Delaware & Hudson Railway: The Bridge Line

Last revised: September 15, 2026

The Delaware & Hudson was a canal company that became a railroad, then a Bridge Line, then a piece of someone else’s map. Brothers Maurice and William Wurts wanted Carbondale anthracite in New York. Pennsylvania authorized a canal along the Lackawaxen on March 13, 1823; New York followed April 23. The gravity railroad over the Moosic Mountains opened October 8, 1829. John B. Jervis and Horatio Allen tried an English locomotive, the Stourbridge Lion, at Honesdale on August 8, 1829. It was too heavy. Horses and gravity ran the coal for another seventy years. Steam railroads then took the company north: Albany, Binghamton, Whitehall, Plattsburgh, Montreal. The slogan was The Bridge Line. Reporting mark DH.

Guilford closed on the railroad on January 4, 1984. The D&H filed bankruptcy June 20, 1988. Canadian Pacific bought it in January 1991. Norfolk Southern took the south line, Schenectady to Sunbury, on September 18, 2015. What is left of the north end is Canadian Pacific Kansas City. Steam locomotives after 1900 are on the steam roster; diesels on the all-time diesel roster.

All four Delaware and Hudson PAs leading freight SC-20 along Lake Champlain near Port Henry New York

All four of Delaware & Hudson’s PAs lead freight SC-20 along the shores of Lake Champlain near Port Henry, New York, during the 1970s. Jim Shaughnessy photo.

On this page: At a glance · Canal and gravity · The railroad north · The Bridge Line · Passenger trains · Dereco and Conrail · Guilford, CP, NS, CPKC

At a glance

Item	Detail
Headquarters	Albany, New York (Delaware & Hudson Building)
Charter	Pennsylvania canal act March 13, 1823. New York act April 23, 1823
Canal in full	Honesdale, 108 miles from the Hudson, first through trip October 16, 1828
Gravity railroad	Opened October 8, 1829, about 17 miles, 4 feet 3 inches. Last trip January 3, 1899
Railroad company name	Delaware & Hudson Company, 1899. Delaware & Hudson Railroad Corporation, 1930
Route-miles	765 (1950). Conrail-era plant, including trackage rights, on the order of 1,500
States / province	Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont; Montreal, Quebec
Slogan / mark	The Bridge Line / DH
Guilford	Closed January 4, 1984, from N&W’s Dereco. Bankruptcy June 20, 1988
Canadian Pacific	Purchased January 1991
Norfolk Southern south line	STB May 15, 2015. Closed September 18, 2015. Schenectady–Sunbury plus Delanson–Voorheesville
What remains	North of Schenectady: CPKC. South: NS Sunbury Line. Carbondale–Scranton: Delaware-Lackawanna
Rosters	Steam (post-1900) · All-time diesel

Jim Shaughnessy, Delaware & Hudson, is the company authority. Guilford, CP, and NS dates from contemporary notices and STB/CP releases. Information compiled September 14, 2026.

Canal, gravity, and one English locomotive

The Wurts brothers held anthracite around Carbondale and first thought of Philadelphia. The Schuylkill Navigation already had that market. New York did not. A canal all the way from the mines to the Hudson was impractical: the Moosic Mountains east of Carbondale rise more than 1,200 feet. The answer was a gravity railroad from the mines to Honesdale and a canal from Honesdale to the Hudson at Eddyville, just south of Kingston, then downriver to New York.

Work on the canal began westward from Eddyville. Sixty miles were open to Mongaup, on the Delaware northwest of Port Jervis, in the summer of 1827. First revenue on that stretch was April 22, 1828. The first through trip to Honesdale was October 16, 1828. Pennsylvania authorized the gravity railroad April 5, 1826. It opened October 8, 1829, about seventeen miles, 4-foot-3-inch gauge. By 1834 the plant was handling the projected 100,000 tons a year. A 7-mile gravity extension reached White Oak Run in the Lackawanna Valley in 1843; six more miles opened to Valley Junction via Olyphant and Archbald in 1858.

Jervis wanted steam on the easier gravity grades. In 1828 he and Allen ordered four English locomotives: Robert Stephenson & Company’s America, and Foster, Rastrick & Company’s Stourbridge Lion, Delaware, and Hudson. Only the Stourbridge Lion was tried in earnest on D&H track, at Honesdale on August 8, 1829, with a second trial September 9. Too heavy for timber-and-strap. The D&H went back to horses and gravity and did not buy another locomotive until 1860: William Cook of Scranton turned out the 0-4-0 Major Sykes and the 4-4-0 C.P. Wurts, still 4-foot-3-inch gauge, for a four-mile steam railroad from Valley Junction to Providence, near Scranton. The last gravity addition came in 1865. The last canal boat loaded with coal ran November 5, 1898. Gravity service ended January 3, 1899. The Delaware & Hudson Company, no longer a canal company, was organized that February and recognized in New York that April.

