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Lackawanna Railroad in Color (Vol. 1) David R. Sweetland

This first volume of the 'Lackawanna in color' series stood alone for some years before the additional volumes appeared. Within its covers you will find no fewer than 7 Sussex Branch photos.

  • Page 59 shows the general area on the Branch side of Netcong station as well as a L&HR freight moving east.
  • Pages 60-61 give us 3 shots of a small passenger train near Andover, a NYSW RS-1 at the smashboard at Warbasse and a freight on the siding at Cranberry Lake. The caption for the Andover train is incorrect. Judging by the telegraph poles, this train is headed west into Andover station, not east as stated.
  • Pages 62-63 give us 3 views from the northern end. Here we se trains at Augusta, the Branchville wye and at Branchville. The photo of the wye is interesting as it is a diesel turning, not one of the old Pacifics. This photo actually led to a bit of research about the wye. (OK, actually it was handed to me.) I assumed the wye track was replaced by the runaround at the time of dieselization in 1953. As it turns out, the runaround was not installed until April of 1955, just before hurricane Diane washed the track out.

  • Other sections of the book, such as Washington, show trains similar to what ran in the area.

Lackawanna Railroad in Color (Vol. 2) Jeremy F. Plant

Vol. 2 seems to be fraught with caption errors, not just on Sussex Branch photos, but throughout the book. It may not be the author's fault as I gather the project went through several hands.

Page 59 shows us 2 shots of the Netcong station on the Old Main side (the side New Jersey Transit currently runs on. Both shots are stated to be east bound trains on the Sussex Branch. It's half right. They are east bound, but these are likely trains coming from Washington way as they are on the Old main side of the station.

Page 60-61 is a great view of the Cranberry Lake area. A study old pacific rounds the corner coming east towards it's flag stop at the Cliff Inn store. Shots like this make me wish more photographers took shots of places along the railroad instead of just trains.

Page 62-63 gives us a view from the corner of an old DLW milk car of Cranberry Lake plus 3 great shots in Andover by the depot

Page 64 gives us a color shot of double headed steam bringing an L&HR freight south of Andover. Interesting thing here is the tender of the leading DLW pacific. The sides are straight, like the IHC model. The tenders I've seen on pacifics in other photos always had an inward curve at the top.

On this page we also see an RS3 on the interchange track at Andover Junction.

Page 65 has a really neat look at the Newton train yard as it was in 1949. The water tank and a pacific dominate the scene while the Newton station, with it's 'porch roof' overhang can be seen in the background. You can almost hear the steamer simmering.

The bottom of this page shows us a typical diesel-pulled milk train. This train could have just as easily been pulled by a pacific. The caption in the book is in error as this train is headed east towards Newton, not west from Newton.

Page 66 contains 2 nice photos. The top one, despite the erroneous caption is at Augusta. The train is headed west to Branchville and is actually of the excursion train from May of 1959 which had mainline coaches.

The bottom photo is a nice wide shot of the Branchville station and a pair of milk cars at the creamery. The old pick up truck parked at the station adds a nice touch to this scene

Lackawanna Railroad in Color (Vol. 3) John R. Canfield

This third and (apparently) final volume of the Lackawanna in Color series isn't exactly filled with thrills for Sussex Branch fans. However, I have no problem with unthrilling photos of something I love and which no longer exists. Even the most mundane photo often has bits in the corners which are useful to researchers.

On Page 10 the author has reproduced a very nice system map of the DLW which shows the line to Franklin as well as Branchville.

The top of page 24 is a Denville, but it does show a Sussex Branch milk train, complete with two wooden Bordens milk tank cars. On the bottom of the page is a view of a 4-8-4- Pocono headed to Newton to be turned. The DLW freight house is in evidence on the edge of the photo showing us that in 1949 it was painted green with red trim.

Page 58 has another of those shots of the Netcong station, but it's a nice shot of a pacific-led train on the Old Main. The gravel area in the foreground was actually for parking of automobiles.

Page 100 gives us two similar views of the same train in two locations. The top photo is of a Trainmaster ready to push the consist into Branchville after running around the train outside of town. The bottom photo shows almost the same shot, except that now the train is nearly to the station. The back side of the GLF building (now Montague Tool & Supply) can be seen in front of the engine.

Lastly, page 103 shows us a milktrain at Becker's creamery collecting 2 DLW wooden reefers before continuing east.

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