It's been called the oldest surviving transportation company in America. The Delaware & Hudson Railroad had its start right here in Lackawanna County.
The company goes back to an earlier mode of transportation, the canal. In 1822, two brothers from Philadelphia, William and Maurice Wurts, began their coal mining operation in what is now Carbondale. But before they could make anthracite a marketable product, they had to overcome a major obstacle: shipping. The brothers formed a company called the President, Managers and Company of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Co., with capital of $1.5 million, and built a canal between the Delaware and Hudson rivers.
But railroads would soon take over. James Archbald arrived when the D&H had been in operation for about six years. Mr. Archbald took charge of the company's engineering department. His main goal was to build much of the railroad line that would cross Moosic Mountain. The D&H began operating its railroad in 1829. Horses were used to pull the train cars along flat areas and uphill. Gravity took them downhill.
The D&H gravity line was just 16 miles long in 1830, according to the Canadian Pacific Railway website (www.cpr.ca), but in that year, there were only 23 miles of railroad in the entire United States. The company soon bought steam locomotives to replace the horses that pulled the cars along the flat stretches of the line. In 1840 the D&H became the first transportation company traded on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1847, the D&H completed an extension of its gravity railroad to the town of Archbald. But the gravity railroad wouldn't last. Steam-powered locomotives were the new workhorses.
The D&H extended its railroad south to Wilkes-Barre, where connection with the New York Central Railroad allowed shipping into New York City. Throughout its history, the railroad's primary purpose was to serve the anthracite coal region and to get the coal to markets. The post-Civil War era brought new opportunity for expansion. D&H operations extended north from the Pennsylvania coal fields to Binghamton and Albany, N.Y., and then on to Lake Champlain. The line extended along the west shore of the lake to a point just south of Montreal, Canada. In 1875, the company started service between Albany and Montreal.
By the late 19th century, the Delaware & Hudson operated more than 700 miles of track. In 1907, the D&H extended its lines into Canada and connected with the Canadian Pacific Railway at Farnham, Quebec.
In addition to freight, the D&H operated a small passenger service. The Montreal Limited ran between New York City and Montreal. The Laurentian provided daytime service in upstate New York.
But the D&H's primary business was shipping freight. The D&H shipped a variety of freight, but as much as half of what it shipped was anthracite coal. In the years following the Great Depression, however, other fuels began to compete with anthracite, and the demand for coal began to wane. The trucking industry began to grow and proved to be significant competition for railroads.
As the D&H faced a loss of rail traffic, bridge traffic (or overhead traffic) helped sustain it. Instead of shipping freight from its source to its destination aboard one railway, freight is received by one railroad and transferred to others along the route to its destination. The D&H would continue to carry freight from a number of sources through to its destination, but bridge traffic helped the company survive.
Railroads continued to decline across America, though, as trucking became a dominant mode of shipping. The D&H could not survive on its own. In 1991, Canadian Pacific Railway acquired the company and has invested, according to its website, more than $200 million in its operations. As a subsidiary of Canadian Pacific, the Delaware & Hudson is the oldest continually operated transportation company in the United States.
CHERYL A. KASHUBA is a freelance writer specializing in local history.
Contact the writer: localhistory@timesshamrock.com