Out of the Past
This postcard will arouse nostalgia
in the hearts of the older rail fans of Sussex County and will carry
them back to the glorious days of steam locomotives when the railroad
was the King of transportation agencies. This scene shows the joint
Lackawanna-Susquehanna railroad station at Franklin about 40 years
ago. The train on the siding is the late afternoon flyer for Branchville
Junction, Newton, Andover and Stanhope-Netcong, where connection was
made with main line trains for Newark and New York. Standing on the
cow-catcher platform at the head of the engine is George (Casey) Jones,
the engineer of Number 582. This was one of the many 4-6-0 camelbacks
used by the Lackawanna in the early 1900s. The rest of this crew,
not in the picture, included conductor Frank Quackenbush, fireman
John Decker, and brakemen Dayton Devore and John Auble, all oldtime
railroaders of Newton.
Franklin in those days had three rail
lines running through the famous mining town, the Lackawanna, the
Susquehanna, and the Lehigh & Hudson River. About 16 passenger
trains daily gave excellent transportation facilities to and from
the metropolitan area, Middletown, Warwick and Newburg, NY, and Easton,
Pa. The Lackawanna's Franklin Branch was extended from Branchville
Junction about 1870 and after a lusty and busy career of over 60 years,
finally abandoned about 1934 because of the inroads made into its
traffic by the automobile. About the only active railroad man of those
days still on the job in Sussex County is Dan Plant, agent at Branchville,
who has been connected with the high iron for fully 50 years.
Data on this picture supplied by Harold
N. Coriell, of Newton.