I have been following this thread for a while now & was thinking about chiming in but didn't until now.
So here goes. I have had a house in upstate NY in the Catskills on the old route of the D&H that ran between Lackawanna, PA. & Kingston, NY. The Route was used to bring PA coal to the barges on the Hudson in Kingston for transport to NYC & other places. There are about 6 or 8 D&H historical sights along Rt 209 in NY, a few old stations, & RR history still exist along the way.
My kids & Grandkids & my self use the old right of way which is the track bed now,as an ATV trail. Along the trail there are a bunch of old copper minds dug into the Shawngunk Mts. that you can access right off the trail, really very interesting. The Shawngunk Mt,s is the mountain range within the lower Catskills that run from Port Jervis up north to Kingston & above. The D&H Right of Way was cut into the side & base of them.
Along with the right of way runs the D&H barge canal & tow path. The canal pre dates the D&H RR. The Barge locks are still there although a little over grown but still very visible & massive. They were made with blocks of local granite most the size of Volkswagons fit in place with the precision the Egyptians built the Pyramidswith it is really very impressive & amazing. Along the barge canal there are still a few of the houses that the Lock Masters lived & operated the locks from. A few have been maintained & people still live in them. 40 years ago or more I made friends with an older fellow named Bob Louis who still lived in one of the houses & his Great Grand Father was the lock master of that particular lock. Bob has since passed & I don't really know who lives there now.
Most all of the towns along the canal have a street called the Tow Path & Burme Rd. runs along the Tow Path almost from Port Jervis NY to Kingston NY. The Burme was built along the canal where the earth wasn't high enough to dig the canal.
Just a little local history
