Location of Drifton junction. Right off the D&L trail.

Hello everyone. After suffering severe flood damage in the 1830's the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company decided to build a railroad for the transportation of anthracite Coal. This would be the new Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad built between 1839-1841.
Skip ahead a few decades and the Central Railroad of New Jersey would lease this road in 1871 giving them a direct route from the busy metro New York/New Jersey area to the coal fields of Pennsylvania. In 1876 the Jersey Central would construct the Drifton branch that would increase coal traffic. I believe this line serviced the mines at Jeddo PA. It broke off the now Jersey Central mainline right near the confluence of Sandy Run and the Lehigh river. I will post a map picture in the community section of this channel to help out with the location. Thank you for watching. 9/14/24

[@charliejg]

Very cool!! Thanks for showing this.....

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Good morning Charlie. This is a neat little spot. If you were cruising by on a bike you may miss that entrance to the trail.

[@mattcrowley3075]

Thanks for another great video Kevin! 👍👍👍

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

My pleasure Matt.

[@johnnicoline7632]

That was really cool

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Yes indeed!! I'm hoping to get back up there once the leaves come down.

[@paulbergen9114]

Because of its old heritage the stream being so straight and rocklined certainly does say canal Also on the bridge compared to many others those stones are small by comparison they needed almost double the normal number to finish it. Drifton Jct truly is a wide spot in the road bed just go those few extra feet and there it is

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

That is some really old stone work to boot. 1839-1841. And since it was Lehigh Coal and Navigation building it they stayed away from the fancier stone and kept it simple.

[@DWH072]

Good stuff , keep it coming 👍

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Thank you very much. This one was a lot of fun!

[@Noah-gq7pq]

wow kevin,,i have a collection of ho railroad,,i have lehigh valley,,lehigh new England,,and central of new jersey,i had the orange and blue ones

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Nice!! Lehigh and New England is a really fascinating one!!

[@bobjohnston8316]

I found my reprinted copy of the 1869 Official Guide. The LV is there with a branch going from Penn Haven Jct. to Mt. Carmel. No Hays Creek branch. The CNJ ends in Allentown but with continuing service to Harrisburg via the Philadelphia & Reading.

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

1869!! That's pretty early in the game. 10 later and things would really start picking up. Pretty cool Bob!

[@johncaselli9593]

Kevin, Another excellent video. I so much admire the stonemasons back-in-the day, what beautiful craftsmanship! Both of the piers on both sides of the water still hold their beauty (It appears, all without the use of concrete between the individually cut stones)! Thank you. John

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Good afternoon John, This is certainly a remarkable piece of engineering. Beautifully constructed and approaching 200 years of age. Just unbelievable what these men did with the bare hands.

[@samuelt2072]

Always interesting. 👍👍

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Thank you Samuel.

[@bobjohnston8316]

Kevin: You need to find the KZbin video on the current stripmining near Tamaqua. I think the video was made as part of the towns 200th anniversary or something. Using huge trackhoes they strip off the overburden and expose the topmost vein, which already was deep mined so it looks like a coal Swiss cheese. They dig that out and then dig down to the next vein and repeat the process. The last vein that they dig out is the Mammoth vein although the narrator said that there is coal below that. By then they are a couple of hundred feet below grade level. While in the mammoth vein they even pull out and scrap the coal elevators that the deep miners used. That and similar operations is where the coal hauled on the R&N comes from. It’s all stripping as far as I know. No deep mining. I think that part of the deal with the state is that all of the underground springs are capped off with concrete before they backfill. The abandoned deep mines all seep water turned to sulfuric acid due to contact with coal. The strip miners claim that they are good citizens by eliminating the seeps. As you would expect, various environmental groups oppose the state granting any mining permits at all.

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

I'm definitely going to check this out. Now I'm not certain about this however the New St Nicholas breaker in Minersville may be deep mining coal. I should have payed more attention when I was up there earlier in the summer. Regardless Reading and Northern is making a fortune right now on anthracite. I have to imagine that there was so much coal that wasn't processed decades ago that can now be claimed and used. All those tailings and whatnot. There has to be some kind of use for them. The environmental groups always complain but you don't hear anything about the coal fired power plants producing electricity for people's teslas. Everyone forgets that electricity has to come from somewhere.

[@patricksparks6631]

Very cool Kevin, just bought my electric bike, want to do the Bike Train and the the section above White haven out to Mt Top. The creeks and streams up there are so beautiful. Enjoying your work!

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Good morning Patrick. I've been wanting to do the same thing only I'd like to hike back to Jim Thorpe. Not sure if my legs could pull it off. I do believe it's "downhill" so maybe it's possible. You're absolutely right about the streams up that way. Reminds me of those old Busch beer commercials lol.

[@samanthab1923]

Try to go during peak leaf season. Beautiful ride 🍁

[@nickmad887]

Thanks Kevin.

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Good morning Nick. You're quite welcome.

[@davestrang8585]

Nice spike 🎉🎉

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Thank you Dave.

[@Noah-gq7pq]

lots of snakes up that way,,,

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

I've either been lucky or blind but I've yet to run into any in the gorge. Schuylkill County is a completely different story however. Everyone I've seen this year has been in Schuylkill County.