The New York & Baltimore Rail Road was founded in the late 1870s to haul coal out of the Poconos to New York City and Baltimore. This was possibly a bit overambitious and, after the inevitable bankruptcy, was reorganised as the somewhat less grandiose Newark, Allentown, and Harrisburg Rail Road, which were much more attainable destinations.

It, however, never actually reached Newark or Harrisburg, settling for a coal terminal in Perth Amboy and an interchange with the PRR in Halifax. Thus it was mockingly called ‘The Nowhere Railroad’, which eventually became an affectionate name and then the name that was painted on all of the NAH’s locomotives.

It kept running steam almost as long as the Norfolk & Western, only starting to dieselise in 1956 and dropping the fires on the last mine switcher in January 1960. It first went to Fairbanks-Morse for a pile of 6-axle roadswitchers (and then after F-M left the locomotive business, to the used locomotive market to pick up a pair of recently-retired NYC Erie Builts and a trio of Milwaukee Road CFA-16-44s), traded them in for ILW’s new rsx51/630s (however, by 1971 there were basically no Erie Builts left anywhere, so these two units were minimally stripped, then hidden by a group of ILW railfans, only being rediscovered in the late 2010s.)

Sadly, the railroad was completely clobbered by Hurricane Agnes in 1972, declared bankrupcy, and was included in Conrail in 1976.

Very little remains of the Nowhere; Most of the coal hauling branches (including the line down to the Susquehanna at Halifax) were abandoned after the mines they served closed, and the Allentown to Perth Amboy mainline was designated as a duplicate line and was closed in the late 1980s. Switching districts survive in Allentown & Reading, and a shortline took over the line from Allentown to Hazleton and survives on the coal it can bring out of the mountains.

The Nowhere’s trustees kept possession of a lot of unused real estate, including the Allentown yard, and when they finally wrapped the company up they donated the last steam engine on the property – NAH 1002, which was originally PV&T class 81 #85 – to Steamtown for the charitable donation deduction from their final tax bill.