Lehigh and Hudson River Railroad: Map, Rosters, History

Last revised: September 20, 2026

The Lehigh & Hudson River was the smallest of the six railroads that went into Conrail. Reporting mark LHR. Headquarters Warwick, New York. It was a diagonal across the northwest corner of New Jersey: Easton, Pennsylvania, to Maybrook, New York, and the Poughkeepsie Bridge into New England. George H. Drury called it a single line that connected the anthracite roads at the Delaware and Lehigh with the New Haven at Maybrook. Almost no industry sat on the railroad. The money was cars received at one end and delivered intact at the other. It was a member of the Alphabet Route. It filed its only bankruptcy on April 19, 1972. Conrail acquired remaining freight operations on April 1, 1976.

Grinnell Burt’s Warwick Valley opened on April 1, 1862, six-foot gauge to the New York & Erie at Greycourt. The Lehigh and Hudson River Railway was formed on April 1, 1882. Thirteen Alco RS-3s dieselized the road in 1950–51. Nine C420s, including the first of the type, finished the roster.

Lehigh and Hudson River Alco C420 23 a few months old at Bethlehem Pennsylvania April 10 1966

Lehigh & Hudson River C420 #23, a few months old, at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, April 10, 1966. American-Rails.com collection. Alco’s first production C420s had gone to this railroad in 1963.

On this page: At a glance · Warwick Valley · April 1, 1882 · Maybrook and the bridge · System map, 1969 · Easton, Port Morris, Allentown · Alphabet Route · Steam after 1900 · Thirteen RS-3s, nine C420s · EL, Penn Central, 1972 · May 8, 1974 · What remains

At a glance

The Lehigh & Hudson River Railway logo. Author’s work.

Item	Detail
Railroad	Lehigh & Hudson River Railway. Mark LHR
Headquarters	Warwick, New York
Genesis	Warwick Valley Railroad, organized March 8, 1860. Opened Greycourt–Warwick April 1, 1862
Named	Lehigh and Hudson River Railroad, May 16, 1881 (Grinnell Burt). Railway from the April 1, 1882, merger
Dates	April 1, 1862–March 31, 1976. Conrail April 1, 1976
States	New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania (Easton)
Route-miles	About 73 owned. 95 in 1930 including rights. Rights on the Pennsylvania Bel-Del, the Lackawanna Sussex Branch, and the CNJ to Allentown
Gauge	6 ft with the Erie until about 1880. Then 4 ft 8½ in
Principal line	Easton, Pa.–Phillipsburg, N.J.–Andover–Warwick, N.Y.–Maybrook
Owners	Jointly the CNJ, DL&W, Erie, Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, and Reading. EL held the Erie and Lackawanna shares after 1960
Last passenger	1939, Warwick–Greycourt to the Erie
Dieselized	1950–51. Thirteen Alco RS-3s. Nine C420s 1963–66
Bankruptcy	April 19, 1972. Only filing
Successor	Conrail. NYS&W and Norfolk Southern on the north end today

Owned mileage and rights follow Classic Trains (August 2020). Steam classes follow Drury, Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, revised edition, p. 195. Information compiled September 20, 2026.

Warwick Valley, 1860

Grinnell Burt (1822–1901), a Warwick dairyman and businessman, organized the Warwick Valley Railroad on March 8, 1860, to reach the New York & Erie at Greycourt, about ten miles north. The Erie was six-foot gauge. So was the Warwick Valley. It opened April 1, 1862. For two decades the Erie furnished engines and crews. Lorett Treese, in Railroads of New Jersey, records that agreement. Around 1880 the Warwick Valley took its own operations, standard-gauged with the Erie, and pushed southwest. Milk from Orange County creameries paid the early bills. Later writers credit the little road with early refrigerator-car service on liquid milk. Dedicated milk trains, fast and on time, were a Northeast staple until the highway took the cans.

Burt remained president of the consolidated company until he died in 1901. The 1861 directors had already said the quiet part: the Warwick Valley was meant to be “a link in a great chain.” The chain was Easton to New England.