Delaware and Hudson PA 18 and RF16 1216 at Colonie Shops New York February 8 1975

Delaware & Hudson PA 18 and RF16 1216 pose together for a company photo at the Colonie Shops, New York, on February 8, 1975. Richard Allen photo.

Colonie, north of Albany, was the steam-to-diesel shop. The Sharks are RF-16s 1205 and 1216. A 1933 Colonie replica of the Lion, built for the Century of Progress, sits in Honesdale with the Wayne County Historical Society.

The railroad north

After the Civil War the D&H bought more coal land toward Wilkes-Barre and used the Northern Coal & Iron Company as the corporate sleeve for rail operations it was not yet chartered to run in its own name. In 1868 it agreed with the Erie to move coal from Carbondale over the Jefferson Railroad to Lanesboro/Susquehanna, then west toward Buffalo. That branch opened October 28, 1870. D&H held trackage rights; in 1955 it bought the line outright. That became the Penn Division.

New York gave the company railroad privileges in May 1867. On February 24, 1870 it leased the Albany & Susquehanna, the six-foot-gauge Albany–Binghamton road completed January 14, 1869. Coal still had to use Erie rails from Lanesboro to Binghamton. A 27-mile D&H cutoff from Lanesboro to Nineveh opened June 17, 1872 and put Wilkes-Barre coal on a D&H/A&S line to Albany without the Erie in the middle.

Former Lehigh Valley C420 on the Delaware and Hudson at Binghamton New York February 1985

A former Lehigh Valley C420 on the Delaware & Hudson at Binghamton, New York, in February 1985. Bob Yanosey photo. American-Rails.com collection.

North of Albany the modern D&H is a stack of older names. The Rensselaer & Saratoga, leased in May 1871, ran Albany/Troy to Whitehall at the foot of Lake Champlain; its own ancestors include the Saratoga & Schenectady, the Saratoga & Washington (Saratoga Springs–Whitehall, opened December 10, 1848), and the Troy, Salem & Rutland inside route. The New York & Canada, consolidated February 25, 1873, took the Whitehall & Plattsburgh and Montreal & Plattsburgh. Whitehall to Port Henry opened November 30, 1874; Port Henry to Plattsburgh November 29, 1875, including the 606-foot tunnel and the Red Rocks shelf over Willsboro Bay. D&H built its own Plattsburgh–Rouses Point line in November 1876 instead of living on the Ogdensburgh & Lake Champlain. The Napierville Junction, acquired April 9, 1907, carried the railroad from Rouses Point to St. Constant, with Grand Trunk rights to St. Lambert and Canadian Pacific rights across the St. Lawrence into Montreal. That is the Bridge Line completed.

Two Adirondack branches mattered for ore and tourists. The Chateaugay & Lake Placid, a July 29, 1903 consolidation, ran Plattsburgh to Saranac Lake and Lake Placid. The Adirondack Railway, Saratoga Springs to North Creek from 1871, was sold to the D&H on June 11, 1889. Light density later took most of both. The Delaware & Hudson Railroad Corporation of 1930 gathered the railroad and the subsidiaries under one operating name. Jim Shaughnessy’s Delaware & Hudson remains the construction authority for those leases and the Champlain grade.

Official 1940 Delaware and Hudson system map

An official 1940 system map of the Delaware & Hudson. American-Rails.com collection.

The Bridge Line

Anthracite was more than half of D&H tonnage through the 1930s. Cement, iron ore, steel, wood, and some bituminous never replaced it. After World War II the hard-coal market left. The railroad lived on overhead: New England and the Northeast to Montreal, and the other way around. Mechanicville, Albany, Binghamton, and the Canadian gateway were the points that paid. Only New York Central and Central Vermont also reached Montreal from the south. The 1950 plant was 765 miles. Challengers and Northerns—Alco 4-6-6-4s 1500–1539 and 4-8-4s 300–314—finished steam. The Challenger class is D&H 4-6-6-4s. All were gone by 1953. No D&H steam engine survives complete.

