50 Ton Steel Gondola 46', G22. Built in 1918 to Pennsy standards with drop bottom doors. Rebuilt in the late 1920s with a tight floor, running to abandonement of the railroad in March 1954.
A wooden car, miner's coach 14, was disassembled in 1953 or 1954.
26
Railway Post Office
27
Coach
1929-1954
Built by Brill in 1929 as H&BT motor car M-39. In 1942, the gas electric was wrecked and converted into a coach. After the H&BTM closed, this locomotive was sold to the Rail City Historical Museum. Later acquired by the Central New York Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and sits restored at their Central Square Station Museum.
This is a combine. Different car?
39
Doodlebug
5436
Railway Post Office
-1954
Ex-PRR class MBM-62 #5436 (appears on PRR's 1923 roster). After the H&BTM closed, this locomotive was sold to the Rail City Historical Museum and eventually scrapped.
Built by Baldwin in 1850. Leased from PRR. Used in the construction of the H&BTM.
"Bedford"
0-8-0
1855
Built by Norris.
"Broad Top"
1856
Built by Norris.
"Meteor"
1856
Built by Lancaster Locomotive Works.
"Hiawatha"
0-8-0
1856
Built by Baldwin. Switchback engine. Rebuilt in 1862.
"S. Morris Waln"
Built by Norris. Returned to builder in 1858; sold to Hanover Branch RR 1858.
"Highlander"
0-8-0
1858
Built by Baldwin.
"Constitution"
0-8-0
1858
Built by Baldwin.
129
2-6-0
1858 - 1858
Built by Smith & Perkins in 1856. Leased from PRR.
44
2-6-0
1858 - 1858
Built by Baldwin in 1852. Leased from PRR.
47
2-6-0
1858 - 1858
Built by Baldwin in 1843. Leased from PRR.
67
4-4-0
1860 - 1860
Built by Baldwin in 1853. Leased from PRR.
?
1860 - 1860
Leased from PRR.
122
4-4-0
1860 - 1860
Built by Baldwin 1856. Leased from PRR.
95
0-8-0
1860 - 1860
Built by Baldwin in 1854. Leased from PRR.
139
4-4-0
1860 - 1860
Built by Baldwin. Leased from PRR.
49
2-6-0
1860 - 1860
Built by Baldwin in 1853. Leased from PRR.
70
4-4-0
1860 - 1860
Built by Baldwin in 1853. Leased from PRR.
76
2-6-0
Built by Smith & Perkins in 1853. Leased from PRR.
"Baltimore"
0-8-0
1861 -1862
Leased from Winans.
"Col. Paxton"
1861 - 1862
Built by Baldwin in 1855. Leased from Swatara.
"Louisiana"
0-8-0
1861-1862
Leased from Winans.
"Perry"
0-8-0
1861 - 1867
Built by Baldwin in 1848 as PRR "Perry". Sold to the Philadelphia & Reading in 1849. Purchased by the H&BTM in 1861. Scrapped in 1867.
"Connecticut"
1862 - 1862
Leased.
"Pennsylvania"
0-8-0
1862
Built by Baldwin.
"Robert Morris"
0-8-0
1862
Built by Baldwin.
"Baltic"
0-8-0
1862 - 1867
Built by Baldwin in 1849 as Mine Hill & Schuylkill Haven RR No. 10. Sold to the Philadelphia & Reading in 1850, named "Baltic". Sold to the H&BTM in 1862. Scrapped in 1867.
"Dauphin"
0-8-0
1862 - 1867
Built by Baldwin as PRR "Dauphin" in 1848. Sold to the Philadelphia & Reading in 1849. Sold to the H&BTM in 1862. Scrapped in 1867.
"Oneida"
0-8-0
1863
Built by Winans.
"Tuscarora"
0-8-0
1863 - 1868
Built by Winans. Blew up in September 11, 1868, with the loss of four lives.
"Delaware"
4-6-0
1863
Built by Norris.
"Huntingdon"
4-4-0
1864
Built by Lancaster Locomotive Works.
"Juniata"
4-6-0
1865
Built by Norris.
"James Long"
4-6-0
1869 - 1869
Built by Baldwin. Sold to the PRR in 1869 as No. 472. Scrapped 1892.
?
