Hike #1450; Lafayette to Waterloo

 

Hike #1450; 11/3/21 Sussex Branch; Lafayette to Waterloo with Professor John DiFiore, Kenny Zaruni, and Everen

This next hike would be a point to point, another planned so that I could cover some distance with my son and some friends.

I had a whole lot of then and now history compilations I wanted to get on the old Sussex Branch of the Lackawanna Railroad, and so I saved it all to my phone and checked to see who would be interested in going.

It was just about the very end of my paternity leave time I was allowed through work. The one good thing that came through the Murphy administration on state level for me was that it meant more time off with my new son.
Usually, I'd have a period of time off, but now that time had been extended to much more than it had ever been. Rather than paternity, it is labeled as "child bonding time".

The stress level was high because I wasn't getting paid as I should have been. Someone twice filed unemployment claims under my name while I was trying to file for paternity leave, and every time a conflicting claim was filed, my name went back on the waiting list for review.

Fortunately, I had great help out of Trenton DEP staff, specifically Debra Bright, who helped to make sure that my claim went through. 

After I spent several hours waiting on hold, and then had some crazy frustration, including being hung up on because my child was crying, I was at my wits end. Debra Bright waited for the couple of hours on hold on my behalf, and made sure my claim went through. She helped to schedule vacation time without losing my bonding time, and through scheduling two vacation days per week, I was able to keep my work anniversary date for retirement and promotional purposes, and hang onto my benefits. It was an enormous help.

The day would prove very successful, and I would end up setting up more then and now compilations than I had ever done in one day before. I did as many as 41 of them on this hike. As of this writing, not all of them have been published to the Metrotrails facebook page yet, so some of them here are presented before those ones have even showed up yet.

Our meeting point was the parking lot for the Sussex Branch Trail at the intersection of Waterloo Road and Continental Drive, near Waterloo Village and just north of the International Trade Center. From there, we'd shuttle north to Lafayette, to a parking lot in front of the Lafayette House restaurant.

This location was on Rt 94 adjacent to the bridge over the Paulins Kill. We walked from the lot out onto Rt 94, across the river, and then immediately left on the Sussex Branch.

I have loved the Sussex Branch since I was little, even before the first time I walked it. I had actually walked bits of it before I even knew what it was with my grandfather.

When I was little, my grandfather gave me a copy of Larry Lowenthal and William T. Greenberg's "Lackawanna Railroad in Northwest New Jersey", which had an entire chapter on the Sussex Branch. 

I read into it and started for hours at the photos before I'd ever gotten to really hiking it. I remember looking down on it while walking with him on the Lackawanna Cutoff, where it passed beneath. 

Even though I was very young, I knew what it was, and I clearly remember how out of reach it felt compared to all of the other stuff we were doing.

Even then, I was always working on a "series" of hikes, and at that time we were doing the Lackawanna Cutoff. I still feel the same way today as I sometimes look longingly ahead at all of the trails and routes I want to follow, but I often hold myself back, telling myself  "it's not time yet.
The Sussex Branch originally started out as the Sussex Mine Railroad, chartered in 1848 to carry iron ore from the Andover Mines, for which the settlement of Andover is named, down to the Morris Canal at what is now Waterloo Village (it was once called "Old Andover").

The line was about three foot gauge, and mule drawn. It opened for service about 1851. This short lived mining railroad was soon replaced by the Sussex Railroad, a standard locomotive railroad completed in 1854. It was extended north to Newton and then beyond to Branchville, as well as east to Franklin in 1869. It connected with the Morris and Essex Railroad at Waterloo Junction.

Of course, the Morris and Essex became part of the Lackawanna system, and along with it the dealings with the Sussex Railroad. The Sussex was one of the longest independent railroads in New Jersey, but the Lackawanna operated it as the Sussex Branch prior to full acquisition which didn't take place until 1945.

The branch to Franklin was abandoned first, about 1934. That section is not officially trail, but makes for a good one, as I've hiked it several times.

All passenger service on the Sussex Branch was done by the end of 1966, and the right of way north of Andover was abandoned that year. Most infrastructure as I understand was removed by 1970, and and the remainder of trackage from Andover to Stanhope was removed in 1977.
The state acquired most of the right of way in I believe the 1990s, except for the Franklin Branch which Sussex County acquired almost immediately after abandonment.

