page_title: Lake Hopatcong station
section_title: 1911 DL&W station
hierarchical_section_title: Lake Hopatcong station / History / 1911 DL&W station
caption_attribution_description: English: The Lake Hopatcong Station and the Morris Canal facing to the west during the Delaware, Lackawnna and Western Railroad service.
context_page_description: Lake Hopatcong is a commuter railroad station for New Jersey Transit. The station, located in the community of Landing in Roxbury Township, Morris County, New Jersey, United States, serves trains for the Montclair-Boonton Line and Morristown Line at peak hours and on holiday weekends. Service from Lake Hopatcong provides to/from Hackettstown to New York Penn Station and Hoboken Terminal. The stop is located on the tracks below Landing Road next to the eponymous Lake Hopatcong. The station consists of one active and one abandoned side platform, along with a shelter on the active platform. There is no accessibility for handicapped persons under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
  Service through the Landing area began on January 16, 1854, for the Morris and Essex Railroad, but there was no stop at the shore of Lake Hopatcong. People who wanted to visit the lake had to get off at nearby Drakesville station and traverse from there to the lake. In 1882, after the Central Railroad of New Jersey built the Wharton and Northern Railroad to Charlotteburgh, there was added incentive to bring a station to the Lake Hopatcong area.
context_section_description: By 1906 or so, several factors led the DL&W to plan a new station. First, the area's summer tourist trade was growing as visitors flocked to the lake. Second, the railroad was preparing to begin one of the most ambitious mainline construction projects in the world: the Lackawanna Cut-Off. This new, 28 miles (45 km) route through the hills of northern New Jersey, designed to slice an hour off journeys to Scranton and points west and north, would begin at Port Morris Junction, less than a mile to the north.
  So in 1910, as work proceeded on the Cut-Off, the DL&W began building a new station at Landing. The main building was of native rough stone with cement trimming and a green glazed tile roof. Its oak interior had a ticket office, waiting room and baggage room. Because this depot sat up a hill on Landing Road, perhaps 20 feet (6.1 m) higher than the tracks, the station complex also included long stairs down to the Hoboken-bound platform and elevated walkways with large elevators to transport passengers and baggage.
  The station itself cost $28,500 (equal to $782,020 today)  and the railroad was said to have spent $75,000 (equal to $2,057,946 today) to build the accompanying structures. The new station opened on May 28, 1911, six months before the first trains rolled on the Cut-Off.
  The elevated walkways rendered the old bridge completely redundant (its duties for vehicular traffic had already been assumed by a parallel bridge of stone built in 1907), and it was eventually demolished.
  In the 1920s, the DL&W's station became the preeminent rail link to Lake Hopatcong, surpassing the CNJ's station at Nolan's Point. But change was afoot: In 1924, the canal was closed, its cargo business long since gone to railroads, and the steamboat dock removed. Within five years, much of the canal was filled with new structures.
  During its operation by the DL&W and its successor, the Erie Lackawanna, the Lake Hopatcong station provided transfers between trains using the Cut-Off and those headed to Phillipsburg, New Jersey, and Portland, Pennsylvania, via the Old Main line. In 1956, the DL&W merged with the Erie Railroad and the Lake Hopatcong station and tracks passed to the new Erie Lackawanna.
  In 1976, the station and tracks passed to Conrail, which soon sold off the stone depot. The overpass was declared unsafe in 1978, the station was declared a safety hazard by Morris County. Plans were made to demolished the aging overhead structure, which would involve new platforms being constructed. The demolition of the structure began in May 1982.
caption: A 1911 postcard view of the brand-new station. The Morris Canal runs along the southern edge of the Scranton-bound platform.
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