Metro Gathering Mega Event Poker Run #4
The Last Iron Horse cache along the Sussex Branch Trail showcases one of the premier rail trails in the Skylands regions of NJ. Formerly the Sussex Branch of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western railroad, this line is steeped in history as well as remarkable scenery. With only a few short interruptions, it is possible to trace this abandonment over twenty miles between the towns of Netcong and Branchville. This section of the Sussex Branch Trail follows the route through Sussex County from Byram Township in the south to Branchville Borough.
This section of the Sussex Branch Trail also got its start providing service in 1848 as the narrow-gauge, mule-drawn Sussex Mine Railroad, whose primary purpose was hauling iron ore from the mines in Andover to Waterloo Village on the Morris Canal. The railroad was eventually upgraded and expanded before being merged into the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad in the mid-1940s. Though the railroad was out of service several decades later, the state of New Jersey—which owns much of the area parkland—preserved the right-of-way for trail use.
The Iron Horse
After forty years’ operation, The Last Iron Horse, Darling Old Nell, the morning (6:55 A. M.) Lackawanna train between Franklin and Newton ended service on February 2, 1931. As this train carried mail from and to Newton, Postmaster Walters arranged for bids for carrying the mail to Newton twice daily, the recompense to be $800 annually. It also carried freight and passengers. The end of the morning train service on this line was taken as an indication of “the vast change that has come over the American life during the past ten years,” due to the widespread use of the automobile.
Old Nell, the famous Franklin-Newton flyer, slowly died of starvation, as her patrons kept fading away, dwindling fast in recent years, until the last sad blow was struck on April 1, 1931, when the two faithful passengers, Jake Rodimer and Bob Adams, decided to desert the ship and henceforth ride the bus. Her career ended after forty years when she was taken out of service on May 1, 1931.
The railroad applied for permission to take off the one remaining train on the it branch to Franklin, noting that the forty or fifty passengers who rode the afternoon train each week day had dwindled to about three a week in only eight years, due to automotive traffic. The milk business had evaporated; the limestone tonnage disappeared. In response, an agent of the Public Utilities Commission came to Franklin in August 1931 to check up on traffic, presaging a complete cessation of train service on the Franklin branch of the Lackawanna.