The trail is now officially part of Kittatinny Valley State Park, and it's one of my favorite rail trails ever because it's not so insanely overdone.

We headed south on the right of way, and after a nice wooded section, crossed over the Paulins Kill once more before reaching Warbasse Junction.
This was actually more of a crossing than a former junction, as the Paulinskill Valley Trail, formerly the New York, Susquehanna, and Western, goes left and right here. We just continued straight for a bit, and then crossed over Warbasse Junction Road. 

We continued from there just a little bit further, and I pointed out to the guys where the Franklin Branch used to cut off to the left side. The junction site is getting pretty obscure out there, near a private home.

From, here, we continued to the south. To the right of the trail were some openings where we could step down and have some unobscured views of the Hyper-Hummus Swamp, which was quite beautiful. There was some way of getting through that property and what looked to be a little foot bridge, but I had never tried to get through that section before. I think Ken mentioned something about going through it recently.

The swamp remained to the right of us for quite a ways, and and soon Warbasse Junction Road came close to us to the right. At this point, the trail used to continue onto the road to the south officially.

Here, the original Sussex Railroad actually is now Warbasse Junction Road. The road was built on the rail bed. That segment was abandoned early on when the Sussex Railroad was rerouted into the actual town of Newton where the station was established.

Newton was of course where there was industry, and where passengers had need of the train, not just to the south and east of town. The new route was sometimes referred to as the "Newton Cutoff", which is completely inaccurate because the route actually adds mileage.

This section ahead, although not considered officially part of the Sussex Branch Trail, was always my favorite part of the entire line because it goes out onto the amazing Newton Meadows. The area is absolutely stunning with unobscured scenery, quiet, full of wildlife.

Near the spot where the two rail rights of way diverged, there were a couple of wooden boxes that date back to railroad days, but I'm not sure what they were used for.

We made our way from here out onto the Newton Meadows, and then to the foot bridge that passes over the head waters of the Paulins Kill in the middle of the swamp, one of my absolute most favorite spots.

This section was now officially part of the Sussex Branch Trail, and it was my first time out on it since it was completed. There was now a formal prefabricated bridge that spanned the water in the middle of the swamp.

On the first hikes that I had organized through this spot going back years, there was no bridge remaining at all. We just had to wade across the spot, which has never been really deep anyway.

I had several then and now compilations to set up at this spot using my own photos from the earliest trips I had made to this spot.

We always would stop here and take a dip on the hot Summer days because it was so cold and refreshing.

When the Lackawanna Railroad abandoned the Sussex Branch in this area, reportedly it was the only wooden beam bridge still in service anywhere on the Lackawanna system. Amazingly, these timbers still remained in the stream when we started the hikes, and they were still in there on this hike.
Even in the middle of the Summer, the water that flows through this cut in the rail fill is unbelievably freezing cold, which doesn't seem quite right considering it's a giant swamp with the sun beating down.

This is because just to the left of the trail, the head waters of the Paulins Kill bubble directly up out of the ground, in a wide and clear pool very much in view.

If one were to stand in the water flowing to the stream to the right of the trail, it feels like bath water compared to that flowing directly from the east side, because it's an enormous underwater spring.

We continued from here beyond the new foot bridge and across the remainder of the swamp, known as the Newton Meadows.
The area was reportedly sort of a forbidden place to go, and almost no historic photos exist of it.

We made our way through the rest of the swamp, and then through a cut to come out on Trinity Street as we entered the town of Newton.

This was the first area I really had a lot of significant then and now compilations to do. Trinity Street must have been a substantial area of liability for the Lackawanna, because there are multiple cases of photographers being dispatched to photograph the area.

All of the photographs for comparison in this area were taken by one of the Lackawanna Railroad's full time photographers, William B. Barry Jr. The Lackawanna was so rich in the early days of the 1900s that they could afford to keep a full time photographer on duty.

The first compilations were taken on March 1933 featuring a train with no engine or tender attached to it. There was probably some sort of accident, the details of which are long lost to time. Three photos from that day are featured, with a fourth being one of them zoomed in, all looking south.

