Hike #1015; Tranquility to Oxford

Hike #1015; Tranquility to Oxford

1/24/17 Tranquility to Oxford with Sandy Westermann, Brittany Audrey, and Russell Lord Byron Rapp

This next hike would be a point to point repeat of one I’ve done many times, one of the earliest hikes I’d ever posted since starting the group. My circumstances had led me to doing this local one, which was nice and close to home.

LHR line in Tranquility

I’d been hiking the former Lehigh and Hudson River Railroad for years. It’s got an interesting history, and amazing it was ever abandoned because it made up a major piece of the northeast corridor. The tracks were torn up in 1986 after the 1984 end of service.
We met in Oxford by the Busy Bee, and shuttled up to Tranquility near the old station site, at the post office to start heading to the south, in the first section that is rather overgrown.
This was actually one of the earliest hikes I’d scaled off. Before I had a computer, before I was even regularly using e mail. Back then, the hikes would end at my house in Port Colden, and I would scale off trips from all directions to finish at my house.

Lehigh and Hudson line

It is about twenty miles from Tranquility back to Port Colden, and this was one of the original hikes I had scaled off using my grandfather’s USGS maps in his office. I always love to revisit some of these earliest sections.
This is another kind of weird one for me because the line was still active when I was little. I was able to see it go through all of the changes that an abandoned rail line goes through. I remember walking it when the ties were all still in place for most of the sections. They were bulldozed off on most of the line I believe in 1999.

An old whistle marker

We walked through the weedy part parallel with the cemetery, then out across the Freeborn Lane and Tranquility Farms. Beyond there it’s all definitely public land. We continued on it very clearly through lovely woods heading to the south.
I needed this familiar trip; my stress level was not improving with all of the work stuff. I had been ordered to return to my old post at Spruce Run, which I certainly could not handle. After everything I’d been through, I wasn’t comfortable going back to Spruce Run at all let alone working there. I took benefit time for the start of the week until earlier in the day when I received the call that I could go back to Washington’s Crossing the next day. It wasn’t a perfect situation because it was still a long commute, but I could at least handle that. Still, I remained in limbo.
We continued to the south further, and soon emerged at the Allamuchy Station site. The historic freight house is still standing today.

Historic 1918 image of Allamuchy Station

Originally, there were both passenger and freight stations at this point, but only the freight station survives today. Passenger service died out way back, I can’t remember what year. Even President Franklin Roosevelt traveled by way of this line. Not so much because it was the most convenient part of the Northeast Corridor, but because he was having an affair with the famous Lucy Mercer Rutherford who lived a short distance away.

Allamuchy Freight house historic image from 1955.

The Lehigh and Hudson River Railroad was pretty much abandoned in 1984. The tracks were only around until 1986 when removal began. It didn’t take too long before the line was gone. This is much owed to the arsonist burning of the Poughkeepsie bridge in NY (now Walkway Over the Hudson).

Photos of the Allamuchy Station taken on Metrotrails hikes in 2002 and just after restoration in 2005.

The freight depot was left up, and continued to deteriorate over the years. By the time I started passing through on the hikes, it was in pretty sad shape. Local farmers had begun using it to store hay. I passed it several times between 2000 and 2004 on the hikes, and it was wide open on the side door.
Then, in around 2005, we hiked by and I was surprised to see that it had quickly been well restored. I found out later that this was at least in part from Municipal and Charitable Conservancy Trust grants from Warren County, a board which I would later serve on. Now, there is even an historic marker along side of the road to tell the story of the old station, which I didn’t recall seeing the last time there. There are still rails visible in the crossroad next to the station.

Original Allamuchy Passenger Station

We crossed over the road to continue following the line to the south. It remained pretty clear in a section within a line of trees, and fields on both sides.

William Nelson photo near the end of the LHR's life

We continued as the fields gave way to more woods, and soon we were out on an expansive wetland where little streams were appearing to the edges of the rail bed. This was the headwaters of the Pequest River.

Present view of the Allamuchy Station

We soon reached our first crossing of the Pequest, a concrete structure with solid deck. It wasn’t all that long, but I pointed out that we would be crossing the river six times on the trip, and we could literally watch the river growing.

Ghetto poetry

Soon, we reached the crossing at Long Bridge, an area in Allamuchy Township where the line went beneath Rt 80. We crossed the road and then immediately passed over the Pequest River again, which had grown substantially in size. It was a concrete bridge again, but larger than the previous one.
Just after the river crossing, we turned to the right where the rail bed gets overgrown and skirted a field, then reached the 80 underpass. I was surprised to find that the underside of the bridge was spray painted with “ghetto poetry”, random disturbing graffiti that can be found almost completely covering every inch of every abandoned structure in the region.

