Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company was formed on March 11, 1853, from the consolidation of the Lackawanna and Western Railroad and the Delaware and Cobb’s Gap Railroad. Rooted in Scranton, Pennsylvania, it was built to move anthracite coal, iron-country output, freight and passengers out of northeastern Pennsylvania.

Known simply as the Lackawanna or DL&W, the railroad developed into a major eastern trunk line. Its rails connected the Scranton region with Hoboken, New Jersey, Buffalo, New York, and ferry links to New York City—because apparently merely crossing three states was not enough railroading for one company.

Coal made the early machine run, but the DL&W became known for serious physical improvements and unusually polished passenger promotion. Its fictional traveler Phoebe Snow appeared in advertising beginning in 1904, pitching the cleaner-burning qualities of anthracite-fired travel; the named diesel passenger train followed in 1949.

On October 17, 1960, the DL&W merged with the Erie Railroad to form the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad. The old corporate identity disappeared into the hyphen, but its stations, rights-of-way, records and formidable engineering remain scattered across the Northeast.

Our Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad collection celebrates coal-country ambition, crisp white passenger-era imagery, Scranton grit and the audacity of a railroad that made industrial logistics look almost glamorous.