A second day with one photo by Mr. Barry was taken in November of 1927. It would appear to be a man with a rod doing some form of measuring. I would suspect that this was a liability issue due to a major washout. Where the Sussex Branch Trail leaves Trinity Street, there is a lot of major washout to the grade from all of the runoff, and it would obviously have been a problem also during rail operation.

Another photo was taken by Mr. Barry in November of 1932, looking north across Trinity Street toward the same cut as the earlier photograph, and I know this one was from a truck getting hit. I neglected to get a then and now comparison of the truck itself because I hadn't figured out the location until we had already gotten past the site.

Some of these were really easy for me to get, just pushing Ev and the stroller along to hit each of the angles. They were mostly all within reach, but some of them were some oddball things, like one of the 1933 shots looking north. I had Ken stand with Ev while I climbed to the slope above the rail grade to the west to look on for the same shot as the historic one.

I tried to figure out a few of the angles while John and Ken waited patiently, and then we continued down the railroad bed to the south from here.

It was a lot different than from the last time I had seen it. There was never any surfacing, and it was just basically a mowed abandoned rail bed at the time. Now, they had improved it with crushed stone surfacing and benches into town.

It passed through a cut that used to be kind of wet, but even that had been remediated to some degree. 

We came out to Diller Avenue after the cut, and the old railroad station used to be somewhere in this area straight ahead, but this section was not yet finished, and completely blocked off so that we couldn't walk through. We used to just walk the informal route across parking lots and then into the rear of the former Merriam Shoe Factory, which has been rehabilitated and repurposed as apartments in the middle of town.

This time, we would have to find some sort of detour around all of that. 
To the right, the road became Spring Street, and we were able to follow that up hill a little bit, and then turned to the left onto Sparta Avenue.

We walked along Sparta Avenue to the south for a bit, and passed Newton Cemetery on the right. One of these days I want to hike through that, but it wasn't going to be this time.
As we continued south just a bit more, we passed by Woodside Avenue, and I saw that Seplow's Liquors was over there. I decided I'd have a look and see if they had anything of interest as we passed on through. 

They actually had something called King Gambrinus Belgian Tripel by Jersey Girl Brewing that I'd never had before, and it was a strong one so I decided to go ahead and try it out. They also had the Mad Elf by Troegs, which I'd had before.

I decided to go for that one too and we continued on out to Sparta Ave and across Railroad Ave to get back on where the railroad used to be, in the parking lot behind it out to the Merriam Shoe Factory.

The trail was still not developed yet at all through this area, and I had to lift the jogger stroller up and over railings and such to get in behind the former factory, which still had a water tower and stack as if it were ready to go back into production at any time.

Henry Wilson Merriam was a manufacturer of ladies shoes in New York City who moved his operations to Newton in 1873.

Production continued after HW Merriam's death in 1900, but the building eventually gave way to other business before finding its current new life as apartments along Sparta Avenue.

The business was served by the railroad, of course, and was one of the aforementioned reasons for the line to make its way into town proper rather than the original route of circumnavigating it altogether. As we continued past the shoe factory, new trail development started back up again, much to my surprise. There was a crushed stone surface leading out along the parking lots, not directly on the railroad bed the entire time, but close.

We made our way across these lots, and then along the backs of the properties which apparently used to be the railroad yards. Here, we came across the former site of a coal trestle, which had the abutment to it still in place. When we walked this in the past, especially during night hikes, we would just meander behind the business and such quietly. Now the trail actually went right there, which I would have never thought would happen.

As we head to the south side of town, the rail bed and actually all of the fill that it sat on had been removed at what is now Tri State Rentals. We had never been able to walk that section before.

The trail went right across the back lot of Tri State Rental, which was not what I was expecting, and then went onto an impressive boardwalk over the farthest south reaches of the Newton Meadows.

I was really impressed at what a fantastic job they had done with this section. I never thought we would see a trail go through the previous area let alone this unlikely spot.

We didn't cross the boardwalk right away; across Rt 206 from us was the Quick Chek. I asked the guys if they wanted pizza or something, or if they preferred to go to Quick Chek this time, and they chose this.

