The Sussex Railroad was a short-line railroad in northwestern New Jersey. It replaced its predecessor, the Sussex Mine Railroad, in 1853 and operated under the Sussex Railroad Company until 1945 when it was fully merged into the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W) system. The Sussex Railroad was important in the economic development of Sussex County as it supplied a route for early local industries, such as dairy farms and ore mines, to export their products. It was the last independently operated New Jersey railroad to be incorporated into the DL&W system. The last train travelled on the Sussex Railroad tracks on October 2, 1966. The tracks were removed soon after and the right-of-way was transformed into a rail trail known as the Sussex Branch Trail.
Newton station, built 1873, was one of the first stations
Branchville station, built in 1869
Branchville station, c. 1917
Newton station site in May 2015
Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad
The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, also known as the DL&W or Lackawanna Railroad, was a U.S. Class 1 railroad that connected Buffalo, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey, and by ferry with New York City, a distance of 395 miles (636 km). The railroad was incorporated in Pennsylvania in 1853, and created primarily to provide a means of transport of anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Northeast Pennsylvania to large coal markets in New York City. The railroad gradually expanded both east and west, and eventually linked Buffalo with New York City.
The railroad's offices in Manhattan in 1893
The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad yards in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a hub of the Pennsylvania coal mining industry, c. 1895
The Paulinskill Viaduct on the Lackawanna Cut-Off in Hainesburg, New Jersey, was the largest concrete bridge in the world when it was completed in 1910
The Tunkhannock Viaduct in Nicholson, Pennsylvania, in October 1988. A Delaware & Hudson Railway train on the bridge is dwarfed by the structure, which stands 240 feet (73 m) above the creek for which it is named