The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, better known as the Lackawanna Railroad, was organized in 1851 and thrived on the anthracite coal traffic originating from the area surrounding Scranton, Pennsylvania.

The company came to operate a network of track between Hoboken, New Jersey, and Buffalo, New York, before becoming part of the Erie Lackawanna Railway in 1960. During the first decade of the 1900s, the railroad underwent a substantial modernization and improvement project, which was documented extensively by company-hired photographers. A century later, these images provide a fascinating insight into the everyday workings of a railroad and its interaction with the communities along its route. Nearly all of the railroad territory covered by this book remains in operation today.

David Crosby is a student of industrial history in addition to his employment as a train dispatcher in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Much of his dispatching territory consists of lines that were once operated by the Lackawanna Railroad and is depicted in this book. Crosby has also written two other books for Arcadia Publishing--Images of Rail: Scranton Railroads and Then & Now: Scranton.