We all walked on across Sparta Avenue, which was kind of busy at this point but people let us cross, and went into Quick Chek for some lunch food. I don't remember what I got while I was in there, but I definitely got something, probably too much. After food, we crossed back over the road and got on the boardwalk section of the wetland, which was looking very new where the wood was almost a yellow. It continued in a sort of weaving fashion to a new crushed stone path, which then led uphill to the former railroad.

There used to be a way to go through on this before as well; when I first covered this section, I was actually biking it with Rich and Eric Pace around 2001, and we could go right through and down that slope. The trail had gone behind people's houses above, and no one ever stopped anyone. I led some hikes where we went through on this section many times, but then one day it was blocked off and signed not to go there. I figured that section of the right of way was lost forever. But then there we were. The rail bed went right back up the hill and back behind the houses like it used to.

I was quite happy with this development, and we continued on to Hicks Avenue crossing, where the trail used to turn to follow that road north, which becomes Warbasse Junction Road.

From there, the rail bed took us above Drake's Pond which was to the left, and the original right of way comes in somewhere in this area to the left, but I have never really noticed where exactly it was. We just continued ahead, and there is a long missing section where we come out to Newton-Sparta Road, near the intersection with Stickles Pond Road. This involves having to go down a slope a bit, then down along the road, carefully cross, and then back up another slope to return to the railroad bed. It always blows my mind that they never got around to even putting any kind of crosswalk at this location.

We made our crossing carefully, and headed onto the right of way parallel with Stickles Pond Road. We crossed over Yates Avenue pretty soon after that and made our way into deeper woods.

This was now mostly part of Kittatinny Valley State Park proper. Of course the entire railroad bed is part fo that, but the main body of that state park is located just north of Andover and below Newton. A few side trails broke off of the rail trail, and we passed through a deep cut in the rocks. I had a then and now I wanted to get on top of one of them, but I neglected to save the historic image to my phone for this one prior to the hike. We continued south through the deeper woods, and eventually reached Goodale Road.

We crossed directly over and the road moved off to the right, while we continued through the woods and soon reached Whites Pond, which the trail crosses over on a sort of causeway across the east side.

There are splendid views from the pond area, and then we passed through some more woods, where other trails join in from Kittatinny Valley State Park, and reached the parking lot approaching the crossing of Route 206. I had a complicated mess of then and now compilations I wanted to set up at this point, and so I was hell bent on getting every one of them. Most of them I could easily get pushing Ev in the stroller, but some of them required me to get in the middle of 206 and look down the road in either direction, so at those times I asked Ken or John to stand with him for a few moments.

The first ones I set up were images taken by William B. Barry Jr, the Lackawanna photographer, looking from what is now the parking lot to the south across the intersection in what was most certainly some fatal accident that the railroad felt the need to protect itself against.

The shots showed a good view of the Andover Junction where the Lehigh and Hudson River Railway used to cross and connect with the Sussex Branch.
Another series of photos taken by William B Barry Jr. was at the same site on May of 1931.

This one was of another car vs train accident, but this time there was a shot of the vehicle in question. I got thrown off where that one was because the billboard is now in a different place, but I figured it out.

It was in this series that the shots were included looking at the grade crossing from both the north and the south along present day Rt 206, which make for very interesting compilations, because anyone can see the site just going by, and so many see it on their daily commutes.

I zoomed back and forth across the intersection, and it was a good time of day for it because it wasn't too late where we were experiencing full on rush hour traffic. 

We made our way across, and then to the south a little bit farther to the former Andover Junction. The right of way to the right had been cleared for use as a trail, but it was not yet surfaced, and had no trespassing signs. 

I'd been walking the Lehigh and Hudson River Railway since pretty much the beginning of the group, and I first bushwhacked this section on a hike in I think 2002, but it was really rough even then. The next few times I walked it, it required some crawling.

I assumed that some of the action taken on this section might have been about something I witnessed when we walked it before, where the blocked right of way afforded a view where stuff was being dumped into the edge of the woods. I saw what looked like regular trash and such, like shiny stuff.

It seemed like not long after I reported it, the rail bed was cleared and passable again, and whatever was going on over in that open area to the east of that right of way seemed to have ended.

There are still some issues keeping the entire Lehigh and Hudson River Railway from turning completely into a trail, including the Lackawanna Cutoff underpass, and a piece of private property a little further down below Tranquility in Green Townhip.