Ghetto poetry

I first noted this crap back in 2002 on structures on the Lackawanna Cutoff between Greendell and Roseville. The handwriting appeared to be the same. After that, we found tons of it at the abandoned Stuyvesant estate area of Allamuchy, and tipped off our friends at Weird NJ about it for an article.
It’s really odd that fifteen years later we are still finding the same kind of crazy vulgar writing with the same exact writing style all over the place. One would think that a young graffiti “artist” might give up on the exact same trash after a period of time, but this one has consistently been adding for nearly two decades. It’s entirely possible that this could be copycat stuff, but to emulate the exact same handwriting style is really weird.

LHR line in Allamuchy Twp.

The right of way remained clear to the south of the underpass. We soon passed by the Allamuchy Municipal building area where a side trail had been constructed to the right of way. We passed that, then got to the ball fields heading to the Alphano Flats where there are enormous sod farms.
The section is incredibly beautiful to wander through. We crossed the wide open fields, and then the Post Island Road. We could see some sort of a party was going on at the trailers along the sod farms where the migrant laborers are apparently living. Some of the right of way was a bit grown over, and I reminisced about when we had to rush on by the closed sewage plant (or whatever it is) to the right back when it was still open and guarded.

LHR line in Allamuchy Twp.

We crossed over the remaining wooden beam bridge, and then soon entered the woods again. There used to be someone back in that section that lived in a trailer parallel with the railroad bed, but that was gone now too. We continued further on across Nykun Lane, and as it got darker we reached the back yards parallel with Alphano Road. We turned to the left when we got to the state access road rather than try to stay directly on the railroad bed. It goes over the Pequest by way of yet another concrete bridge just ahead, but the state land ends I think in the middle of it. Someone has blocked off part of the right of way with a fence line, and so in the dark it was easier to just get to the road. A car was coming into a driveway right by us anyway, and I didn’t want to look suspicious.

Former LHR line in Great Meadows

We crossed over Route 46 in Great Meadows. The highway goes over the tracks there, which are still left in place since the abandonment by the owner’s request. The beautiful station was well restored by the owners of Pequest Engineering who occupy the site now. They even have an historic rail car sitting outside to add to the ambiance.

LHR station in Great Meadows

The history of Great Meadows is quite interesting. When the LHR line came through, there was a bitter argument between two towns, Danville and Townsbury over who would get the railroad station. LHR was to build only one. The argument was such that LHR did not want to have anything to do with it, basically said “screw both of ya”, and put a station directly between the two towns and named it simply “Great Meadows”.

Historic image at the station

The Lehigh and Hudson River Railroad station in Great Meadows NJ. This is a High Iron Company excursion train passing by the station in 1971 .

The only clue of the former town name is the fact that the adjacent mountain still bears the name “Danville Mountain”.
We continued from the station back over to the tracks, which are still in place for a good while caked between the roads. Rt 46 was just to the right of us. When the railroad was built, it used to cross over the road at grade. Constant collisions at the site led them to change it and cross over the tracks directly via the present bridge. I’ve heard there were plans to remove the bridge and make it a “grade crossing” again, but it hasn’t happened. It’s not looking likely that it will ever see rail service again.

Historic view of Great Meadows Station

We continued to where the tracks ended, and then came to the small side road that connects Rt 46 to the Great Meadows Cemetery, just up hill. There is an older cemetery behind a church just to the right, and we turned here to pass through it.

Historic image of Great Meadows Station

Just past the cemetery is Nykun’s Store, a great little general store along Rt 46. When I lived in Townsbury, I used to go to the store just about every day I was off for their amazing sandwiches.

Great Meadows Station on one of my hikes in 2002

People don’t realize that Nykuns is also a liquor store, and a very interesting one that that. There’s a giant galvanized door that leads to the cooler. It’s pretty organized now, but when I first started going in, it was just a mess of stuff, and boxes of beer would nearly fall over on you. There are partial six packs everywhere, and a crazy selection of all sorts of stuff. I had to get some snacks anyway, and they even carried the Arizona RX energy drink that I like.

Historic postcard of Great Meadows Station

We left the store and made our way back up hill slightly to the railroad bed. At this point, it’s far too overgrown to follow to the southwest. We had to get into an adjacent field owned by the cemetery intended for it’s expansion.

