The Delaware and Hudson Canal and Gravity Railroad, a 124-mile
long long transportation system between the Lackawanna Valley in Pennsylvania
and the Hudson River, was one of America's first million-dollar private
enterprise. The construction of this transportation system was a significant
engineering feat of pre-industrial America.
Through the D&H Canal--a 108-mile long, man-made waterway, consisting
of 108 locks--millions of tons of anthracite coal were shipped from Honesdale,
PA, to Eddyville on the Rondout Creek near the villages of Kingston and Rondout.
From there, the coal was shipped down the Hudson River to New York and up
the river to the Erie Canal and also to Canada.
The D&H Gravity Railroad--a 16-mile long railroad, consisting of inclined
planes and levels, connected the coal fields in the Lackawanna Valley with
the D&H Canal at Honesdale. At the head of each of the inclined planes
on this rail line was a stationary steam engine that pulled the rail cars
up and over the Moosic Mountain, the summit of which is almost 1,000 feet
above the valley floor where the rail line began. |
