We have been YouTube Creators for less than a decade. There are a little less than 200 videos to our Be-More-Better channel.
Here are a few:
- The Death of a Railroad Superhighway: https://youtu.be/42khiQTArS0
- A Cursed Moscow pool: https://youtu.be/MKI2oZqe_8Y
- Unknown Fallen Heroes: https://youtu.be/a_dHDqtItiE
A recent addition are our “shorts” (not our underpants), but “Rules of Life” — each in less than 60 seconds
By the way, we make our videos with about one tenth the equipment shown!
The Script for “The Death of the Lackawanna Cutoff Superhighway”
1—–Hi there. Let’s continue the story of New Jersey’s Lackawanna Cutoff. It was a superhighway during the Golden Age of Railroading. The tracks were removed in 1984; its enormous bridges, cuts, and fills were abandoned. The question is, “Why?”
2—–Railroad engineers connect here to there by building or upgrading. Sometimes they do both. The 400 miles between NYC and Buffalo had a pair of really slow sections, one in New Jersey; the other in Pennsylvania. Two “cutoff” projects got them straightened, made flatter, and faster.
3—–New Jersey’s cutoff had two of the world’s largest Railroad constructions: the Pequest Fill and the Paulinskill viaduct – whose “baby brother” crosses the Delaware River. Pennsylvania’s cutoff also has two really interesting viaducts. Martin’s Creek took the crown as the biggest in the world – until it was dwarfed, DWARFED by the one over the Tunkhannock Valley – the Nicholson Bridge.
4—– It is almost as big as the other three combined, COMBINED, and yet almost half of it is invisible. The foundation piers go down almost as far as they go up; the end arches are underground. Temporary wooden towers – including one, 30 stories tall – let cables put stuff where it was needed. The arches grew from concrete poured into huge wooden forms – and no, NO ONE fell in and got buried, no matter what the legends say.
5—– This second cutoff was much faster. It removed 2,400 degrees of turn from the route. That’s almost six and a half complete circles. It replaced 30 mph curves with 70 mph ones. It eliminated pusher engines that helped trains get up steep hills – they’d been doing that since 1854.
6—–The speed at which these, “largest on Earth’s” RR things were thought up and built is not magic. A future video of ours is going to cover them. Now, let’s return to the question of “Why was New Jersey’s Lackawanna Cutoff abandoned?” The answer is, “A bunch of things, some of which you might know; and others will surprise.”
7—–In no particular order, in 1956, President Eisenhower put cars and trucks onto the Interstate Highway System. At the same time, air-travel shortened distances. The Lackawanna lost taking sightseers on trips. You know, like to hotels in the Delaware Water Gap. Why take a train to the Poconos, the Catskills, or Atlantic City, when you can fly to the Alps?
8—–Another blow was the massive over-building of Railroads. Laying track follows surveying a route and getting capital. Paying for that from freight and passenger traffic came later; as did cursing the competitors for keeping rates low. Don’t forget the Lackawanna’s route was difficult. It went over both the Appalachian Mountains and the NJ Highlands.
9—–Pennsylvania’s Mountains had 80% of the world’s anthracite coal centered around Scranton. Anthracite is a hard coal that burns clean. Passengers didn’t get off the train all sooty. The advertising campaign for the Lackawanna RR was by Phoebe Snow. She’s fictional. She says, “my gown stays white/from morn till night/on the road of anthracite.”
10—–But, and there’s always a ‘but,’ on January 22, 1959, the Knoxville mine disaster happened. A worker opened a hole in the mine’s ceiling and invited the mighty Susquehanna River in. Some 10 billion gallons of water flooded the many interconnected mines. A dozen men drowned – their bodies were never recovered. The disaster, by itself, shut Northern Pennsylvania’s Anthracite mines – and badly hurt the Railroad; they carried a lot of it. You know, the customers just switched to oil.
11—–A last Lackawanna RR nail in the coffin happened when I was two years old. In 1955, Hurricane Diane hammered the Pocono Mountains. Eighty people died. 60 (97 km) miles of track were destroyed by the floods; it was washed out in 88 places. The Lackawanna RR was closed for months and never fully recovered from having to replace everything while not having money coming in.
12—–So, is the lesson visit Pennsylvania? Yes and no. The lesson is that things are always changing around you. You might be surprised with them; but you can absolutely count that something new is coming.
13—–People forget that when they’re on top, they might fall. And when they’ve fallen, they can think things will only get worse. Depression and despair are very real and they’re dangerous. You can choose to become an agent of change in your own life. Things are going to happen because they always do. You can make them happen.
14—–By the way, The Lackawanna Cutoff’s story is continuing. New progress on its restoration was just announced. We hope it will extend to Scranton. But, and here’s another ‘but,’ Pocono ice will never again be shipped to NYC, nor will the milk creameries at the stations reopen. What do you think? Tell us, please.
15—–I’m Mike for the Be More Better team. Thank you for watching. We want to remind you that you raise yourself every time you lift someone else; so Be More Better – Body, Mind & Spirit, and then, Be even More Better, when you help carry someone – even across the valley of despair.
16—–Tell us what you think and if you like us. Subscribe if you haven’t. Follow us! I’ve enjoyed this. Until the next time. Bye now.
Be-More-Better!