Delaware & Hudson: The History of an Important Railroad Whose Antecedent Was a Canal Network to Transport Coal

Here, in a pictorial history, Jim Shaughnessy turns an eloquent photographer's eye to the Delaware & Hudson (D&H), the line that began in 1823 as a canal system to transport Pennsylvania coal to New York State. It remained active for 170 years, until the route was sold to the Canadian Pacific Railway Corporation in 1993. The Delaware and Hudson extended from Montreal to the coal fields of northeastern Pennsylvania. The line made early railroad fame by importing from England the famous Stourbridge Lion, first steam locomotive in America. This occurred during a great expansion into gravity, an interesting phase which took advantage of the mountainous terrain. Extremely able and ambitious company presidents oversaw a period of economic growth and amalgamation in the nineteenth century. Eventually the D&H advertised itself as "the Bridge Line to New England and Canada." Mountainous terrain around the coal mines challenged the line with heavy grades, so it was natural for one of its presidents, L. F. Loree, to be fascinated with experimental traction power. The many Loree locomotives, leaders in progressive design, are pictured and described herein. Because a good railroad history is always an economic history of a region, this book will surely please historians, too. Delaware & Hudson is a definitive work, encompassing the mining of the region and detailing the steamboat operations on Lakes George and Champlain.