The Stourbridge Line is open again; Scenic train rides of the Northern Poconos

Posted 8/21/12

HONESDALE, PA — Take a step back in time, or rather, a ride back in time on the Stourbridge Line railroad. After three years of closure, the Stourbridge Line is back. The 25-mile track begins in …

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The Stourbridge Line is open again; Scenic train rides of the Northern Poconos

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HONESDALE, PA — Take a step back in time, or rather, a ride back in time on the Stourbridge Line railroad. After three years of closure, the Stourbridge Line is back. The 25-mile track begins in Honesdale and goes to Hawley. The popular railroad is a special treat for the area, which has a claim to be the birthplace of the American railroad.

Excursion rides began on May 9 and will continue on select weekends throughout the summer and into the fall. Rides are at 11 a.m., 12 noon (departing from Hawley) and 2 p.m. on Saturdays and at 11 a.m. on Sundays (see the website for a full calendar). The passenger cars have been completely revamped, and you can even take a ride in the caboose.

The Stourbridge Line was purchased and is now owned by the Delaware Lackawaxen & Stourbridge Railroad Company (DL&S). Entrepreneur Tom Myles and the Myles Group worked to restore the engine and cars and brought the railroad back to life. Myles is a railroad man and worked on a line between Wellsboro, PA and Corning, NY. When he first came to that line, there were 1.5 people who made a living from the railroad; when he left there were over 150 people.

Wayne County Historical Society Executive Director Carol Dunn is excited to see the railroad running again. She spoke of Myles’ impact in Wellsboro. “That kind of thing makes your eyes pop and makes you think, ‘Are we here at the beginning of something that is going to be that monumental in Honesdale and Wayne County?’ Think of the amount of money this could bring into our community, the amount of tourism and bed and breakfasts, restaurant meals, gas station fill-ups, mini-market purchases, all of that stuff,” Dunn said. “Everyone here is hoping that it is the beginning of a great new era of train excursions here in Wayne County.”

The train brought a lot of tourism to the area, but it closed in 2011 because of a lack of funding. It was then owned by the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce. “We hope the impact it makes on our community is significant and lasting,” Dunn said. “People of Honesdale and Hawley have welcomed them [the Myles Group] with open arms, because it makes a big difference when you don’t have those 12,000 people coming into your community in the summer.”

The excursion times are set up so that people could spend some time in Hawley before returning to Honesdale, and take advantage of the shopping and restaurants in both towns. The ride there and back is about hour and a half.

“I know the renewed pride that I see here in Honesdale and Wayne County in general,” Dunn said. “Everybody is delighted that the excursions rides have come back, and everyone is hoping it is going to be a great long run from the Myles Group.”

Honesdale’s illustrious railroad history

In 1827, the Delaware and Hudson Company (known for the D&H Canal) began to explore locomotive use to transport coal from its mines in Carbondale to Honesdale, and then to New York City via the canal. They wound up using a system known as the gravity railroad; it uses inclined tracks and lets gravity do the work to move the train on the downgrade, employing other means like animal power or stationary engines and cables on the upgrade. The system was common in Europe, though unheard of here in America.

John B. Jervis (as in Port Jervis), engineer for the D&H Company in the 1820s, became interested in the then-emerging steam locomotive technology—which could be used to pull freight both uphill and down—and it was he who imported from England the steam locomotive the Stourbridge Lion to try out on the line. A full-sized replica of the Lion is now in the museum of the Wayne County Historical Society on Main Street.

Although it was eventually decided that it was too heavy to be used on the gravity railroad tracks and was mothballed shortly after its first trials, the Stourbridge Lion was the first steam engine to run on tracks in this country. When it made its first run, onlookers were convinced it wouldn’t work and that the rider would be killed. But jeers quickly turned to cheers as the train made its way down the tracks and back. From there, as we now know, the engine-driven railroad model became the dominant one in the country, and an integral part of the Industrial Revolution in America. That makes the return of an excursion rail service to the Honesdale-Hawley run particularly appropriate.

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