The Pequest Fill is a large railroad embankment on the Lackawanna Cut-Off in northwestern

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York (state), New York; on the ea ...

, touted at its 1911 completion as the largest railroad fill in the world. Thought to have been the brainchild of

Lackawanna Railroad The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (also known as the DL&W or Lackawanna Railroad) was a U.S. Class 1 railroad that connected Buffalo, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey (and by ferry with New York City), a distance of . Incorporated in ...

president William Truesdale, the Pequest Fill was one of several remarkable features of the Lackawanna Cut-Off, a project that aimed to reduce the length, grades, and curvature of the railroad's main line over the hilly terrain between Port Morris, New Jersey, and the

Delaware Water Gap Delaware Water Gap is a water gap on the border of the U.S. states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania where the Delaware River cuts through a large ridge of the Appalachian Mountains. The gap makes up the southern portion of the Delaware Water Gap ...

. During planning, Truesdale rejected 13 prospective routes that skirted the Pequest Valley in favor of a bold, costly, yet operationally superior route across it. In order to maintain a more or less level grade across the valley, a fill of enormous proportions would be required to connect

Andover Andover may refer to: Places Australia *Andover, Tasmania Canada * Andover Parish, New Brunswick * Perth-Andover, New Brunswick United Kingdom * Andover, Hampshire, England ** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station United States * And ...

and Green Township.''The Lackawanna Railroad in Northwest New Jersey'', Larry Lowenthal and William T. Greenberg, Jr., Tri-State Railway Historical Society, Inc., 1987. Planning for the route continued through 1906; the final survey map for the line was completed on September 1, allowing the railroad to proceed with

eminent domain Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...

and hire contractors. The 28.6-mile (46-km) Cut-Off project was divided among seven contractors. Whether by design or happenstance, the responsibility for building the Pequest Fill was divided roughly in half between

David W. Flickwir David Williamson Flickwir (1852-1935) was a civil engineer and railroad engineering contractor. His company built one of the world's largest concrete bridges, the Tunkhannock Viaduct. Early life and career David W. Flickwir was born in Philadelphi ...

to the east and Walter H. Gahagan to the west. Route 206 going under Pequest Fill

Construction on the Cut-Off began August 1, 1908. The foundation for the three-mile (4.8 km) Pequest Fill was constructed of 6.625 million cubic yards of fill material, far more than could be provided by classic cut-and-fill techniques. (These require a relatively even balance between the amount of dirt and rock material that is removed from an area of the right-of-way to provide a cut through a hill and the needs of a nearby fill.) So the railroad bought 760 acres of farmland and dug it out to a depth of about 20 feet (6 m). Construction wrapped up in autumn 1911. The Pequest Fill crosses four roadways ( US Route 206 and three county roads), two railroad rights-of-way (the

Sussex Branch The Sussex Railroad (later known as the Sussex Branch of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad) was a short-line railroad in northwestern New Jersey. It replaced its predecessor, the Sussex Mine Railroad, in 1853 and operated under the S ...

and the

Lehigh & Hudson River Railway The Lehigh and Hudson River Railway (L&HR) was the smallest of the six railroads that were merged into Conrail in 1976. It was a bridge line running northeast–southwest across northwestern New Jersey, connecting the line to the Poughkeepsie ...

), and one river (the

Pequest River The Pequest River is a tributary of the Delaware River in the Skylands Region in northwestern New Jersey in the United States.Gertler, Edward. ''Garden State Canoeing'', Seneca Press, 2002. The Pequest, Native American for "open land," drains ...

). There are no overhead bridges or grade crossings. The east end of Greendell Siding continued onto the Pequest Fill for a short distance; otherwise, the railroad was two tracks wide on the fill. The Cut-Off saw rail service between 1911 (when the Lackawanna Cut-Off opened) to 1979 (when Conrail discontinued rail service). In between, the

operated trains over the Pequest Fill for 49 years; the

Erie Lackawanna Railroad The Erie Lackawanna Railway , known as the Erie Lackawanna Railroad until 1968, was formed from the 1960 merger of the Erie Railroad and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. The official motto of the line was "The Friendly Service Route ...

for 16 years; and Conrail for three years. After discontinuing service, Conrail sought abandonment of the line and eventually removed the tracks in 1984. In 1985, the Cut-Off was sold to a land developer who proposed to use the entire Pequest Fill for the now-defunct Westway Project in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. That never occurred; by 2001, the entire Cut-Off had been acquired by the State of

. In 2011,

NJ Transit New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit, and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey, along with portions of New York State and Pennsylvania. It operates bus, ...

received approval to re-lay track between

Port Morris Junction Port Morris Junction is the railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road tra ...

and Andover; as of 2023, the line is slated to open for rail service in 2026 or 2027. This

Lackawanna Cut-Off Restoration Project The Lackawanna Cut-Off Restoration Project is a New Jersey Transit and Amtrak effort to restore passenger service to the Lackawanna Cut-Off in northwest New Jersey. Begun in 2011 and underway as of 2022, the project's Phase 1 is meant to exten ...

also envisions replacing track westward across the Pequest Fill, but no funding has been secured and no completion date projected.

References

{{coord, 40.979, -74.763, type:landmark_dim:5000_region:US-NJ, display=title History of rail transportation in the United States Lackawanna Cut-Off