Sussex Branch Rail Trail

Sussex Branch Rail Trail, Allamuchy Mountain State Park (9/4/2009)

This is walk #14 ("The Sussex Branch Rail Trail") in History Walks in New Jersey. The entire Sussex Branch rail trail is about 21 miles long (with plans of future expansion) but today we did the the southern four miles as an out-and-back. Basically we covered the section between Waterloo and Andover (almost) which served the Andover mines, bringing iron ore south to Waterloo, where it was then placed on boats in the Morris Canal, heading for the furnaces of Pennsylvania.

We started at the southern end of the trail at Waterloo Road, and followed it north past the lovely Jefferson Lake, then Cranberry Lake, crossing over the Morris and Sussex Turnpike atop the "Hole in the Wall" (the first bridge indicated here north of Cranberry Lake), before turning back just after the second bridge and before the Lackawanna Cutoff. Just after the second bridge, I noticed a clear path climbing to the west of the rail path. Interested, I decided to head in for a look. To my surprise, in no more than 0.1 mile I came upon a well-graded trail adjacent to another defunct railroad, this one with the ties still there! (See the last photo in the 10th row.) I have no idea what railroad this was. There is no indication of it on any map I have seen, and yet the path adjacent to it was as well graded as the Sussex path.

We had lunch atop a wonderful rocky overlook at the northern part of Cranberry Lake, before logging the last of our 8 miles.

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