Hike #1033; Wind Gap to Easton

Hike #1033; Wind Gap to Easton

4/30/17 Wind Gap to Easton with Shane Blische, Commando Tom Petruccio, Laura Allen Cunningham, Jennifer Berndt, Mike Piersa, Scott Helbing (Tea Biscuit), Jessica M. Collins, Austin Grimshaw, Kevin Kowalick, Kathryn Cataldo, Jim Mathews (Mr. Buckett), Doug DeGroff, Richard Kowal, James Quinn, Monika Kwiecinska, Gina Zuvich, Robin Dietz, Mark! ?, Timothy Kovich, Chris Vitalos, Kevin Gondek, Don Mayberry, Buddy V Mayberry, Stefanie Statler, Dan Asnis, and Shayna Michaels.

Excellent historic notation from Shane Blische presented in italics.
Our next hike would be the fifteenth in our 911memorialtrail hike series since we started in early 2016. We had done the weird ones out of Columbia NJ and up through the Delaware Water Gap, where we took a few liberties to avoid road walking that would be bad for hikers, but now were back on terrific off road walking.

Lehigh and New England bed

The previous hike was mostly all road walking with a few pots off here and there, but this time it was mostly rail trail. In the sections where it was not, my plan was to take some other abandoned rail infrastructure to avoid the road walking as best we could. It went overall very well.
This was also an example of one of those hikes that justifies the purpose for everything we do on so many different levels. We helped not only to push participants a bit further than average and create an overall positive experience, but also make connections for continued improvement and promotion of greenways.

Lehigh and New England historic map

We met in the morning at Upper Hackett Park in Easton area, which would be our southern terminus for the hike. I worked it out with the city that we’d have permission to park at that special location at the ball fields. We then shuttled north to Wind Gap, to the Appalachian Trail parking lot where we had completed the previous hike.

Historic Lehigh and New England locomotive photo

The official 911 Trail route from here follows only roads. It then heads to the Plainfield Township Recreation Trail, which follows an old Bangor and Portland Railway branch.
Rather than follow the roads the entire time, I decided to utilize a bit of power line path as well as former Lehigh and New England Railroad bed.

Historic photo from Shane

Lehigh and New England Railroad ALCo FA1 #709 prepares to leave the engine terminal at Pen Argyl Yard in August 1953. Photo by Joe Stark
I had followed this bit of Lehigh and New England in the past, just not in many years. I didn’t know quite what to expect. We walked down Broadway to the south, and crossed Constitution Ave. Just after that is where the L&NE used to cross the road.

Historic photo from Shane

LNE ALCo FA1 #701 at the fueling station in Pen Argyl Yard. Photo by Dale Woodland.
The rail bed was sort of developed over into a lot. I remembered it being much more wooded in this section when I last walked it. We skirted the lot, then got on the power line to the left.

LNE line at start of Pen Argyl Yards.

We were able to follow the power line for a little while, then after a business we cut to the right back down to the old railroad bed. This was around the start of the old Pen Argyl yards.
The L&NE was an extensive system. The Lehigh Valley was full of it’s branch lines heading in all directions that I’ve been following for years, both northeast into NJ and into NY, and west toward Tamaqua PA. It’s significant in that it was the second major railroad to be all abandoned in a single day, October 31st 1961. In fact, it was still making money at the time, but I suppose they decided to quit while they were ahead.

Historic photo from Shane

LNE "decapod" 2-10-0 at Pen Argyl Yard November 1947. The locomotive was scrapped two years later when Lehigh and New England fully dieselized. Photo by H K Vollrath.

Pen Argyl Yard buildings and labels

To the right of where we were walking, various buildings still exist that were part of the Lehigh and New England system including part of the old round house, which is quite rare.
There was evidence of several tracks through the area where we were walking. When we got to where we’d turn, we stopped to do some historic dissertation.

Historic photo from Shane

Lehigh and New England "camelback consolidation" 2-8-0 #26 at Pen Argyl Yard in 1935 from Gary Overfield collection.
We switched between Mike P and Shane going over historic items in the area, as they are both well versed in their own areas beyond anyone else.

Mike P gives us some local history while on the LNE

From here, we made our way across several more rights of way. To the east of us were junctions with sidings and spurs that went to various slate quarries. Part of it was Bangor and Portland, which was incorporated in 1879, then became part of the Lackawanna system in 1903.