Great Meadows Station on one of my more recent hikes

We continued to the end of the field, cut to the right and made our way out to an ATV path parallel with the rail bed. It goes on or parallel with the right of way for just a bit ahead. There’ s a quarry place in the area that has an access road we crossed. At that point, we again had to get off of the rail bed and use parallel fields.

LHR train passing through what is likely Long Bridge area

We returned to the rail bed again behind another business as we neared Vienna area. Then, we crossed over the Pequest and a private road by way of a deck girder bridge. It’s one of those bridges where we look down and see the river between the ties, and so crossing it in the dark can be a bit unnerving for some, it was no problem for this group.
Lord Byron met up with us at the Townsbury crossing ahead. The rail bed is on a shelf in the area ahead, as it enters Pequest Wildlife Management Area.
It got less overgrown as we continued to Townsbury. I used to do a lot of hikes out of that lot where the road crosses when I lived there for just over a year.

LHR train, likely in Great Meadows parallel with the road

The route is now trail passing through a cut and then along the Pequest heading to the west. We made our way across the weird driveway with the “speed limit 100” sign and others as we continued along. The section always goes pretty fast because it’s so clear.
We passed through former farm lands, and I caught up with Lord Byron a bit about the things he’s been working on with his video webisode series. It didn’t take long before we reached the area of the Pequest Trout Hatchery, where we crossed a through style girder bridge over the river again. This one, unlike previous ones, is well decked with wood.

The sign on one of my hikes in 2002

The rail bed is closely parallel with Route 46 from this time and for a while. The ambient light of the highway is always abundant enough that flashlights would never be necessary, but we’re still out of sight from traffic.
We crossed the entrance road to Pequest Trout Hatchery and made our way to the small community of Pequest Furnace, where the right of way skirts a few back yards (but is still state land).
Pequest Furnace was a sister operation to the nearby Oxford Furnace. It was constructed in the 1870s, though there might have been some sort of operation there earlier since the Warren Railroad was detoured toward the site in 1856. There are various iron mines and such nearby, making it a strategic place. It ceased operations in the early 1900s, although I am not sure the year. Today, it’s just a vacant area with no sign of the old buildings remaining until passing through the wooded sections on the hillside ahead.

Historic image of Pequest Furnace

We crossed Pequest Furnace Road, then crossed the Pequest River one more time on yet another deck-girder bridge. There, we turned left onto an ATV path, leaving the Lehigh and Hudson River Railroad bed.
The path led beneath another bridge site, for the Pequest Furnace Railroad, which connected to the Lackawanna Railroad old main line above. At a split in the path, we went to the right, soon to pick up the Pequest Furnace Railroad right of way. There are masonry foundations through this area and abutments to a substantial bridge for the furnace railroad and furnace.

1905 view of Pequest Furnace from above

I tried my best to point out with lights where the remains of the operation were. We then continued on this rail bed to it’s former northbound junction with the old Warren Railroad/Lackawanna main line. There was a connection with the southbound, but that one is more overgrown, and not really as good a connection for doing the night hikes. We went left on the Lackawanna and passed through the substantial Pequest Cut, a very deep rock cut. On the other side, just past where the other connection with Pequest Furnace Railroad was, I pointed out the dump area for the waste material from the ore smelting. To this day, it’s a hardened mass that barely grows any vegetation save for a few Eastern Red Cedars.
We continued out to cross Pequest Road, and then got on the trail section heading into Oxford. The section is paved and quite relaxing to it’s end off of Lower Denmark Road in Oxford. Warren County is trying to purchase more of the right of way to continue the trail into town from here, which will further improve it.

Historic image; Oxford Station

Lower Denmark Road, furthe ron, is now built on the old railroad bed. We walked past the station platform to the right of us, and continued to walk into town. I’d have liked to explore more of the area around the furnace and the Shippen Manor, but we were all tired and there’s just too much to see in one night.

Historic map of Oxford NJ

We turned away from the road/former rail bed when we got to the ball fields after crossing Furnace Brook, and cut across toward the Busy Bee (it was closed as Busy Bee and re-opened under new ownership; the guy let us park there for this hike).

Another historic view of Allamuchy Station

It was really nice to revisit some of these areas I’ve been exploring my entire life, and sharing it with a new group of people. It was also nice to do something closer to home again, after growing accustomed to doing so much stuff in Mercer County NJ and Bucks County PA.
I left this hike wondering if I’d be doing stuff close to home, or if I’ll be somewhere far off with new fodder for night hikes soon. I’d be returning to Washington’s Crossing for work the next day, which meant leaving at 5 am again. The feeling of powerlessness continued to be overwhelming. The importance of getting out and putting one foot in front of the other has never seemed more important.