Black Diamond Trail

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Cayuga Waterfront Trail · Taughannock Falls State Park rim trails

New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (Finger Lakes Region), administered through Taughannock Falls State Park

• Named for the Black Diamond Express, the Lehigh Valley Railroad's flagship, which ran New York City to Buffalo from 1896 until 1959.
• The Lehigh Valley chose the train's name from more than 35,000 contest entries; the winner was Charles Montgomery, a hotel clerk in Toledo, Ohio.
• The 315-foot Black Diamond Express was nicknamed the 'Honeymoon Express' for couples bound for Niagara Falls.
• The corridor served Ithaca on a Lehigh Valley secondary line rather than the double-track main line to the west.
• The north end sits in Taughannock Falls State Park, home to a 215-foot waterfall.
• The trail measures about 9 miles by our geometry, 8.4 miles on the park's own map.
• It climbs roughly 420 feet, spanning about 413 to 832 feet in elevation.
• The steepest sustained grade is only about 1.3 percent, true rail-grade riding.
• Tree canopy averages 61 percent, with 41 percent of the corridor in deep shade.
• The route holds a steady southeast to northwest axis, about 82 percent of it within 30 degrees, with roughly a third running below valley walls.