CNJ Main Line East of Bethlehem, Pa.

When was the CNJ Main line abandoned east of Bethlehem? Was this after CNJ pulled out of PA.? Or did they abandon it when the CNJ and the Valley consolidated trackage in the Lehigh Valley???

Obsessed,

I don't know any dates, but it was left in place after the Central left PA, and was used up until that point. I think there was a picture of some LV pups with a train east of JU in an old OLD old Flags Diamonds and Statues. That would mean the Valley was still using it, even if only occasionally, after the Central left.

Hope this helps.

Mike

I got my driver's license in 1970 and the CNJ crossing in West Easton/Wilson on the road leading to 25th street was inactive then. They had just built a new river crossing [Glendon Bridge] that also crossed the ROW. It opened the summer of '70 so the abandonment was after they completed the planning to build the bridge. Penna. would not have built the large fill for the river bridge w/ another overpass over the ROW if they knew it was not going to be used.

The LV would have switched the industries in West Easton from the East as it was easy to get on the CNJ there. The area East of Bethelhem/Freemansburg contained no industry or customers and the spur into Stones Crossing [Palmer Twsp.] had already lost it's customers.

The rails were still in place when I came home again in '76 as I wanted to build a go-kart to run on the line but had no way to aquire flanged wheels at that time w/ no $$$.

The removal of the LV E & N bridge over 25th street is part of a renewal that will make 25th street 4 lanes right down to the Glendon Bridge, Only took 35 years to finish the job!

I'll put this out before I say anything else. I was born in 1984, so everything I know about the Central I've learned from 'fans, books, and a lot of walking.

Every thing I've ever read or heard indicates the Central's mainline from Easton to Lehighton was unchanged and fully active up until they left Pennsylvania. I know about the consolidations of track, but below Lehighton interlocking, the only changes to CNJ iron would have been at Lehighton, where the ramp was built, and at Bethlehem, where the bridge was modified and an interlocking built to let the Valley into Allentown yard. And I'm almost positive the bridge belonged to the Reading.

I'm not saying you're wrong mr. bang, just writing down everything I've heard up to this point.

Mike

I have a few pics of the 1970s that show LV trains using the CNJ mainline from Easton to A'town. Don't know why, since it was all duplicate trackage. The CNJ main now is solid forrest. Besides some very rotted ties you'd never even imaging a rr was there! Walk east of the CNJ Beth station...a wall of vegitation...literally. Some times NS has a few units parked outside the CNJ Beth station on what was the CNJ mainline.

They have built some houses on the CNJ ROW in Freemansburg. Right next to those houses is an empty lot where they park school buses, with old block signaling in between them.

Those areas are going to need passenger service headed east in the future; I-78 ain't going to cut it for much longer, and the LVRR won't be able to support the potential passenger volume. (If you've seen I-78 during morning and evening rush hours, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.)

There was a recent proposal for 4-tracking the Lehigh Line for that reason.

i've seen on maps a cnj line that went up towards stockerton about 2 miles west of the l.v. e&n,but no mentions in any books.does anyone have any info?

I believe Conrail ripped up the CNJ main east of the Bethlehem station in the early 80s.

I am traveling so I don't have access to the hardcopy files I keep at home. However, I remember being on a steam-powered excursion to Bethlehem on the CNJ probably around 1971-1973. Trip ran on both a Saturday and a Sunday. I rode the one on Sunday.

DocJohn
Macon, GA

The CNJ Easton Station Thread includes a link to an informative website with some dates for the discontinuance of this line:

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=27778

I don't know about the houses in Freemansburg, but there is a bike trail taking up the ROW for about 2 miles that starts at the Glendon Bridge and goes west to the Boat Launch area near Route 33. The parking lot there I'm guessing is where the E&W branch yard was located. The access road for the boat launch uses the L&S right of way for the next 3/4 mile. After that it's mostly overgrown until Freemansburg. Most of the ROW through town there looks relatively clear there to me.

Correction: What's on the ROW in Freemansburg is a Hogar CREA (drug rehab house), in the west side of the town close to the Bethlehem border. Not impossible to move that somewhere else if the ROW were to reopen. (However, the politicians in Bethlehem municipal government and Northampton County are not very rail-oriented, to say the least—they'd prefer adding two extra lanes to US 22, in spite of the futility of the exercise.)