From 1908 to 1911, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad (DL&W) built a level-graded railroad line. This route, known as the Lackawanna Cut-Off, ran west from Port Morris Junction in Roxbury Township near the south end of Lake Hopatcong in northwestern New Jersey (about west-northwest of New York City) and to Slateford Junction near the Delaware Water Gap in northeastern Pennsylvania. With its rural landscape, tall fills, deep rock cuts, and two large viaducts, the line became renowned as a scenic highlight of the railroad's main line between Hoboken, New Jersey, and Buffalo, New York. Through the use of fewer and less-sharp curves, no steep hills, and no grade crossings, the route was faster and shorter than the Lackawanna Old Road, the rail line it replaced. The DL&W constructed structures on the new line of reinforced concrete, and the roadbed itself required the movement of millions of tons of fill material using techniques similar to those on the Panama Canal.