The Lehigh Division currently inherits the Lehigh Line's original trackage and Mountain Cutoff trackage between Lehighton, Pennsylvania and White Haven, Pennsylvania which includes the right track from Lehighton to Penn Haven Junction, also known as Old Penn Haven or M&H Junction, in Lehigh Township, Carbon County, Pennsylvania and between Laurel Run, Pennsylvania to Dupont, Pennsylvania, which was from the Lehigh Valley Railroad and the Lehigh Line's new trackage between White Haven and Laurel Run that was from the former Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad's main line which dates back to acts of legislature in 1837 under the sponsorship of the Pennsylvania Canal Commission.
Conrail sold the three-year-old Lehigh Division to the Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad in 1996.
[1] During the 2000s, the Reading Blue Mountain and Northern shortened the line from Mehoopany to Dupont, the tracks from Mehoopany to Dupont are still owned by Reading Blue Mountain and Northern, but it is now called the Susquehanna Branch.
Conrail sold the three-year-old Lehigh Division to the Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad in 1996.
[1] During the 2000s, the Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad shortened the line from Mehoopany to Dupont.
Today, the Norfolk Southern Railway, which owns the Lehigh Line, and the Canadian Pacific Railway has trackage rights on the Lehigh Division south of Dupont, Pennsylvania.
From Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania to Beaver Meadows, Pennsylvania, the Beaver Meadow Railroad and Coal Company opened its line in 1836[3] and it was a double tracked line.
The Lehigh Division inherited the right track from Lehighton to Jim Thorpe from the Lehigh Line including the right track from Jim Thorpe to Penn Haven Junction; the right track was built by the Lehigh Valley Railroad and opened in 1855.
[citation needed] The Mountain Cut-Off was absorbed into the Lehigh Line to replace its old trackage from Solomons Gap to Duryea during Conrail.
The Cut-Off from Solomons Gap to Laurel Run was abandoned and from Dupont to Duryea, this part of the Cut-Off is now part of the Susquehanna Branch; the Cut-Off part from Dupont to Duryea was part of the Lehigh Division at one time but the Lehigh Division's trackage from Dupont to Mehoopany, Pennsylvania was separated from the Lehigh Division and became the Susquehanna Branch which includes the Cut-Off from Dupont to Duryea.
[5] The Lehigh Division runs from Packerton Yard interchange with the Norfolk Southern Railway's Lehigh Line in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, the southern terminus just south of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, and the Lehigh Gorge to an interchange with the Norfolk Southern Railway Sunbury Line and the Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Susquehanna Branch in Dupont, Pennsylvania, the northern terminus.
Between White Haven and Laurel Run, the Lehigh Division travels the long climb up along the middle elevations of Penobscot Knob, which looms above the yard, passing through Mountain Top, Pennsylvania while climbing up the Penobscot Knob's middle elevations; the Lehigh Division descends after the long climb of Penobscot Knob's middle elevations to Laurel Run, where the line joins with its former Lehigh Valley Railroad trackage/former Lehigh Line original trackage.
The Southern Tier Line helps bring trains to freight stops in the New York state and to the Great Lakes.