Lackawanna Passenger Revival Coming Down the Track

Federal Infrastructure Law Could Fund Rebuilding of Route of Phoebe Snow

When I was six my grandmother took me to a farm in Pennsylvania for a weekend in September 1960. We traveled by train even though bus was faster and ran direct from the Port Authority bus terminal.

It was an exciting adventure. My grandmother met my father and me in Pennsylvania Station and we walked through the now sealed off Gimbels Passageway to Herald Square. There we boarded a rickety old subway she told me was called “The Tubes” that would take us to Hoboken, New Jersey.

When we arrived, we went up the stairs and exited onto the concourse of a large open air train station with an array of tracks that seemed to stretch forever. Dark green commuter trains occupied all but one of those tracks. A beautiful gray and maroon streamliner with an observation car was spotted on the remaining track.

My grandmother told me we would be taking that train, and it was called the Phoebe Snow. I was both excited and somewhat relieved since we wouldn’t be riding on a grungy, old commuter train. We boarded and for the next two hours I was in seventh heaven as we rode out to East Stroudsburg, PA, where we got a ride to the farm in a pickup truck.

Memories of freight yards in places like Denville and Port Morris, the station and tower at East Stroudsburg, and riding through the Delaware Water Gap became etched in my mind at this young age. The Delaware, Lackawanna, & Western Railroad was in its final weeks as an independent line. The ICC just approved its merger with the Erie, which would be consummated the following month.

Already there were signs that merger integration had begun. A green Erie E-8 locomotive with an E-L logo and the words “Erie-Lackawanna” on its side pulled our return trip. We rode back to Hoboken in Erie 1000-series heavyweight coaches.

Back then, the Lackawanna was still a very busy railroad. In addition to its extensive commuter network, it operated five daily passenger trains each way between Hoboken and Scranton, PA, with four continuing on to Buffalo. Two of those trains carried through sleeping cars and coaches for Chicago via a connection with the Nickle Plate Road.

I couldn’t imagine that six years later the Phoebe Snow would make its final run or that in 10 years Erie Lackawanna would discontinue long-distance passenger service. Worse still, I’d say you were crazy if you told me that by 1980 the former Lackawanna mainline would be out of service between Port Morris and Scranton and that tracks over the Lackawanna Cutoff would soon be removed.

In the early 20^th century, the Lackawanna built a 28-mile rail line across western New Jersey known as the Cutoff that was considered state-of-the-art. It was 11 miles shorter than the route it replaced, had fewer curves, gentler grades, and no grade crossings.

Rail advocates have been trying without success for more than 40 years to bring passenger service back to Scranton and the Poconos and have tracks re-laid on the Cutoff. Now it appears their luck could be turning.

In late March Amtrak and the Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Railroad Authority (PNRRA) announced the findings of a two-year study of the potential for passenger rail service between New York and Scranton, PA. At the same time, PNRRA applied for federal grants under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which could pay up to 80 percent of project’s capital costs.

Rail advocates have been trying without success for more than 40 years to bring passenger service back to Scranton and the Poconos and have tracks re-laid on the Cutoff. Now it appears their luck could be turning.

The study estimates the cost of upgrading 60 miles of track between Scranton and the Delaware Water Gap that PNRRA owns would range between $99 million and $176 million. Two trainsets dedicated to the service would cost between $70 million and $90 million. The study did not estimate the cost of rebuilding the ripped up section of the Lackawanna Cutoff, which is owned by NJ Transit.

With three daily round trips making the 135-mile run in around 2:50, 30 minutes faster than the Phoebe Snow, the line would generate 473,500 passengers annually, the study found. The service could generate around $13 million in annual revenue but operating expenses would likely range between $18 million and $19 million, necessitating a subsidy close to $6 million. The service could be running within six years.

I think this project has a good chance of getting funded because it would generate substantial economic benefit for an area under-served by public transportation. Also, it already has cleared the environmental review process. Finally, the distance and market are comparable to another start-up route, the Downeaster, which runs from Boston North Station to Portland and Brunswick, ME. That route carried more than 550,000 passengers in 2018.

Before they can turn the first shovel, however, PNRRA and NJ Transit, owner of the Lackawanna Cutoff, need to be singing on the same page so to speak. Without a commitment from New Jersey to rebuild the Cutoff the project is unlikely to go anywhere. Also, NJT would have to agree to a top track speed of 110 mph on the Cutoff to make the 2:50 running time work.

In addition, Amtrak will need to accommodate this service expansion as well as, possibly, new service to Allentown, PA. Between Kearny Junction and Penn Station the Northeast Corridor’s peak capacity is maxed out. This is why a proposed schedule shows the last train to Scranton leaving New York after 8 p.m.. Construction of new tunnels and rebuilding the existing ones, planned under the Gateway Program, could throw the line further behind schedule.

With so many players involved, funding and building a new rail line or increasing service is like a chess game. A move affecting one location is likely to impact operations elsewhere. This is a simplistic explanation of one reason it is so costly to build rail in this country and it seemingly takes forever.

Close to 600,000 people live in the Scranton-Wilkes Barre MSA. After decades of decline due to the collapse of anthracite coal the region’s population has stabilized and the economy is growing. If the project gets green lighted rail service could commence by 2030 or sooner. I’ll admit it’s a tall order and the cynics will cry it will never happen, but I think PNRRA has good case. Time will tell.