Hike #1145; Rockport to Freeland

Hike #1145; Rockport to Freeland

7/26/18 Rockport PA to Freeland with Pete G. Wilcox, Daniel Trump, James De Lotto, and James Quinn

This next hike was a point to point arranged for a Thursday again when Pete was available. He and Dan both love the old rail line hikes, and so I had a few more I wanted to do.

Where Buck Mountain RR crossed Laurel Run

I had first discovered the Buck Mountain Coal Company Gravity Railroad through another hike we did in the past on the D&L Trail, which follows the former Central Railroad of New Jersey down below (and before that Lehigh and Lackawanna).
I found it on a google earth panoramio thing and had to see it.
The main drawing factor to this was a small tunnel, not too high, near the terminus of the railroad. I had no idea what this was for. It was obviously different than any of the other railroad tunnels we’d seen.

Gravity railroad tunnel

I hadn’t yet gotten so heavily into the gravity railroads when I’d discovered this line yet. It wasn’t until a more extensive exploration of the Pennsylvania Coal Company Gravity Railroad that I really started getting obsessed with them.

The tunnel

I’d already done the Mauch Chunk Switchback Gravity Railroad, which was the earliest one, and we have the current series going on with the Delaware and Hudson, which is incredibly extensive.
The Buck Mountain Coal Company Gravity, though, is somewhat forgotten. It’s caked in the middle of coal country, through lands that are still only lightly developed, and in areas where no one asks questions and obliviously drive past whatever remnants are out there. Mauch Chunk was the first, so it gets plenty of attention.

The tunnel

Delaware and Hudson was the second, and saw the first use of a locomotive in America, so it too gets a lot of attention. The Buck Mountain one is an obscure blip in a short history where so many other railroads came in to take it’s place. If it weren’t for the existence of the tunnel at Rockport, probably no one would ever ask a question about it at all.
I found out that the infrastructure was far larger than just the tunnel. I had read that there were only two inclined planes on the line, but then further research revealed nine numbered.

Tunnel

The Buck Mountain Coal Company Gravity Railroad was first chartered in 1836. Work began on the line in the Fall of 1839 and was completed within 12 months. The first load of coal came from mines to market in 1840.
The railroad connected the coal mines at Buck Mountain some 4.3 miles west of the Lehigh to the Lehigh Canal’s Upper Grand Division at Rockport. Cars were lowed some seventy feet down to the canal from the mouth of the tunnel’s east side on an inclined plane where there was a water wheel powered coal breaker.

Buck Mountain Coal Co tunnel

The 135 foot long tunnel is clearly silted in more than it was during the time of operation, but is much smaller than regular tunnels because it was mainly only for coal cars.

The tunnel

I read somewhere that the railroad briefly used a steam locomotive toward the end, but I’m not sure how true that is at this point.
The railroad was used for 22 years until the flood of June 1862. This flood washed out the Upper Grand Division of the Lehigh Canal, and it was deemed irreparable. The canal never re-opened, and the Buck Mountain Coal Company Gravity Railroad was useless with no transportation connection. Alternative ways of getting coal from Buck Mountain were sought, and the Hazleton Railroad was built and acquired by Lehigh Valley Railroad in 1868.

Buck Mountain Coal Co bridge

The canal’s service was taken over by the Lehigh and Susquehanna (Later CNJ) in 1867. The Buck Mountain tracks were removed in favor of the Hazleton Railroad connection.
The Buck Mountain line was relatively short, but I wanted to see it. I would have to come up with a good route that would incorporate it and other stuff I hadn’t done. I looked then to the aforementioned extensions starting with the original route to Hazle Creek Junction. It would take us parallel with one of our previous routes.

Where the Buck Mt. line goes into woods

Around this time last year, I had put a hike together tracing the Hayes Creek Branch, also known as Tannery Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, a more modern circa 1910ish branch built to eliminate the need to bring coal to Penn Haven Planes on the Lehigh Valley Railroad for northbound hauls.
The Hayes Creek Branch headed to the settlement of Buck Mountain and duplicated service of the original Hazleton Railroad connection. It was connected with the original line at the point of Gara Junction.

Buck Mt. Coal Co Gravity

Hayes Creek Branch continued to Ashmore Station and Junction. We had not done this bit yet, and so I decided we could take than on, followed by more former Lehigh Valley Railroad connections to the north. We could finish the hike in Freeland, which is where I had started one around this time last year. It looked to me like a great plan.
We met in Freeland, but the place I found on Google maps as a grocery store just didn’t work. The place appears to have been closed forever and a day. We moved cars instead to another store called I think it was Freeland Shur Save. I went in and got drinks and snacks here.