Reading 4-8-4 2102 dressed as Delaware and Hudson 302 for the 150th anniversary in 1973

Reading 4-8-4 2102 dressed as Delaware & Hudson 4-8-4 302 to celebrate the latter’s 150th anniversary in 1973. The actual D&H Northerns were fifteen Alco engines of 1943, 300–314, with elephant-ear smoke deflectors. All were scrapped in the 1950s. Jim Shaughnessy photo.

Delaware and Hudson GP39-2 7409 southbound at Conklin New York May 1982

Delaware & Hudson GP39-2 7409 leads a general manifest southbound at Conklin, New York, in May 1982. Fred Robinson photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Alco at Schenectady sat on the railroad. First-generation power was almost all Alco: S-2s and S-4s, RS-2s and more than a hundred RS-3s, then RS-11s, RS-36s, and eighteen C-628s. GE U-boats and a handful of EMD SD45s and later GP38-2/GP39-2s broke the monopoly. The unit-by-unit record is the diesel roster.

Delaware and Hudson U23B 1776 RS11 5000 and C628 611 at Mechanicville New York August 1975

Delaware & Hudson power at Mechanicville, New York, in August 1975: U23B 1776 in Bicentennial paint, RS11 5000, and C628 611. Jerry Custer photo.

Delaware and Hudson RS3u 1976 in Bicentennial livery circa 1976

Delaware & Hudson RS3u 1976 (Morrison-Knudsen TE-56-4A) in Bicentennial livery, probably at Colonie, circa early 1976. Jim Shaughnessy photo.

Delaware and Hudson RS11 5002 at Voorheesville New York August 18 1977

Delaware & Hudson RS11 5002 at the industrial park in Voorheesville, New York, on August 18, 1977. Jim Shaughnessy photo.

Inside Delaware and Hudson Colonie shops August 1975 with U33C 761 and RS36 5018

Inside the Delaware & Hudson shops at Colonie, New York, in August 1975. U33C 761 at left; RS36 5018 in front at right, U23B behind. Jerry Custer photo.

Passenger trains

The D&H never ran a large passenger fleet. Two New York–Montreal trains mattered: the overnight Montreal Limited, with New York Central south of Albany, and the daylight Laurentian. Frederic C. Dumaine Jr. became president in 1966 and upgraded the trains for Expo 67 traffic. In December 1967 the railroad bought four former Santa Fe Alco PA-1s, ATSF 59-L, 60-L, 62-L, and 66-L, and numbered them 16–19. Blue, yellow, and silver on the Warbonnet outline. Morrison-Knudsen rebuilt them in 1975 as PA-4s with 2,400-horsepower 251F engines. Amtrak dropped both trains on May 1, 1971. New York State and the D&H put the daylight run back as Amtrak’s Adirondack, which still uses the Champlain Subdivision.

Delaware and Hudson PA-1 18 and 16 leading the Laurentian along Lake Champlain late 1960s

Delaware & Hudson PA-1s 18 and 16 lead the Laurentian northbound along Lake Champlain in the late 1960s. Jim Shaughnessy photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Girl watching the Delaware and Hudson Laurentian boarding at Albany New York late 1960s

A young girl watches the Delaware & Hudson’s Laurentian boarding at Albany, New York, in the late 1960s. Carl Sturner photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Delaware and Hudson southbound Laurentian train 34 with PA 16 at Mechanicville New York

Delaware & Hudson train 34, the southbound Laurentian, led by PA 16 at Mechanicville, New York, on a winter afternoon in the late 1960s. Jim Shaughnessy photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Delaware and Hudson PA 18 departing Waterford New York with the northbound Laurentian

Delaware & Hudson PA 18 throttles up departing Waterford, New York, with the northbound Laurentian in the late 1960s. Jim Shaughnessy photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Delaware and Hudson PAs 19 and 17 crossing the Mohawk River at Cohoes with the southbound Laurentian

Delaware & Hudson PAs 19 and 17 cross the Mohawk River at Cohoes, New York, with the southbound Laurentian on a winter day in the late 1960s. Jim Shaughnessy photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Pair of Delaware and Hudson PAs at the Binghamton New York roundhouse October 1973

A pair of Delaware & Hudson PAs rest near the roundhouse in Binghamton, New York, on an October night in 1973. American-Rails.com collection.

Delaware and Hudson PA-1 18 and 19 outside Colonie shops late 1960s

Delaware & Hudson PA-1s 18 and 19 outside the shops at Colonie, New York, in the late 1960s. Jim Shaughnessy photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Delaware and Hudson PA-4 16 departing Mechanicville with the Adirondack August 1975

Delaware & Hudson PA-4 16 departs Mechanicville, New York, with the Adirondack in August 1975. Jerry Custer photo.

