Lehigh Valley Railroad

The Lehigh Valley Railroad was an American freight railroad, nicknamed the Route of the Black Diamond after the slang term for anthracite coal, built primarily to carry Pennsylvania anthracite to eastern markets. It was incorporated on September 20, 1847 as the Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad Company, adopting the Lehigh Valley name in 1853, and it operated for roughly 130 years, headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, until merging into Conrail on April 1, 1976. Beyond coal, the railroad expanded into grain and ore traffic after the Panama Canal opened in 1914, and by 1925 it controlled more than 1,363 miles of track across New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. It ran the well-known Black Diamond passenger train beginning in 1896, but declining ridership led it to end all passenger service in February 1961.