Hoboken and the Erie Lackawanna Railroad

With the advent of highways and airports, it’s easy to forget that the most important form of transportation the United States of America has yet seen has, historically, been neither the automobile nor the airplane, but the train. Flip through any American history textbook, and you’ll quickly see that rails were crucial in just about every industrial development from the late 1800s onwards. Today, we’ll take a look at one significant railroad that connected Hoboken, New Jersey, to Chicago, Illinois, providing a link from the East Coast to the Midwest: The Erie Lackawanna Railroad.

Formation, Early Days, and Economics

The Erie Lackawanna Railroad first came into existence in 1960, when the Interstate Commerce Commission approved a proposed merging of Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad with the Erie Railroad, which became official in October of that year. A few years later, in 1963, someone decided the railroad needed to be renamed, from the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad to the Erie Lackawanna Railroad, with no hyphen; minor, but it affects the way we call it, so it’s certainly worth mentioning.

In any case, the nature of early days of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad was determined largely by the states its parent companies found themselves in prior to the merger. Which was, unfortunately for the railroad, a less than optimal confluence of states. Both parents were running deficits, a tendency which the Erie Lackawanna Railroad inherited, except for two years of operation in 1965/66. Such infeasible costs of operation gradually let to the downfall of the Erie Lackawanna railroad, and other factors, such as highway and water route competition in the Northeast, dealt the final blow. In 1976, the railroad ceased operation, giving way to other, more modern and better financially equipped operations.

Goods Shipped on the EL Railway

Just as the Erie Lackawanna Railroad inherited its parents’ deficit operation, it also inherited their cargo. The Erie Lackawanna Railroad shipped a lot of paint, cement, anthracite, and liveries, as well as a good number of passengers. In the early days, the railroad also transported fruit and vegetables bound for New York City, which was a particularly profitable source of income for the line. As we mentioned above, though, highways and waterways quickly began to rival the rails in terms of efficiency, and produce traffic to NYC eventually shipped primarily on the expressways. This dealt a major blow to the Erie Lackawanna’s revenue, and the eventual reduction in cement and anthracite shipments from New Jersey finished the job in terms of freight profits.

The Erie Lackawanna Railroad also gradually lost passengers, as they became more and more accustomed to taking the highways. This effect became more and more pronounced as the years moved on and automobiles became more and more affordable, and more and more common. Eventually, the Erie Lackawanna Railroad had trouble generating enough money to fund even its relatively meager operations, leading it to cease operations in 1976. Hoboken remains connected to Chicago, however, via a New Jersey Transit rail line to New York City, and one of a handful of lines to Chicago from there.