The gravity RR grade

From this point, we shuttled in my van I think it was to the start point at Rockport. I played some of the new Dispatch music that had just come out on the way down.
When we got to the junction, the first thing we did was check out the tunnel and two bridge sites.
We went through the tunnel, and on the other side there are really no remnants of the inclined plane at all. It’s pretty badly washed out. It was actually really flooding pretty badly throughout the area for this hike. It’s one of the reasons I did this one; the larger rivers were too swollen to walk along, but the smaller ones were more manageable.

The rail bed

The Lauel Run was running way too high for us to cross over. I had wanted to walk some of the old rail grade on the other side, but it was only over there for maybe 100 or so feet. A very short distance.
The railroad bed continued in a weird manner from here.
Pete led us out of the west end of the parking area and up a slope. I had thought this would be an inclined plane it was so steep. The only possibility was that it was all part of Plane 9, right through the tunnel and such, but that wouldn’t make sense because it looks level where it crossed the creek to the little section on the other side from the lot.

The rail bed

The grade leveled off again and we continued walking through some lovely Rhododendrons. This was all part of Lehigh Gorge State Park in this section.
We walked further ahead, and then were surprised to come across what appeared to be a bridge site, but there was no water flowing below it.
I still don’t know what it was. What my KMZ files on Google Earth say is Plane 9 is only on the east side of the tunnel. Plane 8 is just to the west of this point, and there is a good level grade beyond the building.

Power house?

I still don’t know for sure what this was, and I can’t find any information on it.
It’s not one of those places people get out to explore, either. It’s right behind someone’s private house.
We climbed steeply down into the pit and saw no further remnants other than the stone work from the sides. We then climbed back up the other side by walking the slope around and climbing up past the house. There was no one around at this time, so we had no trouble. I started walking the grade a bit further ahead of the others.

Power house?

The others were a bit behind me, so I moved off ahead, anticipating how amazing this was going to be based on what we’d seen already.

Power house walls?

As I walked just a little bit further, I could see a guy working out in front of his house, the next building down.
I was pretty sure he hadn’t seen me, and I signaled everyone not to continue on behind me. We all got off to the side, and decided it would be best to climb the very steep slope up the mountain to the south of us and skirt these private lands within public lands of Lehigh Gorge State Park or State Game Lands.

The rail bed

We made our way a long ways up to the top. It was really a good workout for so early in the day. I worked up a really good sweat. Once I felt we were high enough that we couldn’t see any of the buildings at all any more, we all took a little break.

Rail grade

We zig-zagged a bit. We had to stay high enough up. The guy I saw outside could easily hear or see us if we were down too low. I made my way up and down a bit, and eventually found an old road trace that headed gradually back down hill to the left. We had to get off of it but then slowly descended back to where we could see the railroad grade again.
The driveways to these houses don’t totally use the grade. They must have some kind of connection between two houses that we knew were on it.

We zig-zagged a bit. We had to stay high enough up. The guy I saw outside could easily hear or see us if we were down too low. I made my way up and down a bit, and eventually found an old road trace that headed gradually back down hill to the left. We had to get off of it but then slowly descended back to where we could see the railroad grade again.
The driveways to these houses don’t totally use the grade. They must have some kind of connection between two houses that we knew were on the grade.

The grade

It looked like a driveway made it’s way up to the grade at a point to the east of where we cae back down to it. Another house could be seen directly on the grade straight ahead.

The rail bed

We couldn’t keep following it through another back yard. Just below, we could see the driveway descended and crossed the Laurel Run on a bridge, so we descended off trail down the slope to that driveway and headed right out to the Rockport Road near the intersection with Grist Mill Road (that road is named for a grist mill that still stands as a private residence, just a short distance up hill on the road from where we reached Rockport Rd).

We turned left on Rockport Road, which is a good bit down hill from the old rail bed. My KMZ file showed that it came out to Rockport Road almost immediately, but most of the fill and any remnant of the bridge that would have taken it across the Laurel Run must be gone today.
On the left, just ahead, is a biker bar in an old church building. Apparently it’s a biker gang headquarters. The group is known as the “Flying Aces”. We saw a guy walking around but didn’t talk to him.

