Lehigh and Mahanoy Railroad
1870 map
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| Locale | Northeast Pennsylvania |
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| Dates of operation | 1862–1866 |
| Predecessor | Quakake Railroad |
| Successor | Lehigh Valley Railroad |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) |
The Lehigh and Mahanoy Railroad, originally the Quakake Railroad (pronounced quake-ache), was an independently financed railroad planned and built at almost the same time as the Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR), when in part, some of its backers were also of the backers (and perhaps officers) of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. The railroad is mentioned as part of the engineering report following the survey of 1846 by Robert H. Sayre, at the time chief engineer of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, where the branch is described as part of the overall scheme to connect New York Harbor via the Central Railroad of New Jersey to the frontiers via Lake Erie and the Susquehanna River valley. The official incorporated name on the report is the Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill, & Susquehanna Railroad Co. where the Schuylkill name is the Quakake Creek climb out of the Lehigh Valley and drop down into Delano Junction which has a descent path to Tamaqua, Pennsylvania in the Little Schuylkill River basin. Accordingly, the Quakake Railroad would become part of the Mahanoy Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad in northeastern to north-central Pennsylvania. The Catawissa region was an important source of iron ores and developed into an Anthracite pig iron smelting center, as did Catasauqua, Pennsylvania also on the line of the Lehigh Valley.
The Quakake Railroad was chartered on April 25, 1857 to build a connection between the Beaver Meadow Railroad (later part of the Lehigh Valley Railroad's Hazleton Branch) and the Catawissa, Williamsport and Erie Railroad. The original plan took it to the Catawissa near the Lofty Tunnel, and an inclined plane was graded near the hairpin curve on the Catawissa, south of the tunnel. However, that plan and the inclined plane were abandoned prior to completion, and instead the junction was moved to the south to Quakake Junction, near Tamanend. The full line opened on August 25, 1858 from Black Creek Junction on the Beaver Meadow Railroad west to Quakake Junction on the Catawissa, and was at first operated by the Catawissa.
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