D&N: Rails Rust in the Catskills
Presented by Richard J. King

“She was always going to be a great road, some day,” but the Delaware & Northern Railroad spent the better part of its thirty-seven years running its short trains along its weed choked, lightly ballasted right-of-way, along the banks of the East Branch of the Delaware River. The railroad had set out with grand aspirations of linking the coalfields of Pennsylvania with the starved anthracite markets of New England but settled into being a forlorn mountain short line; revered by the people of the valley it served.

The D&N existed from 1904 until 1942. It tapped the sparsely settled East Branch Valley between the hamlets of Arkville and East Branch, in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The railroad connected the valley’s economic pursuits to new markets; however, the freight carloads generated were never enough to keep the D&N viable. The railroad operated on a shoestring budget and managed to stave off abandonment twice in its lifetime. When the railroad’s original promotors sought to have it done in, the D&N was saved by a self-made subway builder from Minsk, Belarus, who kept the railroad alive with funds from his own pocket. Even he could not keep the D&N free from the unquenchable thirst of the New York City metropolis. The railroad forcibly wound-up operations in the face of an impending river inundation, which later sunk most of its route below the Pepacton Reservoir.

Join Richard King for a look at the story the D&N. While it was monetarily worthless for much of its existence, the railroad brought children to school, took produce to market, shipped milk from the creameries, and carried mail to and from loved ones far away. The railroad’s employees were admired for their dedication to the D&N and the towns it served. There was good humor along the way, tragic and horrible wrecks, and a general feeling that the D&N was a lifeline to the world beyond the Catskills. Although the railroad has long since disappeared, its rails pulled up and its equipment scrapped, the story remains.

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