A Lehigh and Hudson River Railway Scrapbook
The Lehigh and Hudson River Railway
A Note about the Compass, Timetables, and Traffic Directions on the L&HR
This issue can get confusing, so pay attention (and this is the simplified version)...
Geographically, the former Lehigh and Hudson River Railway ran between Phillipsburg, New Jersey and Maybrook, New York.
On the L&HR system map, this would be roughly South-southwest to North-northeast.
At the 'lower end' (Phillipsburg and, through trackage rights agreements, beyond), connections were made with other roads to the west and south.
At the 'upper end' (Maybrook), the connection was with the New Haven, handling traffic over the Poughkeepsie
Bridge into and out of southern New England.
The traffic flow was, in effect, based on the Poughkeepsie bridge; eastbound into
New England, or westbound from New England to the rest of the country.
From the beginnings through to C-day, the timetable was east-west.
Maybrook was east, P'burg was west.
As Conrail's Hudson Secondary (since the NYS&W changes, extending from 'new'
Hudson Junction- 'HJ'- to Pelton Road), timetable references are north-south.
HJ is north, PR is south.
In the Susquehanna era, the timetable direction of traffic flow has flip-flopped
from the L&HR days...
East is now west, and west is now east.
The NYS&W stack trains now plying the former L&HR right-of-way, thanks to the
rebuilding of the former Sparta Juction and the new Hudson Junction,
defy the compass.
A look at the current (NYS&W) system map
shows that trains moving from 'new' HJ to the new Sparta
Juction over the former L&HR are headed in a generally easterly direction,
from Buffalo, through Binghampton and Port Jervis, to the port facilities
in the New York-New Jersey area.
Confusing? You bet.
From where I'm sitting now, a train passing from right to left could be (or could have been)
eastbound (L&HR), westbound (NYS&W), or northbound (Conrail).
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