Slateford Junction

Slateford Junction, Pennsylvania, looking north to the Delaware Water Gap. The Lackawanna Cut-Off (left) and the Old Road (right) converge about 1,500 feet (460 m) past Slateford Tower (obscured by trees, left).

Slateford Junction was a railway junction in the small town of Slateford, Pennsylvania, built to connect the existing mainline of the Lackawanna Railroad — the so-called Old Road — with the new Lackawanna Cut-Off. It operated from 1911 until 1979.

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 Montclair-Boonton 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 small 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-throw with electric locks.^[1]^[2]

Today, the Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Railroad Authority (PNRRA) owns the remaining 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 2021, there are plans to restore service along the Cut-Off. The junction is where the "golden spike" would be located.

References[]

^ 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.

Coordinates: 40°57′00″N 75°06′58″W / 40.950°N 75.116°W / 40.950; -75.116

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[1] Lackawanna's Silent Sentinels - Their Concrete Towers, by Bob Bahrs; Flags, Diamonds & Statues, Volume 21, No. 2 (April 2012).

[2] 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.

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