It said something about being open for drinks or something, and I’ll bet they’d be an interesting bunch to talk to. This was so early on though, and we weren’t feeling quite that bold yet. I had enough scare in me from trying to follow the grade and seeing someone.
We headed onto Rockport Road and started following it up hill gradually.
Supposedly, this grade is what used to be Plane #8 on the Buck Mountain railroad.

Former Plane #8

We made our way gradually up hill on the road/former plane. I watched in the woods to the left and in yards to see if any of that might have been it, adjacent to the road, but there was nothing definite.
We followed Rockport Road up hill until we came to the intersection with Lehigh Gorge Drive. There was a house directly across the road, where the railroad used to continue straight on through.

Field view

We had no choice but to go left here. I had studied the aerials and saw that there might be ways of getting into these woods to trace some of it, but there were too many homes scattered around. I decided at this point that it was best to bypass the section and walk the parallel roads.
I meant to take a right turn on Stagecoach Road, but we ended up passing it because it just looked like somebody’s driveway. From this we probably could have gotten over ot the railroad bed, but we missed the chance.

Someone took a railroad whistle marker

We, at this point, had to walk to the next road, which is also labeled as Stage Coach Road, which comes to Lehigh Gorge Drive at a hard angle. We walked up the road ahead, and Delotto didn’t want to go that far out of the way. He cut to the right through a yard and took his chances heading out ot the road more directly.
The rest of us continued walking out to the hairpin turn onto the road, and met up with him.

Stagecoach Road

There were some nice expansive countryside views along this road anyway, so it wasn’t all that bad. It was just in direct sun at first.
We came to where the other road, private I guess, came in from the right.
The old rail grade was off in the woods to the east of us as the road turned to the north. The surface changed from pavement to gravel, which made it so much nicer to walk. We continued along and saw a driveway off to the left which looked like it could have been the railroad, but shouldn’t have been.

Buck Mountain RR

I dismissed it at first, but looking at it on maps later, it does make a turn much like a railroad would have, and seems to continue on almost to Hazle Creek Junction to the west. I wonder if some of this might have been railway and it’s just never made it’s way onto the KMZ files yet.
Maybe one of these day’s I’ll find out.
We continued walking down hill gradually on the road, and a property appeared on the right with some wide open grassy property. I pointed out that that was where we should look.

Buck Mountain Coal Co. Gravity Railroad

Just a little bit further ahead, we got to where the railroad would have crossed over the road. Pete and Delotto looked at the side it was coming from and could see something that appeared to be an obvious old grade.

The rail bed

On the other side, the railroad bed was very obvious. We were able to turn left on it and follow it almost immediately into deep woods. This was a great little section.
We could tell this didn’t get used often at all. There was no evidence of ATVs really whatsoever.
The right of way was elevated slightly from the forest floor, which was full of vernal pools. The excess and constant rain we had been getting made the woods quite a mess with water. For the most part, we remained dry following the old rail bed.
There were times that we had to step through water, and it was completely unavoidable. We continued to where the railroad used to cross the Buck Mountain Creek for the first time.
A little bit of stone abutment was still in place on the east side. Buck Mountain Creek flows down to join the Laurel Run and then heads to the Lehigh. I think the entire thing was once known as the Laurel Run.

Pete and James went up stream to cross where Rhododendron trees were more available to aid with crossing, while Dan and Delotto both crossed where I did at the rail bridge site.
We continued along the grade, which opened up into a somewhat field area. It was still narrow, but the right of way was a sort of hay grass type of thing. There was a lot of standing water on the ground, so our feet didn’t get at all dry.
In a short bit, the grade turned to the left and then immediately crossed the Buck Mountain Creek again. The near side of the bridge site had no abutment and looked like it had been used as a ford site. The other side was steeper but still with no sign of abutments. We got acros this spot much easier, and on the other side the railroad went along an impressive old rock cut shelf.
Just after the shelf, the railroad crossed the creek yet another time. This one was a bit deeper, so we had to watch and cut across just barely down stream from the bridge site where we could hold onto Rhododendrons.
On the other side, things got a bit tougher. The right of way was more overgrown and obviously never walked. We had to get down on our hands and knees to crawl under some of the branches. It was quite interesting.

Two seater?

Just a bit ahead, there was an old outhouse to the right. Upon inspection, we found that two toilet seats were in very close proximity, more so than anyone would ever be comfortable with.
We continued on the grade ahead, and it passed a bit behind a house where we could actually see it. We quietly went by and came to washout spot where a tributary was flowing through the railroad bed. Delotto went to step first into it, and this tiny stream that looked like nothing engulfed him to where he went down face first into the water.

