“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
~ The U.S. Postal service has no official motto but this phrase is often associated with mail carriers
A United States Postal Service mail truck rounds the bend of a road paralleling the Ironton Rail Trail as it makes deliveries soon after winter has delivered a mid-January snowfall. The trail loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania.
The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.
In 1996, Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the Ironton Rail Trail.
