Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad

Pre-DL&W (1832–1853)

Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad was first incorporated as Leggett's Gap Railroad on April 7, 1832, though it was dormant for several years following its incorporation. The company was chartered on March 14, 1849, and organized on January 2, 1850. On April 14, 1851, its name was changed to Lackawanna and Western Railroad. The line opened on December 20, 1851, and ran north from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Great Bend, Pennsylvania, just south of Pennsylvania's border with New York state. From Great Bend, the railroad obtained trackage rights north and west over the New York and Erie Rail Road to Owego, New York, where it leased the Cayuga and Susquehanna Railroad to Ithaca on Cayuga Lake on April 21, 1855.

The C&S was the reorganized and partially rebuilt Ithaca and Owego Railroad, which had opened on April 1, 1834, and was the oldest part of its system. The whole system was built to 6 ft (1,829 mm) broad gauge, the same as the New York and Erie, although the original I&O was built to standard gauge and converted to wide gauge when rebuilt as the C&S.

The "Delaware and Cobb's Gap Railroad" was chartered December 4, 1850, to build a line from Scranton east to the Delaware River. Before it opened, the Delaware and Cobb's Gap and Lackawanna and Western were consolidated by the Lackawanna Steel Company into one company, the "Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad", on March 11, 1853. On the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, the Warren Railroad was chartered on February 12, 1851, to continue from the bridge over the river southeast to Hampton, on the Central Railroad of New Jersey. That section got its name from Warren County, the county through which it would primarily run.

Expansion and profits (1853–1940)

The rest of the line, now known as the Southern Division, opened on May 27, 1856, including the Warren Railroad in New Jersey. A third rail was added to the standard gauge Central Railroad of New Jersey east of Hampton to allow the railroad to run east to Elizabeth via trackage rights (the CNJ was extended in 1864 to Jersey City).