ERAS END: CNJ, LV, RDG, BETHELHEM STEEL AND ALLENTOWN YARD 1971-1976

This book has two sections. The first section focuses on Bethlehem Steel and the railroad facilities and traffic movements that supported it. We emphasize the intertwined early history of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and the Bethlehem Iron Company, predecessor of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. For a while, the Bethlehem mill was the nation’s largest integrated steel mill and its presence stimulated development of the rail network in the Allentown/Bethlehem region.

The steel-related yards and ore docks as well as iron ore and coal traffic flows of CNJ, LV and RDG to the mill are described. RDG’s Star trains are highlighted. The case is made for the vital importance of the RDG to Bethlehem Steel’s portfolio of mills, mines and quarries in the northeast. There is substantial photographic coverage, both black and white from the Library of Congress and the author’s own color images, of the steel

company’s common carrier railroad, the Philadelphia, Bethlehem & New England Railroad as well as some of the mill’s major facilities extending into 1995 when the “hot side” (blast furnace department) and related facilities closed down.

The 1965 “Coordination” of CNJ, LV, RDG and LC&N and CNJ’s 1972 withdrawal from Pennsylvania, with LV taking over Allentown Yard and the Bethlehem Engine Terminal as well as the balance of CNJ’s Penn Division, decimated LV’s portfolio of smaller yards in the region. LV centralized its area operations in Allentown Yard and only Florence Yard, serving Bethlehem Steel, survived from a group that once included Richards Yard, New Street, Calypso, East Penn Jct. and Packerton. RDG abandoned its East Penn Jct. facilities as well. Consequently, Allentown Yard assumed even more importance than what it enjoyed in the CNJ era. Florence, New Street, Calypso, and East Penn Jct. are covered by text but not images.

The second section presents 1971-1976 images from Allentown Terminal trackage on the Lehigh River bridge near R Tower through Allentown Yard, Bethlehem Engine Terminal and on the former CNJ main to Bethlehem Jct. and over former CNJ’s South Bethlehem Branch crossing the Lehigh Canal, Lehigh River and LV main line to RDG’s Bethlehem Branch.