0-8-8
1869
Built by Baldwin in 1857 as PRR No, 129. Rebuilt by Altoona in 1867. Purchased by the H&BTM in 1869. Thought to be one of the unknown numbered locomotives.
?
0-8-0
1870
Built by Baldwin in 1857 as PRR No, 128. Rebuilt by Altoona in 1866. Purchased by the H&BTM in 1870. Thought to be one of the unknown numbered locomotives.
?
4-4-0
1870
Built by Norris. Originally PRR No. 68 ("Bald Eagle"). Sold to the H&BTM in 1870. Thought to be one of the unknown numbered locomotives.
?
0-8-0
1872
Built by Baldwin. Originally Schuylkill Haven & Lehigh RIver RR "Panther". Sold to Mine Hill RR and numbered 31. Sold to Philadelphia & Reading and numbered 128. Sold to the H&BTM in 1872. Thought to be one of the unknown numbered locomotives.
?
0-8-0
1863
Built by Baldwin. Originally Schuylkill Haven & Lehigh RIver RR "Tiger". Sold to Mine Hill RR and numbered 32. Sold to Philadelphia & Reading and numbered 129. Sold to the H&BTM in 1872. Thought to be one of the unknown numbered locomotives.
1
2
2-8-0
1889
Built by Baldwin.
3
4
5
6
2-8-0
1886 - 1910
Built by Baldwin. Sold to H. S. Kerbaugh in 1910.
7
8
2-8-0
1891 - 1910
Built by Baldwin. Sold to H. S. Kerbaugh in 1910.
9
2-8-0
1886
Built by Baldwin.
10
2-8-0
1886
Built by Baldwin.
11
2-8-0
1886 - 1915
Built by Baldwin. Sold to Juniata Southern in 1915.
12
2-8-0
1886
Built by Baldwin.
13
2-8-0
1886
Built by Baldwin.
14
4-6-0
x - <1886
Built by Baldwin.
14
2-8-0
1886
Built by Baldwin.
16
4-4-0
1872 - <1888
Built by Baldwin.
16
2-8-0
1888 - < 1890
Built by Baldwin.
16
2-8-0
1890
Built by Baldwin.
17
4-4-0
x - <1890
Built by Baldwin.
17
2-8-0
1890
Built by Baldwin.
18
4-6-0
1872 - <1886
Built by Baldwin.
18
2-8-0
1886
Built by Baldwin.
19
4-6-0
1872 - <1886
Built by Baldwin. Sold to Bloomsburg & Sullivan No. 3.
19
2-8-0
1886 - <1891
Built by Baldwin. Sold to Shenley-Morrison by 1911.
19
2-8-0
1891
Built by Baldwin.
20
4-6-0
1872 - <1886
Built by Baldwin.
20
2-8-0
1886 - <1891
Built by Baldwin. Sold to H. S. Kerbaugh, to Shenley-Morrison by 1911. Sold to Reading Engr. Col. by 1920.
20
2-8-0
1891
Built by Baldwin.
21
4-6-0
1872
Built by Baldwin. Sold to West Va. Improvement Co.
21
2-8-0
1887 - 1887
Built by Baldwin.
21
2-8-0
1887 - <1891
Built by Baldwin.
21
4-4-0
1891
Built by Baldwin.
22
4-6-0
1872 - <1887
Built by Baldwin. Sold to Winfield RR as No. 101; then to N. K. Sneed.
22
2-8-0
1887 - <1888
Built by Baldwin.
22
2-8-0
1887 - <1888
Built by Baldwin.
22
2-8-0
1893
Built by Baldwin.
23
4-6-0
1872 - <1893
Built by Baldwin.
23
2-8-0
1893
Built by Baldwin.
24
4-4-0
1873 - <1893
Built by Baldwin.
24
4-4-0
1893
Built by Baldwin.
25
4-4-0
1873 - <1893
Built by Baldwin. Sold to Central Reforma.
25
4-4-0
1893
Built by Baldwin.
26
2-8-0
1873 - <1895
Built by Baldwin.
26
2-8-0
1895
Built by Baldwin.
27
4-6-0
1873 - <1900
Built by Baldwin.
27
4-6-0
1873 - <1900
Built by Baldwin.
28
4-6-0
1873 - <1902
Built by Baldwin.
28
2-8-0
1902
Built by Baldwin.
29
4-6-0
1873 - <1902
Built by Baldwin.