Historic Pen Argyl area photo of the Lehigh and New England by Charlie Houser

The Lehigh & New England Railroad initially started out as a venture in which a railroad would be built from Boston, Mass. to Harrisburg, Penn. The original railroad, chartered 1872, would be called the South Mountain & Boston Railroad. The railroad was mismanaged, never got sufficient funding and folded in May 1879. Much of their woes were also caused by the Panic of 1873. Sections of their charter in Pennsylvania and New Jersey were bought by the Pennsylvania Poughkeepsie & New England Railroad, which would continue the concept of construction the grand Boston-Harrisburg line. A right of way for the Harrisburg-Slatington section was indeed graded but once competitor Berks County Railroad opened their line out of Slatington using similar routing the PPNE wanted, the Harrisburg dream died. The only original mainline section to be built was from Danielsville to Slatington, which would later become the Slatington Branch.

Lackawanna station view in Wind Gap PA

The PPNE soon went into receivership in 1882 and reorganized as Pennsylvania Slatington & New England RR, and again in 1887 as Pennsylvania Poughkeepsie & Boston RR. The dream of building a line to Boston soon died out as well. Much of that initial dream was fueled by the upcoming Poughkeepsie Bridge.
During 1881-1885, there was a frenzy of track construction between Slatington and Pine Island, N.Y. A strange agreement was made with Erie RR which owned track to Pine Island in letting PP&B reach Campbell Hall, N.Y. A final reorganization was made in 1895 in which the name changed to Lehigh & New England Railroad.

Pen Argyl Yard Engine Shop photo by Shane Blische

For the next several decades LNE remained solvent and managed fairly well, heavily expanding its system and operations in the early years. In 1913, the Tamaqua Extension, which would become the new mainline, opened from Danielsville to Summit Hill, P.A.
Several branches closed in the 1930s due to LNE attempting to save money during the Great Depression.
Passenger service was also terminated on LNE during that time. After the end of World War Two, local coal traffic started dropping. LNE decided to finally call it quits in October 1961 and contracted Addision Wellsville & Galeton RR to scrap their line in 1962. Much of the branch lines survived via CNJ acquisition.

Pen Argyl Yard Roundhouse photo by Shane Blische

Today, remnants of the mainline exist in Tamaqua-Hauto area and portions of the Bethlehem and Martins Creek Branches survive as well in use by Norfolk Southern.
We weaved back and forth a bit on these Lehigh and New England grades looking for a way to get out to Route 512. We eventually found an accepable way to get out to it, and then headed down onto Buss Street.
The trail goes in on the left side of the road off of Buss Street. The very first section of this is a railroad bed, but the rest is not. The rail bed is much developed over at this point.

1916 USGS map of Wind Gap/Pen Argyl

The trail started on a line that went to the junctions to the east. It runs into developed over lands, and so the township acquired permission for the trail to go south through their lands, circumnavigating the land fill waste management place.

2000 USGS map of WInd Gap/Pen Argyl still showing some of the rail lines, though abandoned

Along the way, there was a giant block piece of what appeared to be slate to the left of the trail. I didn’t really pay it any mind; I had walked by this thing several times before and just figured it was some sort of cut away piece of rock that was discarded.
Mike P filled us in that it was something much more, actually some kind of a counterweight. I cannot explain the way Mike did, but it was something none of us knew of.

The Lackawanna line to Wind Gap

The really cool thing was that with the town manager there, as well as two railroad experts and I, we were able to discuss an idea that could potentially put an historical interpretation kiosk or waymarker next to this relic and improve the overall trail experience.
We stopped to talk about this when we reached the official trail section, where there was a sort of obscured junction site. The other line going off slightly to the right, west of the main trail, was something that none of us at the time knew of for certain. I have since discoverd that this was the Lackawanna Railroad’s line to Wind Gap, as seen on the map I have attached.

1972 crossing at Belfast area, taken by Charlie Houser

Shane ran off into the woods as we headed on our way to the south because there were so many remnants of the former slate industries up there. Things that could have been sidings, spurs, and more are all around.
The Bangor & Portland RR was first chartered in 1879 and opened in 1880, initially just a small line from Portland where a connection was made with the Warren Railroad (aka Helbing's Favorite Railroad) to Martins Creek, P.A. Subsequent acquisitions of the Bangor & Bath RR, Chapman & Lehigh RR, Hanover & Newport RR and Nazareth & Lehigh RR added trackage through Ackermansville to Pen Argyl, Belfast, Nazareth, Tadmore and finally Bath.

