Lehigh Line | |
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NS 21M rolls through Easton, Pennsylvania on the Lehigh Line in 2006.
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Overview | |
Type | Freight rail |
System | Norfolk Southern Railway |
Status | Operational |
Locale | New Jersey and Pennsylvania |
Termini | Port Reading Junction in Manville, New Jersey Penn Haven Junction in Lehigh Township, Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
Operation | |
Opened | June 11, 1855 |
Owner |
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Technical | |
Number of tracks | 1-2 |
Track gauge | 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge |
Operating speed | 50 miles per hour (80.5 km/h) |
The Lehigh Line is a railroad line in central New Jersey and northeastern Pennsylvania. It is owned and operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway. The line runs west from the vicinity of the Port of New York and New Jersey (via Conrail's Lehigh Line to the Susquehanna River valley at the south end of the Wyoming Valley Coal Region. Administratively it is part of Norfolk Southern's Harrisburg Division and is also part of the Crescent Corridor. As of 2016[update] the line is freight-only, although there are perennial proposals to restore passenger service over all or part of the line.
The Lehigh Line hosts approximately twenty-five trains per day. The line runs from Port Reading Junction in Manville, New Jersey to Penn Haven Junction in Lehigh Township, Carbon County, Pennsylvania. At Port Reading Junction it meets the Trenton Subdivision. It crosses the Delaware River at Phillipsburg, New Jersey. Most of the traffic along the line consists of intermodal and general merchandise trains going to yards such as Oak Island Yard in Newark and Croxton Yard in Jersey City. The line makes notable connections with other Norfolk Southern lines such as the Reading Line, the Washington Secondary, the Cement Secondary, the Ashmore Secondary, the Portland Secondary and the Stroudsburg Secondary. It connects with regional and short line railroads such as the Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad, the Black River and Western Railroad and the Belvidere and Delaware River Railway.