page_title: Sussex Railroad
section_title: Expansion (1853–1881)
hierarchical_section_title: Sussex Railroad / Expansion (1853–1881)
caption_attribution_description: English: Postcard of the Branchville, New Jersey station on the Sussex Railroad.
context_page_description: The Sussex Railroad was a short-line railroad in northwestern New Jersey. It replaced its predecessor, the Sussex Mine Railroad, in 1853 and operated under the Sussex Railroad Company until 1945 when it was fully merged into the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad system. The Sussex Railroad was important in the economic development of Sussex County as it supplied a route for early local industries, such as dairy farms and ore mines, to export their products. It was the last independently operated New Jersey railroad to be incorporated into the DL&W system. The last train travelled on the Sussex Railroad tracks on October 2, 1966. The tracks were removed soon after and the right-of-way was transformed into a rail trail known as the Sussex Branch trail.
context_section_description: The renamed Sussex Railroad Company gained support by issuing stock and bonds, which raised the necessary funds to lay the new track. Ground was broken on the 4 ft 10 in (1,473 mm) track gauge line from Newton to Waterloo on May 5, 1853. The company wanted to proceed quickly to meet the deadline for the agreement that, if met, would mean a substantial source of revenue. Because of this fast pace, steeper grades and tighter curves were adopted than might have been preferred otherwise. Work progressed quickly, even though the M&E was trying to slow down progress any way they could, including compensating employees of the Sussex Railroad to delay the necessary cuts south of Newton. To speed work along, the Sussex Railroad Company used employees of the Andover Mine temporarily on the railroad right-of-way. All of this effort paid off as they were successful in meeting the deadline. The new railroad was completed and the first train entered Newton on November 27, 1854, with traffic between Newton and Waterloo being opened on December 11, 1854. The M&E connected to the Sussex Railroad in January 1855, thus the financial agreement made earlier was upheld.
  At this point, the only stations on the Sussex Railroad were at Newton, Andover, and Waterloo, but they served many industries and moved products such as produce, dairy, meat, and of course iron ore from the mines. Increased interest in the franklinite and iron and zinc ores from Franklin further northeast of Newton prompted the New Jersey Legislature to adopt another supplement on February 4, 1863, that authorized the railroad to continue its line up to the Franklin Furnace and to other points north if "deemed most for the public good."
  Expansion came swiftly with ground breaking on a ten-mile (16 km) extension line north of Newton through Lafayette and Augusta to Branchville in 1866, around the same time that the track gauge was adjusted to 4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in (1,435 mm) standard gauge. to align with the M&E tracks. This branch would allow for an outlet for Sussex County's northern agricultural products and staged the potential future expansion of the line through Culver's Gap to the Delaware River. The first train to run on the Branchville extension went as far as Lafayette on January 1, 1869, as work continued further up the line; the entire Branchville line was completed on July 3, 1869.
  At the same time as work was being done on the Branchville line, pressure was increasing to bring rail to the ever-increasing mining industries of Franklin, including the New Jersey Zinc Company. Work finally began on this nine-mile (14 km)) extension in 1868, after a very heated debate and political power plays that could have routed traffic around Newton entirely. But residents of Newton rejected any plan to leave their town off the main line of traffic and insisted that the extension to Franklin be built north of Newton. The Franklin line opened to regular service in mid-September 1869. Additionally, an unconnected four-mile (6.4 km) spur known as the South Vernon extension, which ran from Hamburg to McAfee, was completed in 1871 and allowed access to an iron ore mine at the base of the Pochuck mountain range via trackage rights on the New Jersey Midland Railway. This represented the height of track building on the Sussex Railroad.
  In the 1870s, depots at Franklin, McAfee, Lafayette were completed and a new depot at Newton was constructed. Some other platforms used for local agricultural industries were also completed at Sparta Junction and Monroe. The 1870s also saw another supplement to the charter allowing the railroad to extend rail to Stanhope for an easier connection with the M&E tracks, though the track wasn't laid until 1901. Notably, in 1879, steel tracks replaced iron for the first time on the Sussex Railroad.
  This was to be the height of the Sussex Railroad. Only little more than a decade after all the extensions had been completed, the South Vernon extension was sold off to the Lehigh & Hudson River Railway (L&HR) on July 6, 1881, and the McAfee station was closed in May 1881. L&
caption: Branchville Station, built in 1869
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