The Lackawanna Electrics: New Jersey's Famous MU Cars

by Don Ehrenbeck & Rudy Garbely

Publisher: The Garbely Publishing Company
Released: August 2026
ISBN: 979-8-9946504-4-8
Pages: 84
Format: 8.5"x11" softcover

The Lackawanna Electrics is a richly detailed chronicle of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad’s pioneering fleet of electric multiple-unit (MU) cars — an engineering marvel that defined suburban rail travel in northern New Jersey for more than five decades. From their debut in 1930 through their final years of service under NJ Transit in the 1980s, these dependable “electrics” carried countless commuters between Hoboken and the growing suburbs of Morris, Essex, and Somerset Counties.

Blending thorough research with vivid photography, this book explores every phase of the MU cars’ lives: their design and construction, their reliable performance through the Great Depression, World War II, and the Erie Lackawanna merger, and their graceful decline amid modernization and re-electrification. Featuring rare historical documents and over 150 images, The Lackawanna Electrics is both a tribute and a technical history of one of the most distinctive and enduring commuter car fleets ever to run in the United States — a true New Jersey icon remembered with affection by generations of riders and railfans alike.