Pequest, Wawayanda, and April 1, 1882

Burt incorporated the Lehigh and Hudson River Railroad on May 16, 1881, and took the old Pequest & Wallkill charter of February 23, 1866. That company opened about 38 miles, Belvidere on the Delaware to Hamburg, New Jersey, in 1882. The Wawayanda Railroad, May 23, 1879, opened about seven miles from the state line to McAfee and met the Warwick Valley, which had built 4.36 miles southwest in 1880. The three-mile gap Hamburg–McAfee was a piece of the Sussex Railroad, bought in 1881. The rest of the Sussex went to the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western as the Sussex Branch.

On April 1, 1882, those companies became the Lehigh and Hudson River Railway, about 61 or 62 miles. The full Belvidere–Greycourt line is dated August 14, 1882. Belvidere was the south end of owned track. The Pennsylvania’s Belvidere-Delaware—the Bel-Del—already sat on the river.

Orange County, Maybrook, Poughkeepsie

The Orange County Railroad, chartered November 28, 1888, carried the map north of Greycourt. Classic Trains puts the Burnside connection with the New York, Ontario & Western in 1890, and the extension into the Central New England’s new Maybrook Yard within a year. The Central New England owned the asset that made the L&HR a bridge road: the Poughkeepsie Bridge over the Hudson, opened January 1, 1889, 6,747 feet with approaches, 212 feet above the river. Maybrook Yard was where New England freight left the New Haven and headed west without a carfloat in New York Harbor.

The New Haven bought the Central New England in 1905 and made Maybrook its all-rail west door. From then until Penn Central preferred Selkirk, that yard was L&HR air. The other roads at the table were the New Haven, the L&HR, the Lehigh & New England, the Erie, the Ontario & Western, and, less so, the New York Central. The bridge encyclopedia is the Poughkeepsie page. This railroad’s job was the 70-odd miles that put Easton on that gateway.

System map, 1969

Official 1969 system map of the Lehigh and Hudson River Railway Easton to Maybrook

An official 1969 system map of the Lehigh & Hudson River Railway. Author’s collection. Easton and Phillipsburg at the lower left, Warwick in the middle, Maybrook at the top.

The Delaware bridge, Port Morris, Allentown

In 1889 the L&HR took 12.7 miles of trackage rights on the Pennsylvania Bel-Del, Belvidere to Phillipsburg. To reach Easton it chartered two paper companies on July 25, 1889: the South Easton and Phillipsburg Railroad of New Jersey and the same name in Pennsylvania. New Jersey built 460 feet of west approach; Pennsylvania 850 feet of east approach. The 1,300-foot Delaware River bridge opened October 2, 1890. The two subsidiaries merged into the L&HR on April 2, 1912. Official mileage of the crossing, including the Easton interchange spur, was about 1.8 miles. Phillipsburg was already a five-railroad town: CNJ, Lehigh Valley, Lackawanna, the Pennsylvania Bel-Del, and now the L&HR.

In 1905, the same year the New Haven took the Central New England, the L&HR gained two western doors. Trackage on the Lackawanna Sussex Branch from Andover Junction reached the DL&W main at Port Morris. Rights on the Central Railroad of New Jersey reached Allentown, where the Reading stood. For a short time in the 1920s CNJ rights ran on to Mauch Chunk (Jim Thorpe) for zinc ore to a smelter. Classic Trains: 73 owned miles and 35 miles of rights on three connections.

The one real branch was the Mine Hill Railroad, 1891, Franklin, New Jersey, to the zinc and iron at Sterling Hill. Additional ore came off the Susquehanna’s Hanford Branch; when that was abandoned the L&HR bought two miles to keep the source. McAfee and Vernon spurs reached Bethlehem Steel limestone. The railroad rostered about 100 ore cars. When the mines played out, the spurs died. Zinc by rail ended in 1980, after Conrail.

Through passenger trains used the Poughkeepsie Bridge at the opening and again in 1912–16, when the Boston–Washington Federal Express was avoiding the East River ferry. Hell Gate took that train back. L&HR’s own passengers were local. A Brill gas-electric of 1928 worked mixed trains west of Warwick until a crossing wreck in 1931. Warwick–Greycourt connections to the Erie, in secondhand steel coaches, lasted until 1939. Drury: the road discontinued passenger service in 1939. After that the railroad was freight, which was the point.

