jersey City. Along with

15360-461: Was knocked unconscious when a member of the mob hit him in the head with a hammer. A few minutes later, the county sheriff and a hastily assembled posse arrived and fired shots over the heads of the crowd to try to disperse the mob. Several people in the crowd returned fire, wounding the sheriff and a member of the posse. The posse fired several volleys into the crowd, killing four and wounding around 20. Many of those killed and injured were shot in

15488-498: Was little production after 1904. The town was abandoned by the 1930s. On February 14, 1902, the company was reorganized into the Lackawanna Steel Company. It was the largest independent steel company in the world at the time. Stock worth $ 60 million was issued, with $ 20 million of the newly raised capital paying off the construction of the new mill. The mill received its first shipment of iron ore on December 23, 1902. The plant's 6,000 workers (2,000 of whom came from Scranton) blew

15616-613: Was made to interest the Buffalo-based Gibraltar Steel Corporation in the plant, but this effort failed. The Lackawanna Steel plant stopped most of its operations on October 15, 1982. The company laid off workers in waves before the final closure, and transferred many others. On the day the plant stopped most of its operations, more than 6,000 workers lost their jobs (most of them high-paying). The city of Lackawanna's 22,700 people faced extremely large tax increases just to maintain basic services, as

15744-571: Was not complete as of June 2008. The plant was also declared a brownfield in 2003 under the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act of 2002. While this made the city of Lackawanna eligible for federal assistance money to redevelop part of the site, a cooperative agreement had not been signed as of May 2006. The city of Lackawanna redeveloped some of the former Lackawanna Steel plant land into small business zones, bringing about 700 jobs back to

15872-493: Was one of many which cut wages in its coal mines 30 percent in 1870. The Delaware & Lackawanna, the company railroad, also sharply cut wages for its workers. The first week of January 1871, a nascent mine workers union, the Workingmen's Benevolent Association , went on strike for higher wages. Scranton helped break the strike by personally leading strikebreaking miners to and from the mines each day. While escorting

16000-516: Was organized March 3, 1869, to connect the end of the original line at Great Bend, Pennsylvania , to Binghamton, New York , avoiding reliance on the Erie. The new line opened on October 1, 1871. By 1873, the company controlled the Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Railroad , a branch from Scranton southwest to Northumberland with trackage rights over the Pennsylvania Railroad 's Northern Central Railway to Sunbury . On March 15, 1876,

16128-504: Was organized in 1869, opened in 1870, and was immediately leased to the company, providing a short branch off the Oswego line from Chenango Forks to Greene . Also in 1870, the company leased the Utica, Chenango and Susquehanna Valley Railway , continuing this branch north to Utica , with a branch from Richfield Junction to Richfield Springs (fully opened in 1872). The "Valley Railroad"

16256-494: Was rich in anthracite coal and iron deposits. Brothers George W. Scranton and Seldon T. Scranton moved to the valley in 1840 and settled in the five-house town of Slocum's Hollow in present-day Scranton, Pennsylvania , to establish an iron forge. Although Europeans had been making steel for nearly three centuries, the processes for creating blister steel and crucible steel were slow and extremely expensive. The Scrantons focused instead on manufacturing pig iron , using

16384-482: Was supported financially by the Lackawanna Steel Co. Toomey initiated a vicious red-baiting campaign to smear the union organizing effort as communist -inspired and led. The company fired hundreds of workers in the summer and fall of 1919 for being union members or union sympathizers. Nonetheless, by 1919 more than 18,000 steelworkers at Lackawanna Steel and five other, smaller metallurgical firms in

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