We continued from here further toward the town of Andover itself. There was a spot with lots of barking dogs that butts up to the right of way to the left, and we passed where the track from Andover Junction connected with the southbound Sussex Branch.

We eventually reached Smith Street and a parking spot on the trail in Andover. This was the former site of the Andover Station, now long gone.

I had some more Steamtown NHS Archives then and now shots to get in town, but first I had to figure out exactly where they were taken. 

The set was taken by W. B. Barry in February 1931, and featured a grade crossing, which had been in error labeled as Smith Street. I had done other then and now compilation on Smith Street, where the station had been, and the buildings didn't look like those.

I figured out that there was another sort of unnamed street just ahead, which also used to continue up the hill to the west of the right of way, which the photos are of. Now, the railroad bed through town is a parking area for several of the residences and businesses, and one would never know it was a public street because it is now gated off.

Like the Route 206 area, this must have been an area where there were a lot of accidents, because it had been pretty well photographed. I had set up many then and now compilations of the site before this.

 

The railroad bed closely parallels Railroad Ave through Andover, and we moved on through along the road parallel with the parking lot that kind of takes over the railroad bed area. 

I set up yet another then and now of the grade crossing ahead at Brighton Avenue, this one different from the others by another photographer I am not sure of, of a diesel locomotive crossing at the site near the end of service on the Sussex Branch.

We headed south between homes and close to back yards, and then crossed over Maple Street at grade. We then continued closely parallel to Rt 206 and also crossed High Street at grade.

This was a really kind of fun and interesting area for me to try to figure out.

I had two sets of photos from the Steamtown NHS archives almost of the same scene. The first was taken in April 1912 looking south across the crossing, by Watson B. Bunnell, the earlier Lackawanna Railroad photographer who got so many of the interesting photos of the construction of the Lackawanna Cutoff and many other places. The photo featured a view of the giant fill atop which the Lackawanna Cutoff ran, from the track bed of the Sussex Branch before the street crossing.

The next one was of the same crossing site, only taken in April 1924 by William Barry Jr, and there was also one looking at the grade crossing from the west.

One of the things that was throwing me off between these photos taken about twelve years apart was the fact that a sort of Cape Cod style home was built on the left side of what is now Rt 206. The home is still there to this day, so I had guessed that maybe the earlier photo was a different spot. I was pretty happy when I'd figured out that I was looking for the same place I was standing.

These were probably taken for some sort of liability reasons, but the first one might possibly be just an illustration of the size of the fill on the Lackawanna Cutoff. It's hard to say today.

We continued across the High Street, past a house, and into the woods to the south where we soon crossed beneath the Lackawanna Cutoff through a concrete culvert. The rail bed moves off into pleasant woods on a fill from here.
In this next area, I had yet another then and now I wanted to try to get, but it would be harder because at the time of the original photo, it was a clear shot. Today, it's very deep woods.

I got the shot I wanted, and we continued to the south atop the fill, and we crossed over a stone culvert over what was originally the Morris and Sussex Turnpike, known locally as the "hole in the wall".

The trail remained sandwiched between the old road and Rt 206 ahead, and then came out to Whitehall Hill Road briefly, then continued below Rt 206 through an area that has always been wet. The highway has overtaken a lot of the railroad right of way through expansion, and the rail bed is totally eroded on both sides of this access.

At this point, I had some more then and now compilations to set up, using some March 1 1915 images from the Steamtown NHS archives, taken by Watson B. Bunnell. They featured Whitehall Hill Road and what is now Rt 206, and I was able to line them up quite accurately

The first one was very easy to set up pretty accurately because it is necessary for trail users to come to the exact spot the photo was taken on the trail. The other one required me to go up into 206.

I got John and Ken to watch Ev again while I ran up and got the shot and it came out pretty good.
From here, we continued along the slope and passed the former home of "Waving Willy".

We continued through woods and soon crossed North Shore Road approaching the settlement of Cranberry Lake. Here, the right of way continued into a parking area for commuters for a bit. I think we might have skipped crossing over to the Cranberry Market across 206 but I'm not sure. Or maybe if I went over, I had John and Ken watch Ev so I didn't have to bring him across traffic.