Alphabet Route, Central States Dispatch

The L&HR was the next-to-last initial in the Alphabet Route: Nickel Plate, Wheeling & Lake Erie, Pittsburgh & West Virginia, Western Maryland, Reading, Jersey Central, Lehigh & Hudson River, New Haven. Connellsville closed the western gap on February 11, 1931. Maybrook was the New England door. The hot trains were the Alpha Jets. That consortium is the Alphabet page. The L&HR also sat in the older Central States Dispatch and Blue Ridge Dispatch. Joint stock kept the bridge friendly: CNJ, Lackawanna, Erie, Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, Reading. After October 17, 1960, Erie Lackawanna held the Erie and Lackawanna shares. German corporate summaries of the 1975 file put EL at about a third, LV about 22 percent, CNJ about 17, Penn Central (ex-PRR) about 14, Reading about 13.

Block signals from 1913. Timetable and train-order. Single track, longer sidings, heavier rail. Hometown shops at Warwick. Classic Trains’ point is that 73 miles, run hard, looked like a bigger railroad than it was.

Camelbacks, USRA Mikes, three Mountains

Early power was Cooke and Baldwin: 4-4-0s, Moguls, Consolidations, Ten-Wheelers. The anthracite affiliates showed in center cabs and Wootten fireboxes. Drury: L&HR’s early twentieth-century engines were Camelback Ten-Wheelers and Consolidations typical of those roads. The road had almost no on-line industry, so the engines were for through freight. The only switcher in the whole story was an 0-6-0 of 1894.

Baldwin 2-8-2s 70–73 of 1916 had 56-inch drivers, 25-by-30-inch cylinders, and Wootten boxes for hard coal. Four USRA light Mikados, 80–83, came in 1918. They looked larger than the 1916 engines mostly because of 63-inch drivers; cylinders an inch bigger, 7,000 pounds more weight, 530 pounds more tractive effort. Then the 2-8-0s 90–95, Baldwin 1925 and 1927. A Consolidation that late would usually be a step back from a Mike. These were not. Drury: 309,700 pounds, almost 18,000 more than a USRA light Mikado; 61-inch drivers; cylinders 27 by 32, the USRA heavy Mike size; 71,500 pounds tractive effort, almost a USRA heavy 2-10-2. Grate area 100 square feet—the same as Lima’s Super Power Berkshire, and more than the Reading’s 4-8-4s.

World War II wanted speed the 2-8-0s did not have. New designs were restricted, so the L&HR copied the Boston & Maine’s newest Baldwin 4-8-2, class R-1-d, even to the centipede tenders. Mountains 10–12, Baldwin 1944: 415,200 pounds, tractive effort 67,000 (almost the big 2-8-0s), 73-inch drivers. Donald W. Furler photographed 11 near Warwick in May 1944. They were six years old when the RS-3s arrived. Drury’s post-1900 table is below. All twentieth-century steam was Baldwin.

Type	Numbers	Qty	Builder	Built	Retired	Notes
2-8-0	50–57	8	Baldwin	1903–1906	1935–1938	Camelback
2-8-0	58–69	12	Baldwin	1908	1920–1938	Camelback
2-8-0	90–95	6	Baldwin	1925, 1927		100 sq ft grate
2-8-2	70–73	4	Baldwin	1916		Wootten; 56-inch drivers
2-8-2	80–83	4	Baldwin	1918		USRA light Mikado
4-4-0	8	1	Baldwin	1906	1928
4-4-0	20	1	Baldwin	1906	1936
4-6-0	23–34	12	Baldwin	1907	1923–1934	Camelback
4-8-2	10–12	3	Baldwin	1944		B&M R-1-d copy

George H. Drury, Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, revised edition, p. 195. Fifty-one engines built since 1900. The 1894 0-6-0 is pre-1900 and is not in the table. Last steam with the 1950 RS-3s; remaining engines scrapped into early 1951.

Thirteen RS-3s and the first C420s

Lehigh and Hudson River Alco C420s at the Warwick New York engine house and shops circa 1970s

Lehigh & Hudson River C420s at the company’s engine house and shops in Warwick, New York, circa 1970s.

Baldwin had built every twentieth-century steamer. When steam ended, the replacements were all Alco. Eleven RS-3s, 1–11, arrived in 1950 and took sixteen steam engines, the six-year-old Mountains included. Two more RS-3s, 12 and 13, came in 1951. Thirteen units were the entire locomotive roster for twelve years. Radio in 1958. Blue and gray paint. The railroad was often short of power and stayed an Alco shop.

