The Lackawanna Cutoff is Rising From the Dead

nikkigirl1

Building "The Cutoff"
I know many have viewed my previous thread where I announced the start of my L&NE NJ Sub, and after working on the route on and off I have realized that 100+miles of track in one go is a lot, and that the Lackawanna Cutoff is the first that I want to release out of my planned routes. While the L&NE is my home railroad, being that the old line runs through my childhood property, the Cutoff was just as much a part of my life. With this I have decided to follow my EL-Bleeding heart and work on releasing the cutoff first. Spanning from Dover to East Stroudsburg, the route is about 40 miles, with the cutoff itself at 28 miles. Speeds reach up to 70 mph for passenger and 50 for freight, with the maximum grade being 0.55% Eastbound from Andover to Port Morris. So far I have left scenery for last and focused on getting gradients and track level/height right, which has been a bear due to the fill that a lot of the Cutoff is on, as well as the multiple cuts. STRM data for some reason was unable to map out the massive landmark of the Cutoff, so the whole Cutoff is hand-made. This is a clip from the previous thread, and while it barely looks like a route, the terrain is almost on-par with the real thing.
My-Trainz-Screenshot-Image.jpg
After taking a break from the game for a while for research and other means of gathering info for this project, I started again by laying gradients and making the land around the cutoff as real as possible up to Greendell, where this picture is taken by the interlocking tower that still barely stands today. This was made to represent a shot of GP35 2560 shooting through the same spot, although I can't find it in any place other than a Chuck Walsh video to show it here. As you can see, scenery is not much of anything yet, the most I have done is placed interlocking towers and stations in their proper spots so I know how to lay terrain/sidings around them. Grades on the cutoff are now 95% prototypical at +-0.55% being the max, except for outside of Roseville Tunnel/Port Morris where it is getting tricky. I have decided the Cutoff will most likely be the first part I work on and release, running from roughly Dover, NJ until some area before Scranton, mainly because Chuck Walsh on YouTube covers this so well while the other roads have little to no info about them. I am on the fence as to whether I want the line to look like its 1930s-50s heyday, with little trees around the fills and cuts, with a double-tracked mainline w/passing sidings, in the EL/Conrail stages with one main line and no Old Road, or as the line exists today, with trees closed right up to the roadbed and "under NJT control" since they are laying track up to Andover. Lastly, I could make the line in its "what-if" time, when EL was supposed to merge with the Chessie System, or if the line eventually fell in to CSX/NS/NYSW/Amtrak control. Let me know what you all want to see, I personally feel like I want EL-Era but with certain areas resembling modern-day operations i.e. grade crossings, single-track on the WB side, and an Andover Station, but again, what the people want I will do
 
Wow! When I read the thread, I thought there was an announcement that Cut-off was going to be finished for real all the way to Scranton as has been discussed for sometime. I've been following the NJT rebuild to Andover off and on and I'm glad that the route has been rebuilt that far, but I've been hoping the rest was on schedule. It's too bad the old LHR line that ran below the cut-off in the same area has been abandoned.

Anyway... the data you choose has a lot to do with how well the cuts can be rendered. If you are using 1/3 or 1/9th arcsecond resolution, you should get better results. TransDEM too should give you better results if you increase the resolution to 5 meter grid, at least where the route its self is. I ran into a similar situation in the area where I am modeling where I live. The B&M line runs next to a hill on a grade with factories below on one side. With this setup, the factories, grade, and nearby hill became one. All of the grade separations are not even discernable either. Sometimes, however, we have no choice and our low resolution problem is due to the older technology used to generate the SRTM data in the first place. Roland has a nice explanation of this in his TransDEM user guide.

As far as the route operations and design goes, go with what you want first. This will make you happiest because trying to please others usually leads to frustrations from the creator's standpoint. I know this from experience too not just with Trainz, but with music projects as well. The project was done well, but my heart wasn't in it because it wasn't mine.

In general Conrail, being essentially Penn Central management, did the EL, LHRR, LV, and CNJ in as the management went through great lengths to force traffic away from these lines. The EL had a fast 70 mph, double track operation on a smooth and nicely graded line right through to Chicago which competed quite heavily with the more roundabout NYC and Pennsy routes. Today that 70 mph race way would have been a welcomed route for TOFC and container traffic. With that said if you do insist we give you something, it would be nice to have a compromise with a modern day what-if operation of CSX/NS/Amtrak/NJT running on a double-track, fast well maintained mainline.

Lots of luck with this project. Seriously.
 
And also Amtrak preferred Penn Central routes across PA and NY, and the ex-Erie west of Port Jervis, the ex-Lackawanna through Scranton, and the ex-Reading from Allentown to Harrisburg were freight only and Amtrak never bothered with those routes. LV passenger service ended Feb. 1961, EL long distance service 1970, and Reading service from Allentown to Harrisburg 1963. CNJ service to Allentown ended 1967. And the ex-Lehigh Valley from NJ into PA. Some of those routes are NS now and still have no passenger trains on them. Well, Scranton has Streamtown excursions. The Cutoff rebuilding in NJ is for the purpose of extending NJT service as well as the future Amtrak route into PA. Amtrak started May 1971. And Penn Central and then Conrail crews operated the NEC for most of the 70's but the timetables were issued by Amtrak.
 
The good news is that Amtrak and NJT are working on restoring the line and are currently rebuilding the Rose Tunnel and other places. The goal is to at least reach Scranton eventually and would hope they continue on to Binghamton. This is really a rare thing because usually once a line is gone it's gone never to return mostly due to encroachment and NIMBYs not making the restoration possible.

I agree a lot of damage was done in the 70s through more recent times due to outright cuts, destruction, and neglect. The LV mainline for instance was neutered at Sayre, PA. As ill as the LV was, their route was still quicker than Penn Central's roundabout route to Buffalo.
 
The good news is that Amtrak and NJT are working on restoring the line and are currently rebuilding the Rose Tunnel and other places. The goal is to at least reach Scranton eventually
I visited Scranton just over 13 years ago and they were talking about it back then (and probably long before as well). I found it ironic that Scranton is the home of the US National Railway Museum (my main reason for visiting) and you cannot get there by train. I stayed at the hotel that was originally the Scranton Railroad station and former HQ of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad (DL&WRR).
 
I visited Scranton just over 13 years ago and they were talking about it back then (and probably long before as well). I found it ironic that Scranton is the home of the US National Railway Museum (my main reason for visiting) and you cannot get there by train. I stayed at the hotel that was originally the Scranton Railroad station and former HQ of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad (DL&WRR).
It is ironic. The station hotel is still in operation and Steam Town is still a popular attraction. A big portion of the line within Pennsylvania is still in operation for freight as well as for the tourist trains with freight being handled by Norfolk Southern, Pocono Northeast and Delaware and Lackawanna. Connecting this section again on the east side would make this a through line once again.

This area was known for its silk mills and other manufacturing, and is very much in the anthracite coal region of Eastern Pennsylvania with close proximity to the Pocono Mountains. At one point, many railroads set up shop in Scranton and nearby Wilkes-Barre.

If you look at old rail and topographic maps, you'll see everyone from Lehigh Valley, Delaware and Hudson, Susquehanna and Western and its subsidiary Wilkes-Barre and Eastern, Erie, the Lackawanna (merged in 1960 to become the EL), Central Railroad of New Jersey, and even the Pennsylvania. Then there's the famous interurban that BlackDiamond64 is working on.

When Anthracite operations died in the 60s and early 70s, much of the rail operations collapsed and so did the nearby cities and towns. Today, there's a rebirth but it's not at the level that was once here.
 
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