The railroad right of way is all just parking lot ahead, and then reaches the former station site, which is adjacent to a foot bridge that leads across Cranberry Lake.

This was a popular destination for Summer tourism, one of those communities that began to thrive just as the iron industry was dying down. It kind of followed the success that was found at Lake Hopatcong for day trippers.
By the 1920s, the lake became a Summer home community, established by the Cranberry Lake Development Company.

Things haven't been going well with the community, as it is involved in controversy involving lake rights and management, community dues, and the status of the famous and historic foot bridge that connects the development and community.

There was originally a wooden foot bridge from the station to across the lake on the rock outcrops, but it was replaced by the current suspension structure in 1931.

In recent years, state inspections have deemed the bridge structurally inefficient. It was closed to all pedestrian traffic in 2019. The fate of the bridge remains undetermined, although locals have started a group hoping to fund repairs and reopen the landmark at www.saveourbridge.net While at the lake along the trail, I set up yet another then and now history compilation utilizing another Steamtown NHS image taken by W B Barry Jr, from September 1927.

Apparently someone had been hit by a train near the old station site, which was still pretty well used at the time. I understand that the station stop at Cranberry Lake lasted only until 1942 or 43.

We continued along the shore of the lake to the south for a bit more, passed through a parking area, and then continued on the rail bed out across South Shore Road.

From here, the right of way passes almost entirely through Allamuchy Mountain State Park. It's secluded for the entire remainder of the distance we had to walk. Just a little ways down to the south, I set up my final then and now compilation photo of the day, where the Sussex Branch passed through a deep rock cut. There was a photo taken about 1912 from the Steamtown NHS archives with many dignitaries including Lackawanna Railroad President William Truesdale sitting behind a parked train.

They had traveled up the Sussex Branch to view the work being done on the Lackawanna Cutoff at the time, some feel to put pressure on the contractors working on the project.

At the site of the famous photo, on the rocks someone had affixed a copy of the same historic photo I was using for my compilation.

I figured this might have been done my Joe Indano, who administers the "Old Byram" facebook page. He does absolutely awesome then and now compilations of the different sites around the area, and he and I have done several of the same locations. He really digs for info and has some of the best stuff out there regarding local history.

I pointed out that on the left side of the cut we had stopped at, some of the original Sussex Mine Railroad right of way could be seen circumnavigating the cut by way of a different track bed.
We continued to where Ghost Pony Brook passes beneath the rail bed, and I pointed out to the right, before and to this point where the original narrow gauge mine railroad used to go. There are abutments where it used to go over the brook, and then again where it crosses once more, another abutment where it likely spanned a longer wooden structure across.

We moved ahead to the south, and reached where the Highlands Trail comes in from the left, follows the rail bed briefly, and then turns right on its southbound route, just above a little waterfall on the brook.

There were lots of burning bush plants growing in this area making it look very bright red.

The original mine railroad breaks off to the right again just after this point, and just briefly the Highlands Trail follows this as well.
The mine railroad can be hiked, and usually I follow that route instead of the later Sussex Railroad in this section, but with the stroller, it was much more appropriate to just stay on the later route. I could probably have gotten it through the mine rail bed, but it is a lot bumpier with rocks and tree roots. It was going to get dark pretty soon, and we needed to get done in some reasonable time.

There was an old metal mile marker still in place along the way, and soon we reached the upper end of Jefferson Lake where a camp operates. I pointed out where there was an ice house spur here.

Part of that ice house spur is now used as an access lane within the camp, and it looked like a tributary bridge on it was recently redecked from what we could see from the trail.

We continued south and the wide views of Jefferson Lake were on the left. It was an excellent view for the last hurrah of the day.

We continued south beyond the end of the lake, passed several more trails that go to the right and the old mine railroad returned from the right.

Before we got to the end and the parking lot, the original mine railroad as well as the later Sussex Railroad turned to the right. The trail follows a cutoff to Stanhope that was built in 1901. Continental Drive follows some of that route to the south.

We reached the parking lot with still some daylight to spare, and it was one of the best days to be out.

I not only enjoyed having my son in front of me the entire time, I set a personal record of the most then and now history compilations I'd ever done in one day.