29
2-8-0
1902
Built by Baldwin.
30
4-4-0
1907 - 1949
Built by Baldwin. Scrapped in 1949.
At Bedford.
At Huntingdon.
At Huntingdon.
At Huntingdon.
At Long Siding.
At Riddlesburg.
31
2-8-0
1910 - (photo 1953)
Built by Baldwin.
At Saxton.
At Riddlestown.
32
2-8-0
1910 - (>1952)
Built by Baldwin. Awaiting repairs in 1952.
At Saxton, 1953.
33
2-8-0
1921 - (>1952)
Built by Baldwin. Awaiting repairs in 1952.
On Sandy Run.
At Marklesburg.
At Saxton.
At Saxton.
34
2-8-0
1921 - (>1952)
Built by Baldwin. Awaiting repairs in 1952.
At Huntingdon.
At Saxton.
35
4-6-0
1921 - 1934
Built by Baldwin. Sold to Susquehanna & New York as No. 119 in 1934. Sold to Clarion River RR as No. 119 in 1947. Scrapped in 1952.
36
4-6-0
1921 - 1953
Built by Baldwin. Sold to Canada & Gulf Terminal. Scrapped 1953.
37
2-8-0
1927 - (photo in 1953)
Built by Baldwin.
At Long Siding.
At Long Siding.
At Riddlesburg.
At Saxton.
At Saxton.
At Saxton.
At Bedford (trackage rights).
At Bedford (trackage rights).
38
2-8-0
1927 - 1954
Built by Baldwin. #38 was the last steam locomotive acquired new by the Huntingdon & Broad Top Mountain Railroad, the last steam locomotive that they operated, and is the last H&BTM locomotive in existence. After the H&BTM closed in 1954, #38 went on to serve in excursion service at Rail City Museum, the Livonia Avon & Lakeville, the Gettysburg Railroad, and the Knox and Kane. No. #38 is currently owned and being restored by the Everett Railroad.
At Riddlesburg, 1947.
At Livonia Avon & Lakeville.
39
An 0-6-0 in Dudley, Pa., is lettered for the H&BTM as #39, but it was not an H&BTM locomotive.
40
2-8-0
1947 -
Built by Baldwin in 1895 as West Va. Central No. 30. Sold to Western Maryland as No. 351. Sold to H&BTM in 1947. Awaiting disposition in 1952.
The railroad was originally incorporated on September 21, 1882, as the Bellefonte and Buffalo Run Railroad. The purpose of this line was to connect Bellefonte with Pennsylvania State College, and to tap the iron ore deposits along Buffalo Run. This would replace the inefficient wagons used to haul ore to the iron furnaces at Bellefonte. The local iron and agricultural interests who chartered the road contracted out construction to Frank McLaughlin, a Philadelphia businessman, in exchange for a majority of the stock; he turned construction over to his business associates, the Collins brothers. Experienced contractors, they were working at the time on the Beech Creek Railroad, and began grading the Bellefonte & Buffalo Run in March 1883. However, the Bellefonte & Buffalo Run was graded to minimal standards of engineering, with little earthmoving and many curves.
In the meantime, McLaughlin and others chartered the Nittany Valley and Southern Railroad in January 1883. This line was proposed to run from Bellefonte to Mill Hall, providing a connection with the Beech Creek Railroad. (The Bellefonte & Buffalo Run's only connection in Bellefonte was the Pennsylvania Railroad.) However, capital was not forthcoming, and construction of the Bellefonte & Buffalo Run ended with the completion of the grading from Bellefonte to Struble in June 1883. This grade followed Buffalo Run from Bellefonte to Waddle, where a horseshoe curve carried it across and out of the valley and it climbed eastward to the summit at Alto. From there it descended to the iron ore pits at Struble.
The Bellefonte & Buffalo Run and Nittany Valley & Southern were merged on March 16, 1885, to form the Buffalo Run, Bellefonte and Bald Eagle Railroad, under the presidency of James A. Beaver. The new company began to lay rail on the grade in April 1886, and began shipping ore from Lambourn Bank (near Waddle) to the McCoy & Linn furnace in Bellefonte in January 1887. The Collins brothers also invested in local ore banks, including those at Red Bank. This was reached by a branch from Mattern Junction, on the horseshoe curve near Waddle. To smelt the ore, they began building Bellefonte Furnace near the new railroad's enginehouse in Coleville, on the outskirts of Bellefonte. The furnace was put in blast on February 1, 1888, but the local supplies of ore proved insufficient to sustain it and it was shut down in February 1891. Part of the Red Bank Branch would be abandoned in 1894.
