Legend has it that Blair built the BRWY so that his wife to be able to travel from their home in Blairstown to New York City and back in one day for shopping.
And, in the late 1980s, the abandoned rail right-of-way between Sparta Junction and Knowlton Township, New Jersey would become the Paulinskill Valley Trail.
Indeed, the right-of-way from Footbridge Park to Blairstown Airport is still fully intact as the Paulinskill Valley Trail.
In Delaware, until 2012, a remaining vestige of the BRW was a short, deep cut high into the steep rock wall on the southern outskirts of town along US Route 46.
The western wall of the cut was removed that year to provide a parking lot for Gary Gray Trucking.
The rather odd position of the cut is explained by Blair's apparent desire to have his railroad end at, rather than across the tracks from, Delaware Station.
Another vestige is the partially filled turntable pit of the BRW, located alongside Delaware Road, just northeast of the village.
A wide-angle view of Footbridge Park in
Blairstown, New Jersey
from 2011, the starting point of the Blairstown Railway, shows the footbridge into the town of Blairstown (center), the location of the
coal
docks and
skate park
(left), the former location of the station (right) and the location of the former
rail yard
which occupied what is now a parking lot (foreground). This location is a common starting point for
hikers
and
bicyclists
using the
Paulinskill Valley Trail
.
The Blairstown Railway ran adjacent to the opposite side of Station Road in
Hainesburg, New Jersey
, under the easternmost arch of the
Paulins Kill Viaduct
on the
Lackawanna Cut-Off
, as shown in this April 2011 photo. There was no connecting track between the Blairstown Railway and the Lackawanna Cut-Off. Hainesburg Station, on what was the
New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad
, was located directly under the viaduct. The remains of the
freight station
's foundation can clearly be seen in the left-center of the photo. The tracks on the Blairstown Railway were removed from this location in 1963.