The rail bed

My initial reaction was shock and amazement, and then I stepped in with one foot ready to pull him out, but he was quick to come to his senses and step up. He was shocked a bit at first at what had happened, but it immediately got funny when he looked at how ridiculous that whole thing was.
Right on the other side, I spotted a tie plate and sat it up against a tree. This is an incredibly old tie plate to have been on this railroad grade. I was just going to leave it, but then Delotto came in after me and picked it up. He was going to leave it at the next road to pick it up later, but he ended up carrying it quite a long way.
The next road was a private drive known as 10 Point Lodge Road. Just before we got to it, a car went to the right, up to the next public road, Buck Mountain Road. After it passed, we went out to the road and headed up to Buck Mountain Road. We turned left there.
We took a short break in a shady spot before continuing to the west.
The Hayes Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, the later route, was to the north of the road across a field. I thought to head off and follow that, but then I actually wanted to see the little village of Buck Mountain. We didn’t see that when we hiked the Hayes Creek Branch before.
We continued ahead and across a little stream, then passed a house that looked to be a former school.
We turned to the right on Eckley Road. The Buck Mountain line was actually south of us, parallel with the road for this entire time, but cuts up hill just beyond where we did.
I got disoriented a bit, and we turned right when we got to where the Hayes Creek Branch crossed. I had meant to go to the left. I realized it pretty soon and we turned back.
We followed the Hayes Creek Branch as far as where the Buck Mountain Coal Co Railroad would have crossed. Of course, the two never co-existed, but I wanted to see remnants.

Plane #7

When we made our way along just a bit, and checked on the maps with where it should be, I saw the plane immediately. It was like a sloped driveway heading down from the Hayes Creek Branch to the left. There was no denying what we had found. I loved it.

Plane #7

I knew the Hayes Creek Branch had purged the plane, and so I looked up the slope. I saw the disturbance in it for exactly where it should be, and so we started climbing up. I don’t think anyone was initially into what I was doing here, but it turned out to be amazing.
The plane had a VERY deep cut for such an early railroad, right through the rocks in such a way that no one would ever even know it was there any more. It was full of Rhododendrons. We emerged from the cut, and Delotto found some sort of coupling apparatus from a car tht hasn’t been used in probably 120 years or something. Somewhere in this area, he left that and the tie plate to come back and get at a later time.
We moved to the very top of the grade, and then came upon a giant stone remnant. This must have been the engine house at the top of the plane.

Engine house

This point was really close to Eckley Road. The Buck Mountain Colliery was right across from where we were originally. At this point also, the earlier railroad to the Hazleton Railroad, which later became part of Lehigh Valley Railroad, crossed Eckley Road.

Former LV grade

From here, my plan was to follow this old line to the west. The Hayes Creek Branch was down slope from it by quite a lot. It’s actually a wonder they didn’t use this when they built the Hayes Creek Branch at all.
The Buck Mountain Coal Company line continued up hill. Plane #7 was the last normally numbered one. Plane 1 was just above us, and planes 2 through 4 were on a route that went almost due north. Plane 5 was on a short slope to the east of that, and plane 6 was on a short route that went to the west.
We started following the grade to the west, and it was immediately wrecked through water damage, and obscured in a clearing. I went ahead and bushwhacked around until I found it again.
We had to parallel the thing for a bit, because it went into a deep cut that was somewhat inaccessible. Pete and I went ahead and found another creek crossing spot. Just beyond, we took a break to let the others catch up with us.
We were waiting a long time, and I could hear the, but they weren’t coming.
I went back to find them, and they were considering going another way to catch up with us, up to Eckley. It’s a good thing I found them, because we were not going to Eckley at all. The closest we’d get to there was Eckley Junction to the west of there by quite a bit. We had a good break and everyone was then okay.
The main concern was that the hike so far was a lot of tough going, but most of that was done at this point. All we had to do was follow this line to former Gara Junction, and we’d be alright.

Former LV grade in a driveway

We came to where the right of way was being used as a little camp fire spot, with a swing and a memorial to someone. We didn’t go much further than here, because it would have led us into some back yards. Instead, we headed directly down hill through woods, past a couple of old campers, and then out to Buck Mountain Road again.
We emerged on the road where the Hayes Creek Branch used to cross over. Here, Buck Mountain Road to the west is also built on another Lehigh Valley Railroad branch.