Alco’s first two production C420s—21 and 22, serials 84720 and 84721, June 1963—came to Warwick. They were electrically closer to the RS-32 than later Centuries. Seven more C420s, 23–29, arrived in 1966 on orders 3431 and 3463, some against RS-3 trade-ins. By 1972 the RS-3s were gone and nine C420s were the railroad. Six of those nine went to Conrail as 2072–2077. 21 was the only C420 Conrail painted blue. 29 later became Delaware & Hudson 401, then Guilford 420.

Number	Model	Serial	Order	Built	Notes
1	RS-3	78069		6/1950	Point Comfort & Northern 10, 12/1971; Precision National
2	RS-3	78070		6/1950	Traded to Alco on C420s, 1965
3	RS-3	78071		6/1950	Vermont Railway 602, 11/1970; later 606; scrapped 2004
4	RS-3	78292		9/1950	St. Johnsbury & Lamoille County 204; Delaware-Lackawanna parts
5	RS-3	78293		9/1950	Traded to Alco, 1965
6	RS-3	78294		9/1950	Traded to Alco, 1965
7	RS-3	78295		9/1950	Traded to Alco, 1966
8	RS-3	78296		9/1950	Traded to Alco, 1965
9	RS-3	78297		9/1950	Traded to Alco, 1966
10	RS-3	78369	20512	11/1950	StJ&LC 205; Vermont Railway 605; Battenkill 605
11	RS-3	78370	20512	11/1950	Traded to Alco, 1966
12	RS-3	78926		7/1951	Vermont Railway 601, 11/1969; parts
13	RS-3	79244		10/1951	San Manuel Arizona 13 (via Silcott). Diesel Shop: stored for preservation, Nevada Northern
21	C420	84720		6/1963	First production C420. Conrail 2072, 4/1976. Scrapped. Only C420 in Conrail blue
22	C420	84721		6/1963	Essex Terminal 106, 8/1972; Arkansas & Missouri 50, 1988
23	C420	3431-01	3431	3/1966	Conrail 2073; Maryland & Delaware 52; A&M 52. Photo: Bethlehem, April 1966
24	C420	3431-02	3431	3/1966	Conrail 2074; Maryland & Delaware 54; A&M 54. Photo: Warwick, Sept. 4, 1972
25	C420	3431-03	3431	1/1966	British Columbia Railway 631, 7/1972; A&M 56, 2002
26	C420	3431-04	3431	1/1966	BCR 632, 7/1972; later Iowa Northwestern 632
27	C420	3463-01	3463	7/1966	Conrail 2075; Green Bay & Western 323, 1980; Iowa Interstate 850
28	C420	3463-02	3463	7/1966	Conrail 2076. Scrapped
29	C420	3463-03	3463	7/1966	Conrail 2077; D&H 401; Guilford 420; A&M 58

Serials, dates, and dispositions follow The Diesel Shop (John Komanesky; Extra 2200 South). Twenty-two new Alcos. Order 20512 is the November 1950 RS-3 batch as railroad picture archives list it on 11. C420 3431 and 3463 are Alco order numbers; serials on those units are order-unit (3431-01).

Lehigh and Hudson River C420 24 between assignments at Warwick New York September 4 1972

Lehigh & Hudson River C420 #24 between assignments at Warwick, New York, September 4, 1972. Author’s collection. Five months after the bankruptcy filing.

Centennial, Erie Lackawanna, Penn Central

The 1960s opened with a centennial and steam excursions behind a borrowed Reading 4-8-4. Then the map moved. Erie Lackawanna, October 17, 1960, sent former DL&W Maybrook business over the old Erie direct, a serious cut but not yet fatal. The Pennsylvania put Trailer Jet piggyback Chicago–Boston over the L&HR. B&O TOFC came off the Reading at Allentown. Alco’s first C420s arrived in 1963.

Penn Central in 1968 gave former PRR traffic an in-house Boston route on the Boston & Albany. The forced New Haven inclusion on January 1, 1969, made Selkirk PC’s preferred New England door. Maybrook traffic was phased down. PC’s own bankruptcy in 1970 stopped per-diem payments to connections. L&HR sold remaining RS-3s, consolidated trains, and in late 1971 quit running into Allentown, taking CNJ and Reading interchange at Phillipsburg. It was not enough. The company filed on April 19, 1972—the only bankruptcy in its life.

