Nay Aug

The Nay Aug tunnels, located just east of the Scranton City Yard, route the mainline tracks beneath the Nay Aug Park in east Scranton. The tunnels contained three tracks (although the caption below says there were four) -- two through the southern "new" tunnel and one through the northern bore -- before Hurricane Diane in 1955. Flooding from the hurricane washed out the culvert adjacent to the West Portals, and water was reportedly flowing through the tunnel bore during the storm.

After the storm, all that was left was a deep gorge cut by the Roaring Brook and the original culvert, plugged by debris:




During reconstruction, the culvert was replaced with the current deck-girder bridge, and with only two tracks, utilizing the northern bore (the two tracks shown below are temporary and will be removed after the bridge is complete):



The West Portals were constucted of concrete, and the right-hand portal (the "new tunnel") has sustained considerable ice and freeze-thaw damage over the years. That damage was present in 1975, too, although it was a bit less pronounced. The photo below is from May 7, 2007, by Michael Foley, from rrpicturearchives.net:



The East Portals were natural stone, and also accumulated quite a bit of ice during the winter. The picture below is from 2007 by Frank Dutton, published on his blog of local fatures and events, Frank's Place:



Nay Aug was originally the location of the junction between the Winton Branch and the Mainline, and was the site of a coal marshalling yard for eastbound hoppers from the Branch. Because the steepest portion of the grade to Pocono Summit was from Scranton to Nay Aug, loaded coal hoppers were added to eastbound trains at this small yard. The yard was a six-track yard located approximately four miles east of the tunnels, on the northern side of the mainlines. The decrease in anthracite traffic from the Winton Branch in the 1930s caused the yard and interlocking tower to be closed in the late 1930s.

The northern Nay Aug tunnel is still in use today, but the "new tunnel" has been abandoned. The photo below shows a typical eastbound EL freight passing throught he tunnel, with U33-C and SD45-2 helpers ahead of the caboose and about to enter the tunnel. The train is the CNJ-EL pool train, SE-98, hence the CNJ caboose.


The helpers on Train SE-98 are about to enter Nay Aug Tunnel's West Portal, 1973. First-Out collection.


Click here to see the model version.