The rail bed near Gara Junction

I didn’t realize this during my previous trip on the Hayes Creek Branch. We followed the road for a bit, and came to the driveway where the line we had just been following came out to the road. Straight ahead, another driveway at a corner was the continuation that led out to the later Hayes Creek Branch to the west. I had considered doing a bushwhack to get out ot this but then decided not to bother this time.
Buck Mountain Road continued to be yet another grade, which went toward Gara Junction and then beyond to Hazle Creek Junction. At a point where a power line deviated from the road a bit, the railroad bed also deviated, then came back almost onto the road once more.
We continued for a bit, and that rail bed started to move off to the right a bit more. We opted to head over and follow that rather than the road, which was still in sight.

LV line looking south from Hayes Creek branch at Gara Junction wye

The rail bed reached the point of crossing with Hayes Creek Branch. I’m not sure if these two rights of way ever co existed. Maybe for a short time. Gara Junction was just to the left, where there was a wye and the connection from Hayes Creek Branch down to Hazle Creek went south, and Hayes Creek Branch went north. The line we had been following continues south to join the west side track that connected the wye in the middle.
We turned right and started following the Hayes Creek Branch to the northwest.
This section was easy as could be. It was totally clear with double track tire track marks. The only problem was that when it started heading due west, we were in direct sun more than I’d have liked to have been.
We paused on this section when we got to where the other older Lehigh Valley Railroad branch came in on the right. Pete and I went off the grade looking for remnants on that briefly.
James and I got further ahead of the group from this point, and soon reached close to Ashmore Junction, where the Hazle Creek was just off to the left.

The rail bed

We stopped to take a break and had a good dip in the creek to cool off until the others showed up.
I think they took a dip too, and we all continued just ahead to the wye at Ashmore Junction. The active tracks, now used by Reading and Northern I believe, were just to the left on the former Lehigh Valley line, and to the right, the northbound connection is abandoned. In the woods there, we spotted some stone ruins, which might have been the base of some sort of water tower. One of the doorway frame outs was still in place.

Ashmore Station

The Ashmore Station used to stand in the area to the west end of the wye. We bypassed that and continued on to the former Lehigh Valley line to the north.
The other end of the wye that is still active now was originally the Delaware, Schuykill, and Susquehanna Railroad. This is another obscure looking one that is much abandoned at this point in most places I see. We would criss cross a lot of this on different routes, so that is one I will definitely be looking into further in the future.
We passed by some wetlands, and then came to a little open area with a deep watered mine pit to the left, more of a lake, and more wetlands to the right of the active tracks. There was a platform there which looked like a mockup that read “Stockton Mine”.

Mine mockup

On December 18th, 1869, ten or more miners died when there was a major collapse at the Stockton Mine, which was in this area. There are several stockton mines and slopes shown on maps, so I’m not sure which one it was.
They had a mockup of a breaker or something too.
The water looked very inviting, so of course we went in. There was no one around, and this felt absolutely amazing. It had a sort of blue tint to it rather than the orange acid mine runoff look. This was the most refreshing swim of the day.

Former Delaware, Schuykill and Susquehanna crossing

We continued to the northeast from here, with more old mining lands to the right and left. It was once a wide railroad yard, but this time there were no more than two tracks.
The next road crossing was at the little mine patch town of Hazlebrook. Delotto went off the tracks here and asked a guy at a house if he could refill his water bottle. The guy was apprehensive at first, and he had to show his ID. I guess with the town of Hazleton nearby, it must get kind of rowdy in this area.
We continued to the north, and came to a bridge overpass. I didn’t think it was a railroad at first, but it turns out this was where the Delaware, Schuykill, and Susquehanna Railroad once crossed.
We continud ahead a bit more, and soon approached the mouth of an old railroad tunnel.

Council Ridge Tunnel

My KMZ files of this call it Jeddo Tunnel, but another mine drainage tunnel is also referred as the same name. Officially, it was the Council Ridge or Hazle Creek Tunnel, built by the Lehigh Hazleton Railroad in 1859, and then became a Lehigh Valley line.

Jeddo Tunnel

The tunnel is still very active, but like most tunnels, the roof leaks badly. It’s kind of surprising with the amount of water coming through that it has not yet collapsed. It’s quite an old tunnel, after all.
We made our way out the other side, which had a natural stone facade, while the south side had a cut stone framework covered in some kind of a mortal mix. The right of way was wet but obviously had some new ties.
We continued walking the tracks to the north from here to Eckley Junction.