Delaware and Hudson RS2s with the last northbound train 205 at Harpursville New York January 24 1963

Delaware & Hudson RS2s have the final northbound train 205 (Binghamton–Albany) passing through Harpursville, New York, on January 24, 1963. American-Rails.com collection.

Dereco, Conrail, and the Penn Division

In the 1950s the D&H was still a solvent bridge road. It talked merger with Erie and Lackawanna, then walked out on April 13, 1959. Erie Lackawanna ran without it from October 17, 1960. Norfolk & Western folded D&H and Erie Lackawanna into Dereco on July 1, 1968. Hurricane Agnes put EL into bankruptcy; N&W lost interest.

Official 1969 Delaware and Hudson Railway system map

An official 1969 system map of the Delaware & Hudson Railway. American-Rails.com collection.

When Conrail started on April 1, 1976, Washington kept the D&H out as a competitor and handed it trackage rights that nearly doubled the map: Binghamton–Buffalo, and south to Newark, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Washington. In 1980 the railroad bought the former Lackawanna between Binghamton and Scranton. That made the old Penn Division—Carbondale, Lanesboro, Nineveh, the Belden Hill tunnel—redundant. Pieces came out in 1982; the rest followed after the tunnel was enlarged in 1986. Lackawanna County later took Carbondale–Scranton; Delaware-Lackawanna runs it now.

Delaware and Hudson RF16 pair at Kenwood Yard Albany New York circa 1975

Delaware & Hudson’s pair of RF16s at Kenwood Yard in Albany, New York, circa 1975. Jim Shaughnessy photo.

Delaware and Hudson RF16 1205 Sharknose cab at Whitehall New York June 15 1977

Delaware & Hudson RF16 1205 at Whitehall, New York, on June 15, 1977. Arnold Morscher photo.

Guilford, Canadian Pacific, Norfolk Southern, CPKC

Timothy Mellon’s Guilford Transportation Industries already had Maine Central and Boston & Maine when it closed on the D&H, from Dereco, on January 4, 1984, for $500,000. The idea was Calais to Buffalo and Washington. Labor trouble and a thin plant killed it. D&H filed Chapter 11 on June 20, 1988. The court put New York, Susquehanna & Western in as designated operator.

Canadian Pacific bought the railroad in January 1991 for about $25 million: Sunbury to Rouses Point, and the Conrail-era rights toward Philadelphia and Newark, with the 1990 Canada–U.S. trade pact in mind. D&H paint gave way to CP Rail. Norfolk Southern already moved most of the south-end tonnage when CP agreed, on November 14, 2014, to sell more than 280 miles from Schenectady to Sunbury, plus the Delanson–Voorheesville freight line. The Surface Transportation Board approved the sale on May 15, 2015. CP closed on September 18, 2015; NS ran it the next day as the Sunbury Line. CP dropped the old 1976 rights that August. The remaining D&H north of Schenectady—Rouses Point, the Champlain Subdivision, Albany, Mechanicville—went into CPKC on April 14, 2023.

The Bridge Line is those two maps and a canal that no longer holds water. Colonie is closed. The PAs left for Mexico and came home as restoration projects. The railroad that tried the first steam locomotive in the United States finished as a Canadian north–south and an NS coal-and-intermodal conduit through the Pennsylvania mines it was built to serve.

Sources

Shaughnessy, Jim. Delaware & Hudson. Berkeley, Calif.: Howell-North, 1967; later reprints. Canal, gravity, Lion trials, A&S and R&S leases, New York & Canada, Napierville Junction, Bridge Line
Schafer, Mike. More Classic American Railroads. Osceola, Wis.: MBI. Anthracite share of tonnage
Grant, H. Roger. Erie Lackawanna: Death of an American Railroad, 1938–1992. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994. Three-way merger talks; D&H withdrawal April 13, 1959
Delaware & Hudson Railway Historical Society, company history (Guilford close January 4, 1984; bankruptcy June 20, 1988; NYSW directed service; CP January 1991; NS south line September 2015)
Guilford purchase January 4, 1984, from Dereco (UPI / Class I timeline). D&H Chapter 11, Bankr. D. Del., June 20, 1988. CP purchase ~$25 million, January 1991
Canadian Pacific news release, September 18, 2015: sale of D&H South to Norfolk Southern, more than 280 miles Schenectady–Sunbury, STB approved May 15, 2015, $214.5 million. CPKC combination April 14, 2023
Live American-Rails Lion, Challenger, RF-16, Laurentian, steam-roster, diesel-roster, Conrail, and decade pages as linked above

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