Foundation remnants at the adjacent old slate industries

Track officially opened to Bath in summer 1900 and increased B&Ps length to 32 1/2 miles. It was not long after that LNE built a branch from Bath to Martins Creek, paralleling B&P track from Bath to Nazareth. The original B&P mainline to Martins Creek became a branch line to access PRR's Belvidere Division via a bridge built in 1885 across the Delaware River. The line from a point called Martins Creek Junction just north of the town of Martins Creek to Bath became the new mainline. An earlier proposed routing of the B&P to Easton eventually became the Easton & Northern Railroad, but still fell under B&P ownership until 1904 when Lehigh Valley Railroad took over the E&N.

Pirates

There were plans for B&P to extend the line from Bath to Allentown but this never came to be. The B&P was formally absorbed into the Delaware Lackawanna & Western Railroad system deeming Portland-Bath trackage as the Bangor-Portland Division and Martins Creek Junction-Martins Creek trackage as the Martins Creek Branch.
Besides PRR at Martins Creek, connections were made with LNE at Bangor via LNE Bangor Branch, at Pen Argyl via a connector off the B&P, at Nazareth with their Martins Creek Branch and at Bath with their Bethlehem Branch.

In addition, connections were made with the Lehigh Valley RR Easton & Northern Branch at Belfast Junction and the Northampton & Bath Railroad at Bath as well. A majority of the freight handled on the B&P was slate and cement traffic. There was in fact passenger service on the line, but nothing too major. Service from Martins Creek to Bangor was discontinued in 1914 and Portland-Bath service ceased in 1929. Since B&P's inception the base of operations was held at Bangor. The Bangor Engine Terminal became fully dieselized with Fairbanks Morse diesels in January 1953. After LNE shutdown, the Erie Lackawanna Railroad (formed 1960) took over Pen Argyl Yard for engine and car maintenance and car classification on the Bangor-Portland Division as facilities in Bangor were becoming too outdated. Pen Argyl Yard, along with the B&P line from Martins Creek Junction through Pen Argyl to Belfast were abandoned in the late 1970s by Conrail. The Nazareth-Bath section was also killed during the same time. A very small remnant is still in use as a double switchback near Nazareth to reach a few customers served by Norfolk Southern. The entire original Bangor & Portland RR line from Martins Creek to Portland survives and is still in heavy use by Norfolk Southern as part of their Portland Secondary.

Historic photo from Shane

Bangor and Portland locomotive #4, built by Cooke Locomotive Works, stands on the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western's turntable along Stockton Street in Phillipsburg, N.J. in 1901 after completing a trip from Portland via Easton & Northern RR between Belfast and Easton. The E&N was controlled by the B&P and throughpassenger trains used the E&N to reach Easton until Lehigh Valley Railroad took over the E&N in 1904. DLW had purchased all B&P stock by August 1900. Photo from C T Andrews collection.

Little Bushkill Creek

With all of the industrial history of the area, it’s very easy to overlook some of the natural aspects of this hike that I love so much.
The most significant one I think is the fact that this is one of those lines where you can follow a tributary from headwaters right to major confluence. The Bushkill Creek is closely paralleled by the rail lines down to where it hits the Delaware in Easton, and right where we get on the rail bed, the springs are starting along both sides. The Little Bushkill Creek finds it’s head waters in the old slate quarries of the area, and soon we began crossing it’s tributaries.

Spring House

There was plenty of other historical sites in the area not even related to the railroad at all.
We passed a beautiful spring house the very likely predates the railroad, but almost touches the right of way. It’s in poor shape, but still standing with the intact roof.
Merwarth Road marked the site of what was known in the railroad days as Miller’s Station. Where Miller’s Station on Bangor and Portland Railroad once stood is now a parking lot for the trail, and Tom told us he had the overhead entrance way that used to sit at the south end of the trail moved to this site.

Old coal trestle or something

There was a good interpretive marker at the actual site of “Plainfield” I guess it was that detailed the past existence of a blockhouse fort that dated back to the French and Indian War, and various other adjacent homes that went back to before the American Revolution. We could see the Adam Deitz House, but about 1750, from right there on the trail. Of course, there would be plenty more rail era remants including regular mounds of slate piles to the sides, a small trestle siding, and bits of rail here and there.