Jeddo/Council Ridge tunnel

The junction is now abandoned, but there’s a bit of track in place at the start of it. I still haven't’ organized a hike to go through Eckley yet, but i have to do it.

Eckley Junction

The town is where “The Molly Maguires” was shot, which was the story of Irish coal mining saboteurs. The movie, which starred Sean Connery and Richard Harris made the area pretty popular.
We continued north from here, and passed the former mine patch town of Foundryville, which has nothing left of it now.
The railroad tracks turned to the left, and pretty soon we got to the historic site of Pink Ash Junction. The line to the north is now abandoned, and was our next route.

We cut to the right into the woods, and there was no ATV path on this right of way. It was just a base of Hay Ferns through the weeds out to the mine path town of Jeddo.

Jeddo Station historic views

We continued on the grade until it came out into someone’s private driveway coming into the little town. We hurried out and soon crossed over Coal Street. Jeddo Station used to stand at this point.
The municipality just beyond this was known as Japan. The two towns were known as Japan-Jeddo at one point, and switched to Jeddo-Japan, after the Japanese Port of Edo. The name Jeddo Japan continued in use until World War II when anti-Japanese sentiment among Americans led them to dropping the Japan part of it.
While we were at the station site, there were some people hanging out on their porch to the north. The girl there was interested in what we were doing, and she offered us some water or something. Delotto told her about what we do, and she seemed pretty interested in it. Maybe she’ll make it out on one of the hikes one of these days.
The railroad grade continued around a corner on the road, then entered woods clearly. ATVs had been using this section regularly which made it navigable.

LV grade at Drifton

We hugged a slope in this area on a shelf. The Lehigh Valley Railroad was at the lower end, but just above us, I didn’t realize, was the Drifton Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey. This is one of the next lines I would like to try to trace.
Just up hill from that was the Coxe Bros. Delaware, Schuykill, and Susquehanna, heading the same direction. Apparently, only the Lehigh Valley Railroad had a station at this site from what I can find. The CNJ line just seemed to simply terminate at in the vicinity.

Historic image of Drifton Station on Lehigh Valley Railroad

Continuing ahead, I could not figure out where the Lehigh Valley line went. The area was badly disturbed through mining or whatever. ATV paths were all over the place. The three different railroads probably emerged at very similar grades.
The Delaware, Schuykill, and Susquehanna crossed over the Lehigh Valley line ahead, and then a branch, I think Sandy Run Branch, of the Lehigh Valley Railroad continued straight. We cut to the left on a branch that went up into Freeland.

Pile view

The northbound Lehigh Valley grade skirted a giant culm pile, coal refuse, just to the north of us. It looked like the grade should have been to the north. I wasn’t expecting to find anything because the area was so badly disturbed.
We were almost done, and though I was tired, I decided I wanted to head up to the top of the giant coal pile. Everyone followed suit, and we had some awesome views toward Freeland, of the mounds in other directions, out toward Hazleton, and of the sun setting.

Coal piles

We headed down to where the railroad grade should have been, and then there was a tributary running strongly through. I made my way down and back up the other side, and found what appeared to be the remnant of the grade. I was surprised.

Old bridge site

I tried to stay undeterred in this, and continued to follow about where the railroad should have been, and sure enough, I found a bridge site. Even though this hasn’t been used in forever, we were still finding stuff at the end of the hike.
We had to bushwack up to make it to make it to Route 940. It wasn’t too bad. We came out behind a business and just wandered on out. This railroad grade continued on the other side, but it was starting to get dark, so we were good by just following the road the several blocks back into Freeland. There were a lot more little things to explore, but we just didn’t have the time.

Park off Front Street

We walked through a little park off of Front Street which took us from the streets and out behind the grocery store where we were parked. One of the Lehigh Valley Railroad’s branches went right behind the store, but we didn’t bother to have a closer look this time.

Freeland passenger station

There used to be a passenger station in the town right by where we walked, as well as a freight station, and we could spend a couple of hours just looking for remnants there. There’s only so much you can do in a day, and we really squeezed about as much out of this one as possible. Certainly more than just about anyone else ever would.
It was another really great day, and we’d documented stuff that I don’t think anyone really ever has since the start of the digital age. It’s really an exciting thing to do.

Freeland freight station

I look forward to continueing these series, whether it’s Lehigh Valley, Jersey Central, or any of their obscure and disappearing predecessors. It’s exciting and inspiring to continue exploring these lost industrial corridors with passionate people, and I look forward to so much more.

PS: Delotto went back and recovered the artifacts. WIN!!!