The Lehigh and Hudson River Railway (L&HR) was the smallest of the six railroads that were merged into Conrail in 1976. It was a bridge line running northeast–southwest across northwestern New Jersey, connecting the line to the Poughkeepsie Bridge at Maybrook, New York with Easton, Pennsylvania, where it interchanged with various other companies.
The roots of the L&HR begin with the founding of the Warwick Valley Railroad. The Warwick Valley Railroad was organized March 8, 1860 by a group of local dairymen and business owners led by Grinnell Burt (1822-1901) as a means of connecting the mainline of the New York and Erie Rail Road at Greycourt, New York southwest to Warwick, New York. It opened in 1862 and was operated as a branch of the broad-gauged Erie.
The Pequest and Wallkill Railroad was chartered by 1870 to build an extension in New Jersey, running from Belvidere on the Delaware River and Belvidere Delaware Railroad northeast to the New York state line. The Lehigh and Hudson River Railroad was chartered later as a competitor, planning to build from Belvidere to McAfee, with the Wawayanda Railroad running the rest of the way to the state line and to a connection with the Warwick Valley Railroad.
In April/May 1881, the three companies merged to form a new Lehigh and Hudson River Railroad and on April 1, 1882, the Warwick Valley Railroad joined, forming the Lehigh and Hudson River Railway (L&HR). Grinnell Burt would serve as the president of the newly consolidated line, as he had with the WVRR, up until his death in 1901 and would be instrumental in progressing the L&HR to become a "link in a great chain" of transportation in the northeast.
In the meantime, the Sussex Railroad had built a branch from Hamburg to South Vernon (McAfee); the L&HR bought this around 1881. The Warwick Valley Railroad had built an extension southwest to McAfee in March 1880, and the full line opened August 14, 1882, connecting Belvidere, New Jersey to Greycourt, New York.