Newly redecked bridge on Plainfield Township Rail Trail

We passed over Grand Central Road as well as Delabole Road, which I think at one time had a station. We continued on to the south across a newly re-decked bridge Tom pointed out, and a trail entrance thing he’d had relocated from the southern end of the trail to our next crossing which I think was at Merwarth Road. Heading south, we crossed Little Bushkill Creek, then Getz Road, then the Little Bushkill Creek again, and then Jones Hill Road at another creek crossing. We made our way near the little village of Belfast, which the railroad sort of bypassed by a bit.

The trail entrance on one of my hikes in 2009

We took a little break along the Little Bushkill where the trail passes beneath Bangor Road. This used to be a grade crossing, but it was made into an overpass in sort of recent years. This area was known as Edelman.
The time went by pretty quickly. We headed south and crossed over Engler Road, followed by Gall Road a little further beyond that.
It was neat once again to look back at so many other hikes I’d done through this same area. The first time I had walked this section was part of a 31.75 mile hike with my brother, looking through Northampton County.

Shelf above the Little Bushkill

I’d done the section as day and night hikes in the past since then, and witnessed the little improvements here and there.
Always the most impressive section of the trail is the southernmost section, below Gall Road where it goes on a very high shelf above the Little Bushkill Creek. Nowhere else is there such a dramatic drop off on one side. From there it soon comes out in the parking lot at what used to be Belfast Junction.
We stopped for a group photo there, and a lady we met was good enough to get a photo for me. We continued here straight across.

The group at Belfast

From this point, the remainder of the hike would be mostly on the Lehigh Valley Railroad’s Easton and Northern line. The parking lot was once known as Belfast Junction. The Lackawanna Bangor and Portland line we had been following continued off to the right, into weeds today, but the trail looks as though it continues across, but it was actually the E&N.

Deverie's Pub

Shortly after getting onto the Easton and Northern line we came to our lunch stop. I pre-planned and even called ahead to Devery’s Pub and Grill just south of the junction for our lunch stop, and I advertised it in the trip write up that we would be stopping there for an extended lunch. I had really liked the place in the past, and Tea Biscuit and I had both stopped here on that thirty plus mile hike we had done in 2003. The dogs weren’t allowed inside, so Don and Tea Biscuit took turns watching each other’s dogs while they got to come in for food and drinks. A couple of games of pool were played, and it ended up being a really great little stop.
Mike P stayed with us for lunch but cut out soon after. At just over half the hike, this was his highest mileage day yet, and he handled it with seemingly no problem.

We continued following the railroad bed, now a soft surface rail trail, across Dogwood Lane and Industrial Blvd, then down into Lincoln School Park where the rail trail officially ended.

1916 map of Belfast Jct. area

From here, the official trail is kind of a problem. The tracks in the area of Bushkill Creek south of town washed out very badly in late 2004, and the nearest road bridge is also gone. Tracks are still in place from Stockertown as an industrial spur down to the junction with the former Martins Creek Branch of the Lehigh and New England Railroad. When Shayna left us early when we were having lunch, I directed her on a bit of road walk, but the route to get back to trail again is not clear. She ended up walking road most of the entire way back to the cars.
We decided just after we got to the road that we’d turn right and then just parallel the tracks to get to the abandoned washed out line.

2000 map of Belfast area

When we reached that point, we just turned left and before long we were out at the bridge and back to the Easton and Northern line. We walked the Lehigh and New England to get to that point.
The Easton and Norrthern was constructed in the 1890s to connect Stockertown to South Easton, mostly following the valley of the Bushkill Creek.
It’s parent company, the Lehigh Valley Railroad, went bankrupt in 1970, and went the way of Conrail. Conrail abandoned all of the line in Easton in 1995, and this little trunk to Tatamy remained in service until the flood took it out for good in 2004. I had already been hiking the line prior to that time, so it’s especially weird for me to see it now.

