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As of Oct. 22 the last spike was driven into the proverbial coffin of the venerable Delaware and Hudson Railway in Luzerne County. The deeds for 40 tracts of land taking the rail from Avoca to Nescopeck were transferred to Norfolk Southern Railway Company at a cost of $26.2 million.
The 61-page paperwork is not the official end of D&H, billed by many — including american-rails.com — as the nation’s oldest transportation company. It is, however the end of D&H in Luzerne County.
Created as the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company in 1823 to haul anthracite coal from Carbondale to New York City, it became a rail company in 1829 using steam to run a whopping 16 miles of track from Carbondale to Honesdale. D&H expanded service steadily north to Canada and south to Wilkes-Barre and beyond, both thriving on anthracite and helping the anthracite region thrive.
The railway went bankrupt in 1988, eventually ending up as part of Canadian Pacific in 1991, a company on paper only.
Norfolk Southern first proposed purchasing 282 miles from Sunbury, Pennsylvania, to Schenectady, New York, in November, 2014, at a price of $214.5 million. Norfolk Southern spokesman Dave Pidgeon said the company had been using the track with permission from Canadian Pacific, while other local traffic was handled by CP.
The deal was finalized Sept 18, with Canadian Pacific ceasing operations that evening and Norfolk Southern officially starting them at 12:01 a.m. the following morning.
The deed transfer filed in Luzerne County was, metaphorically, the conductor stamping a passenger’s ticket after the train already left the station.
Canadian Pacific wasn’t the only entity to get a tidy chunk of change from the deal. The paperwork lists taxes and fees associated with the transfer that go to the state, county, municipalities and school districts through which the rail line passes. The biggest chunk is $262,063 in state realty tax, nearly half the total $575,870 in fees and taxes.
Officially, the D&H had notified the state Labor Department in New York that the sale would result in 400 people being laid off, but that was due to federal regulations requiring all those at risk of a potential layoff be notified.
Pidgeon said about 150 employees were expected to be retained by Norfolk Southern, though he didn’t have a final number. And in various published reports Canadian Pacific predicted many, if not all of the remaining employees could be absorbed into other operations with the railway.