Metrotrails

Directions Website

Hiking, promoting, preserving history and ecology of the New York/Philadelphia metropolitan area
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Our group was informally founded as a high school hiking group in 1997, and has evolved to a NJ non profit organization. We host weekly long distance hikes, and conduct trail work on Warren Highlands Trail. Through this page, we express our love of nature, history, and fellowship. The story of each hike we undertake can be found here, from the deep woods, high mountain peaks, city streets, railroad grades, beaches, and so much more. Our schedule of events can be easily found at www.meetup.com/metrotrails

11/01/2026

Historic early 1900s image of the basin on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in Cumberland, Maryland, from the Thomas F Hahn collection.
Cumberland was the Western terminus of the canal. Early on, it had been intended that the canal would eventually reach Ohio, but even before it reached Cumberland, it was realized that railroads could outpace the canals by a long shot.

11/01/2026

Historic image of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in Cumberland Maryland, from the E B Thompson Historic Negative Collection.
The boats are seen riding low in the water having just been loaded from rail cars.

11/01/2026

11/01/2026

A view to the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge on the Alexandria Virginia Waterfront.

11/01/2026

A view eastbound on the former Eatontown Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, in Oceanport New Jersey.
Built in the 1860s here, it was a roughly 5 mile spur of the Raritan and Delaware Bay Railroad from the junction with the main line east to Long Branch. It was the first railroad built to serve that shore town.
The line became part of the New Jersey Southern, and then CNJ.
The branch was abandoned around 1972. Today, utilities use the railroad right of way.

11/01/2026

Former Pennsylvania Railroad Schuylkill Branch built here in 1885, East of Auburn Pennsylvania.
Abandoned under Conrail, it is now the Bartram Trail section of the Schuylkill River Trail.

11/01/2026

Hiking the former Ulster and Delaware Railroad east of Ashokan, Ulster County New York.
This section of the line was built in 1907 to replace the original 1870 right of way destroyed through creation of the reservoir.
The line was severed by damages during Tropical Storm Irene, but Catskill Mountain Railroad operated equipment on it until it was removed for trail only alignment.

11/01/2026

Former Erie Wyoming Division along the Moosic Mountains near Scranton Pennsylvania.
This opened in 1885 as the Erie and Wyoming Valley Railroad, to replace the parallel Pennsylvania Coal Company Gravity Railroad, built in 1850. The light track of that line is closely parallel.
The line originally ran from Plains to Lackawaxen.
Sections were scaled back over the years. From Lackawaxen to Gravity was abandoned about 1961. Hurricane Agnes in 1972 destroyed more of the line, and more damages came in the '80s. This section reportedly was open until about 1985.

11/01/2026

Former Central Railroad of NJ main line west of Bloomsbury NJ

Address

Washington, NJ
07882

Website

http://www.metrotrails.org/

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