Tour Historic Honesdale   1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | Part 2                                                  © 2003 John Van Horn 4. THE DELAWARE AND HUDSON CANAL Immediately to the rear of the Wayne County Historical Society’s buildings is the site of the beginning of the D & H canal, now occupied by railroad tracks. The hills behind (to the west), were once covered by enormous piles of coal awaiting transportation to the Hudson River by canal boat. The canal was an engineering masterpiece…dug by pick and shovel over 108 miles of mountainous terrain in two years.  The canal opened in 1829 and continued to be used until 1898 when railroad transportation put it out of business. In its peak, over 5000 boats were travelling the canal at one time, carrying as much as 150 tons of coal apiece. Coal was transported to the canal during its entire existence over a gravity railroad stretching from Honesdale to Carbondale. “Heavy” and “light” tracks were built separately to carry loaded cars or empty ones, hence the term. Steam cables leading to a steam engine at the top of a “plane’, or “hill”, were hooked to the cars and hauled to the top. The cable was then unhooked and the cars traveled down the other side by gravity until the next “plane” was reached and the process repeated. The cables were revolutionary for their day, having been developed by John Roebling , who later built the famous Brooklyn Bridge. Roebling, built aqueducts that carried the D & H Canal over rivers, the most famous being the one at Lackawaxan, PA, over the Delaware River. This bridge still stands and is designated as a National Monument.
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