Old Road

Old Road is a town in Antigua. It is located in the southwest of the island, and is overlooked by Mount Obama (formerly Boggy Peak), which lies to its northwest.

Lackawanna Old Road

The Lackawanna Old Road was part of the original mainline of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad (DL&W). Opened in 1856, it was for a half-century a part of the line connecting the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In 1911, the DL&W cut 11 miles (18 km) off the route by opening the Lackawanna Cut-Off, which branched off from existing track at the new Port Morris Junction and Slateford Junction. The 39.6-mile (63.7 km) stretch of existing track between these junctions was relegated to secondary status and became known as the "Old Road".

History

The Old Road involves one railroad tycoon (John I. Blair) and four railroads: the DL&W, the Jersey Central (CNJ), the Morris & Essex Railroad (M&E) and the Warren Railroad. Originally, the Warren Railroad was to tie together the CNJ and the DL&W.

The purpose of building the 19-mile (31 km) Warren Railroad was to connect CNJ at Hampton, New Jersey and DL&W's mainline at the Delaware River. Expensive to build, the Warren Railroad required a large amount of excavation, three large bridges, and two tunnels. Construction started in 1853; the line opened three years later. In 1862, Oxford Tunnel (also known as Van Ness Gap Tunnel) opened, relieving trains of a slow and arduous climb over Van Ness Gap. The new tunnel, however, did not prevent the subsequent collapse of the DL&W-CNJ merger plan, which negated the building of the Warren.