In the mid-19th century, the only mode of freight transportation was a horse-drawn barge along a canal beside a main river. To get to Jersey City, NJ from Allentown, Pennsylvania, in, say, 1855, one would load their barge to be pulled across the Lehigh Canal, seen here in the foreground, eastward to Easton, Pa, and across the Delaware River, to continue across New Jersey via the Morris Canal. Quite time consuming to say the least, but this was before the advent of the automobile/truck and also the railroad.
Since railroads tend to frequently follow rivers, due to their ‘flat’ geographic profile, it is with no surprise that we find, in the 21st century, a very modern ‘iron horse’ crossing the very canal that brought freight transportation to this region some 200 years ago. On former Lehigh Valley RR trackage, Norfolk Southern 7632 (a GE ES40DC) brings NS train 19G across the rail bridge, built in 1916, and across the original canal, to start her trip west on the NS Lehigh Line.
Image recorded May 29, 2010.
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