Railroad Forums 

  • What became of the Lackawanna Tunnel Railroad Company?

  • Discussion relating to the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the Erie, and the resulting 1960 merger creating the Erie Lackawanna. Visit the Erie Lackawanna Historical Society at http://www.erielackhs.org/.
Discussion relating to the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the Erie, and the resulting 1960 merger creating the Erie Lackawanna. Visit the Erie Lackawanna Historical Society at http://www.erielackhs.org/.

Moderator: blockline4180

 #301208  by JoeG
 
I was browsing the NY Times archives, and came across an October 1904 article that said the DL&W had chartered the Lackawanna Tunnel Railroad Company, which was empowered to dig a tunnel between NY and NJ. The article said the tunnel was anticipated to be mostly for passengers, but freight was not ruled out.
Obviously, no tunnel got built.
Anyone know what happened?

 #301231  by CarterB
 
Was this possibly one of the oft begun, never finished (since 1874) attempts to cross the North River that was eventually taken over and finished by McAdoo for the H&M circa 1908? And wasn't there also a plan by the Erie to have a passenger train tunnel to lower Manhattan from Pavonia at one time?
 #301463  by henry6
 
Railroad companies often got charters for other companies to do construction, thus the name. Thus the Lackawanna of NJ was formed as a construction company to build the Cut Off as were others for other sections. So this is probably a DL&W company. Does the article give names or references?

 #301473  by JoeG
 
Article was short and didn't give names, except to say that Truesdale was president. (He was DL&W pres at the time.) The company was capitalized at a nominal $300,000.
In 1871 the Lackawanna had gotten an injunction against the first builders of the Hudson tunnels. However, by 1904 the McAdoo construction was well under way, and the New Jersey shaft was on property owned by the Lackawanna. So, I had thought that the Lackawanna had accepted McAdoo's H&M.
 #301479  by henry6
 
Then a check of Taber's Twentieth Century, Vol. 1 is in order.

 #301488  by JoeG
 
Taber (Vol 1, p.25) mentions the Lackawanna Tunnel Railroad but doesn't elaborate much. I guess in those days railroads started lots of companies "just in case..."
 #301618  by henry6
 
Oh, yeah.