May 8, 1974, and Conrail

Lehigh and Hudson River C420s at work in Warwick New York summer 1974 Warren Calloway

Lehigh & Hudson River C420s at Warwick, New York, summer 1974. Warren Calloway photo. The Poughkeepsie Bridge had burned on May 8. Maybrook was already a dead door.

The Poughkeepsie Bridge caught fire on May 8, 1974. Penn Central would not repair it. Maybrook as a New England gateway ended that day. Erie Lackawanna lost more than $17 million a year. The L&HR lost its reason. President W. Gifford Moore and trustee John G. Troiano offered L&HR forces to fix the bridge. PC refused. Labor and management kept a thin railroad running on what local traffic was left and fought for traditional divisions on detoured cars. The records later went to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. Creditors were paid.

Conrail started April 1, 1976, as committed to killing Maybrook as Penn Central had been. Six C420s became CR 2072–2077 and drifted to Bethlehem. The former L&HR became a branch. Zinc by rail ended in 1980. Track Limecrest–Belvidere came out in the 1980s after Conrail sold the south end, with the Lackawanna Cut-Off, to developer Gerald Turco. The Paulinskill Valley Trail and the Pequest Wildlife Management Area Trail sit on that grade. The Delaware bridge at Phillipsburg still carries Norfolk Southern.

What remains

About forty miles of the old main still have rail, Sparta Junction, New Jersey, north toward Campbell Hall. The New York, Susquehanna & Western has operated Sparta Junction–Campbell Hall since 1986 and owns Sparta to Pelton Crossing, just north of the state line at the throat of the old Warwick yards. Norfolk Southern owns the Hudson Secondary, Pelton Crossing through Warwick to the new Hudson Junction in Hamptonburgh, New York, and leases it to the Middletown & New Jersey Railroad. NYS&W dispatches it. In 1988 the Susquehanna built a connection onto the former Erie Graham Line and abandoned the last three miles into Maybrook. The company of April 1, 1882, ended April 1, 1976. The bridge road’s north end is still a freight railroad. The Poughkeepsie Bridge is a walkway.

Sources

Drury, George H. Guide to North American Steam Locomotives. Revised ed. Waukesha: Kalmbach, p. 195. Post-1900 class table; Camelbacks; 1916 and USRA Mikados; 2-8-0s 90–95; Mountains 10–12 after B&M R-1-d; passenger 1939; diesel 1950, 13 RS-3s; 1894 0-6-0; joint ownership. Anthracite Railroads Historical Society; Railroad February 1942 p. 81 and December 1958 p. 70; R&LHS Bulletin No. 47 p. 72
Classic Trains / Trains.com. “Remembering the Lehigh & Hudson River Railway.” August 2020 Railroad of the Month. 73 owned miles and 35 miles of rights; Warwick Valley and Burt; Orange County / Maybrook; Port Morris and Allentown 1905; Federal Express 1912–16; last passenger 1939; 1950 RS-3s; first C420s 1963; EL diversion; PC/New Haven 1969; bankruptcy April 19, 1972; bridge fire; Moore and Troiano; NYS&W from 1986
The Diesel Shop. John Komanesky, Lehigh & Hudson River all-time diesel roster (revised Feb. 29, 2012). Extra 2200 South. RS-3 serials 78069–79244; C420 84720–84721 and orders 3431 / 3463; dispositions
Railfan & Railroad. “Rembrandt’s Alco.” September 22, 2021. C420 21 as first production Century 420; Conrail 2072 the only C420 in blue
Treese, Lorett. Railroads of New Jersey: Fragments of the Past in the Garden State Landscape. Erie crews on the Warwick Valley
Grant, H. Roger. Erie Lackawanna: Death of an American Railroad, 1938–1992. Six-foot gauge as cited on the live page
Live American-Rails Alphabet Route, Poughkeepsie Bridge, New Haven, Central New England, Jersey Central, Lehigh Valley, Lehigh & New England, Lackawanna, Erie, Erie Lackawanna, Pennsylvania, Reading, Penn Central, Conrail, and NYS&W pages as linked above