Nostalgia & History > Dunnfield, NJ

Dunnfield was a small settlement located on the New York Susquehanna & Western Railroad just east of the bridge over the Delaware River into Pennsylvania.  An 1895 Summer Travel brochure says it was know for lumber and slate. It also shows three borading houses to compete against the more well known ones on the Lackawanna Railroad across the river in the town of Delaware Water Gap.
 

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Dunnfield initially had two passenger trains a day each way between Jersey City and Stroudsburg.  For a few years after the Wilkes Barre & Eastern was completed through trains went to Wilkes Barre.  After about 1915 service was reduced to a mixed train which was gone by 1934.  In the third photo note the WB milepost, the only one I have ever seen on the NYS&W with a Wilkes Barre marking.

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After the NYS&W declared bankruptcy in 1937 it disavowed the lease of the WB&E, which led to its bankruptcy and abandonment in 1941.  The NYS&W abandoned its line between Haineburg Jct. and Stroudsburg in 1941 with the tracking being torn up in 1942 (there was some decent local industry in Stroudsburg but the bridge over the Delaware River was in dire need of major repairs or replacement, thus dooming the line - an effort to connect to the DL&W and obtain trackage rights failed over the cost of a connection on the Jersey side.).  In 1955 the state looked to build a modern highway to replace the existing Route 46 crossing into PA at Delaware, NJ, so it built whate would become today's I-80 on the abandoned ROW.  What little that was left of Dunnfield was obliterated by the highway construction. 

Tim

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Interesting geography.  I liked the bit about the Delaware Water Gap being the second gap in the Blue Ridge, the first being at West Point NY and the next being at Wind Gap.  I never knew those mountains were considered part of the Blue Ridge and the gaps were so few and far between, especially between the Delaware Water Gap and West Point NY.

BlackWidow Wrote:
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> Interesting geography.  I liked the bit about the
> Delaware Water Gap being the second gap in the
> Blue Ridge, the first being at West Point NY and
> the next being at Wind Gap.  I never knew those
> mountains were considered part of the Blue Ridge
> and the gaps were so few and far between,
> especially between the Delaware Water Gap and West
> Point NY.

Yes.  The New York & Greenwood Lake originally was planning to extend beyond Greenwood Lake and end up in Middletown, NY.  It was going to be the original route of the New York & Osewgo Midland (NYO&W).  There was no practical way to build a railroad north of Greenwood Lake so the second choice was the New Jersey Midland, roughly following the valley of the Walkill River.

Tim