Still in service on my hike in 2004; Matt Fenimore photo

Once we got across the bridge over Bushkill Creek, the rigth of way was a total mess, and probably the toughest spot on the entire hike. The weeds on it can get pretty thick.
The Easton & Northern Railroad was chartered in May 1889 and the first section from Belfast to Tatamy opened in 1890. Track finally reached the Lehigh Valley Railroad mainline in South Easton in 1895 via a colossal truss bridge crossing the Lehigh River. The line had initially been an older proposed alignment of the Bangor & Portland Railroad but saw the routing as unnecessary and inadequate for their needs though B&P retained operation of the line as controller of the E&N

E&N line today

In 1904, the Lehigh Valley Railroad took over operation of the E&N and renamed it their Easton & Northern Branch. The E&N had formally been absorbed into LV in December 1949. Most of the freight was interchange traffic from Lehigh & New England RR and Delaware Lackawanna & Western RR from Stockertown and Belfast and the shipment of cement and slate from the Stockertown and Nazareth areas. In addition, multiple customers dotted the landscape along the line between the northern end of the branch at Belfast and Easton.

Easton and Northern in very early 2005

The branch survived into Conrail but a great portion of it was soon killed off. In 1983, CR filed abandonment of the line from South Easton Junction to Huntsman Pigments.
Once the Dixie-Cup Co. factory closed, there was no need to keep that portion of the line. The next portion to go was the one mile section from Huntsman Pigments to Crayola when Huntsman Pigments stopped taking rail service in 1993.
Two years later the biggest abandonment of trackage on the branch occurred eliminating the line from Crayola outside of Easton all the way to Tatamy.

The same spot today

Crayola had moved to a much newer facility in Forks Township which spelled the end of service south of Tatamy. The last customer was a packaging/shipping company at Tatamy. Severe washouts caused in 2004 ended any further rail service to Tatamy. Only a small remnant of the branch is still in use to serve a plastic company in Stockertown. Much of the line between Tatamy and Easton is now rail-trailed.
When the washout ocurred, it left rails s uspended in the air out on the defunct spur. It was easy enough to walk for the first couple of years after it happened, but now it feels like it’s in deep woods. We managed to muscle our way through the mess and emerged behind an industrial site. We kept to the left which brought us out to Main Street/Uhler Road in Tatamy.

Historic image of Tatamy Station, 1956. Photo is part of Shane Blische's collection

The trail starts back up again at that point,and it leads out of the way around some businesses as we headed south out of town. I’m not exactly sure if the station was in that industrial area or on the Uhler Road.
We headed south on the trail across Bushkill Street, through some woods, and then through the new development area before crossing Newlins Mill Road. This is one of the areas that looks the most differetn from when I first started hiking it back in 2004.

Old bridge

We goofed off at an old bridge crossing, and enjoyed the beautiful section on the narrow shelf above the Bushkill Creek. Tea Biscuit was wearing the pirate hat that Shane had worn to the hike and was talking all ridiculous. We laughed pretty hard on the last leg of this hike.
We passed by the intersection with Penn’s Grant Path, another trail we’ve used several times on the hikes, and then crossed over Stocker’s Mill Road. Not far beyond that we crossed over Northwood Road and skirted the edge of Penn Pump Park. We paused at the south side of the park where a deck girder bridge carries the rail bed over the Bushkill Creek.

Goofing off

I went down and got in the water, which felt pretty nice.
After we got out of the creek, we walked a bit further and then crossed Bushkill Park Drive followed by yet another trestle over the Bushkill Creek.
Another woodsy section was just ahead, with a lot of brushy flood plains along the creek. We emerged from this sectino of woods to a somewhat industrial area, where Binney and Smith has one of their Crayola facilities. I don’t remember what the other ones were that are at this point.
We walked right across the lot, as that’s the official trail route today. There were even rails in place in the pavement that we could see.

By Crayola on the rail bed

It wasn’t long after this we crossed Edgewood Avenue. Just after this point, the trail officially leaves the railroad bed. Ahead, the rail bed is still a trail for a short distance, but ends at a former industry turned apartment complex.

Easton and Northern

When the rail bed was acquired for a trail, the industrial site did not want trail users to be able to just walk through, so a deal was struck that they would construct a trail to circumnavigate the property, and they could take over the rail bed. It was agreed upon, and so a portion of the railbed is inaccessible.
We turned right to climb the hillside on the paved trail to reach Upper Hackett Park. The trail goes past some frisbee golf stations, then weaves to the left as an access road to reach Hackett Avenue at the crest. From that point, the trail goes down hill, but we were parked at the crest.
Any more is beyond the scope of this hike, but I had proposed that the trail remain lower, and even with a short road walk would be an excellent multi use route, and would add incredibly important points of national history.
I’ll detail that one further in the entry for it. This hike though, was an absolute success and exactly what I wanted to come of the series.