Ok, I had a nice long reply done earlier today, but that got zapped when I accidently hit the back button. Apparenlty this verison of phpBB always checks certain fields....oh well.
Take 2.
Depending on where you want to go and where you want to end up at, there are two basic ways to get to this location. The easy way (north or east side of I380) and the hard way (south or west side of I380).
THE EASY WAY
If your coming out of Scranton or Cabondale, you need to jump on I380 towards I84 from I81 or Route 6 (depending on where you are coming from).
As you get onto 380, make sure you are in the left lane. I *think* you can see out of your right window the massive bridge over the river. If not going to, coming back you can see it. Back to driving.
Left lane....your going to take the left exit. I believe its exit 2, and should be for PA Route 435 South. This is a two lane, divided highway. The westbound lanes are a couple of hundered feet over a ridge (you can't see them). When you get off the exit, make sure you are in the right lane. This road is traveled at 55-75mph, so watch for the crazy speeders...however during non-rush hour traffic times, its not bad. Within a mile of getting off the highway, you are looking for "Drinker Turnpike" on your right. This is almost a 90 degree right hand turn off of 435. There should be some mailboxes on the side of the road, and there is a cutover to the westbound 435 on the left. Remember, this is a fast road and a divided highway, so watch your rear as you slow down and turn onto Drinker Turnpike. If you happen to miss it, continue on for a couple of miles. At the least, its scenic. You can make a U-turn back to the westbound lanes and use the crossover to get to Drinker Turnpike. This is a public crossover and is only there so that the residents don't have to drive a few miles to make this U-turn to go back west. Just becareful if you have to cross....your driving perpendicular to that same 55+mph traffic.
There are 2-3 houses on this road and what appears to be an abandoned business at the end of the road. The road is only about 1/2 mile long and dead ends at the highway. Park at the end off the side of the road out of the way. There are two gates. One at the end of the road, and another on the left that goes downhill. You want the one to the left. There is the typical debris piles, and is very easy to get up and over.
From the gate, its an easy walk downhill on an old driveway/road. This will take you right down to the abandoned pump house at the DL tracks. To the left is the abandoned bridge (2 min walk) and to the right the signal bridge (another 2 min walk). From the signal bridge if you look down to the river, you can see another abandoned building. I didn't explore that one, but would be interesting to see what use to be in the area.
Back towards the bridge, this is a large open/flat area. There are still old line poles and signal/phone boxes in the woods. You can see where the ROW went, and is pretty easy to get around.
THE HARD WAY
This way will get you on the other side of the river. I believe there are two ways down to the area, but only one that I have personally gone down.
It is recommended that you have a decent high clearence vehicle with four wheel drive!
When I went down there was still some ice and snow on the ground, and I threw it in 4WD in a couple of areas "just in case". I didn't drive all the way down due to some ice sheets, but in the warm weather, and the road is dry, you should be able to get all the way down to the ROW. You don't need a lifted Jeep, but just be smart about it. I took my Suburban down this path. There is potentinal for some paint scratching, but I didn't notice anything new on the truck. For the most part, if you stay on the trail, your not going to rub against trees. Just some of the manuerving that I had to do caused some brush ups.
Now how to get there.
Get onto PA Route 307. You can get to this from Moscow or just off of I81 south of the 81/380/6 interchange. You want to get to Lake Scranton. This is in Dunmore in the Roaring Brook Township. Directly across from a lake observation point is Lake Scranton Road. I believe there is a chruch on the corner and there is a funky looking entrance into the neighborhood here. You can't miss it.
Follow Lake Scranton Road to Elmhurt Blvd. Go slow thru these streets...there were a bunch of pot holes, and the streets have some interesting angles. You are going to bear right onto Elmhurst and follow it for a few miles. To your left is a nice view (at times) overlooking the valley. The road gets a little curvey at times and you are going to go thru an area where it looks like a failed residental development never took off (abandoned streets with fire hydrants, no houses etc).
At some point, Elmhurst will almost become level to I380 on your left. There will be a turn off on your left to a dirt road....you can't miss the junk pile. This is Trail 328 (T328). This is the road you will will take straight down to the old ROW. There is junk all over the place, but nothing was on the road to impede you. I word to the wise...if you wimp out, or trail conditions aren't that great, there are a couple of SMALL spots you could make a K turn. I found one for the I was able to do about 20 K turns in (remember...I have a suburban!) and just barely made it. Then again, I did this on the trail and not at the bottom there there is plenty of room. Worse case, your in reverse all the way back up, and that's not going to be fun.
If you make it down to the bottom, the old ROW that heads back to Scanton seems fairly solid and has active telephone poles along it. I am sure this ends back out somewhere...but if there is a locked gate at the other end, I don't know.
To the right you walk under I380 and it brings you right to the bridge. The crossties are not in that great of a condition, but the structure itself seems pretty solid. I wouldn't walk on the ties, but there are metal supports that run the lenght would could be transversed, but I wouldn't risk it. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! There is a cable that is fairly low along the bridge, and I have 99% determined that its a phone cable on how its laid and routed/constructed. Don't quote me that though! This cable seems to feed phones for the houses on Drinker Turnpike.