The loss of traffic from Bellefonte Furnace hurt the railroad, which was sold at foreclosure on December 1, 1891. It was reorganized on May 9, 1892, as the Bellefonte Central Railroad.
BCRR Track Construction and Removal Dates. (Mike Bezilla)
Expansion
The new railroad was organized under the presidency of Robert Frazer, a precocious civil engineer formerly employed by the Lehigh Valley Coal Company. Frazer's first goal was to reduce dependence on ore traffic by extending the railroad from a wye at Struble to State College. The branch would carry passenger traffic, less-than-carload freight, and coal for the college power plant. Because of the railroad's slender financial reserves, the Oreland Branch was removed and its rails used for the State College extension. The first train ran over the new branch on April 2, 1892. The original station was located at College Avenue and Frazier Street and built in the Queen Anne style. The building of the extension also increased passenger service, with three trips per day (except Sunday) each way from Bellefonte to State College, and two per day each way from Waddle to Red Bank. The Bellefonte Central also promoted passenger traffic by building an amusement park on the former Benjamin Hunter farm, which it called Hunter's Park, and by investing in the University Inn, which provided hotel accommodations for visitors to Penn State and had its own stop on the railroad. However, the railroad discontinued passenger service on the Red Bank Branch in 1894. Many of the miners had left the area when ore banks shut down after Bellefonte Furnace went out of blast, and few riders remained for the Waddle–Red Bank trains.
Since the shutdown of Bellefonte Furnace, President Frazer had been trying to reach a rate agreement with John Reilly of the furnace company. They came to terms in July 1892, and Reilly began making arrangements to restart ore mining and put the furnace back in blast. It resumed ironmaking in March 1893, and the Bellefonte Central acquired additional ore cars to serve the traffic. At the end of April, Tom Shoemaker resigned as superintendent to tend to his expanding duties supervising Bellefonte Furnace and ore mining at Graysdale. He was replaced by Francis H. Thomas, a long-time Reading employee. Unfortunately, the new furnace traffic would prove ephemeral. The Panic of 1893 forced Bellefonte Furnace to shut down again in July, after only four months of operation. While the railroad was still shipping ore to the McCoy and Linn Iron Works, Shoemaker could find few other customers for Graysdale ore and its importance to the railroad again declined.
Despite the poor economic times, the railroad's management remained confident. On May 10, 1894, the directors approved the extension of the main line from Struble to Pine Grove Mills. Such an extension had been contemplated as long ago as 1884, during the BRB&BE era. While Pine Grove Mills would originate some traffic through farming and logging, the extension was primarily contemplated as part of a larger route. By extending south from Pine Grove Mills to Huntingdon, the line could connect with the Huntingdon and Broad Top Mountain Railroad, an independent railroad serving the Broad Top coal region. By linking to the Central Railroad of Pennsylvania at Bellefonte (built in 1893 over the contemplated Nittany Valley & Southern route), the Bellefonte Central could form part of a coal route tapping the Broad Top field on behalf of the New York Central. However, the route faced a formidable obstacle in the crossing of Tussey Mountain. Such a line would require switchbacks or a long summit tunnel. The Pennsylvania Railroad already occupied the only usable gap at Spruce Creek and would not look favorably on its new competitor for the Broad Top traffic. However, the economy remained slow, and the railroad found it difficult to obtain land at favorable prices. After a little grading, the project stalled until 1896, when the railroad lifted the rail from the derelict Red Bank Branch west of Graysdale and used it to lay track on the extension. Service on the extension opened to Bloomsdorf in September 1896 and to Pine Grove Mills in December. Despite a $75,000 subscription offered by the town of Stone Valley (now submerged under Lake Perez) to complete the extension to Huntingdon, the expense of further extension would clearly have outstripped the railroad's finances. The Bellefonte Central undertook no further construction towards Huntingdon.
Despite the loss of ore traffic, the Bellefonte Central had managed to keep its financial house in good order during the 1890s. Penn State University had begun to represent an important source of freight and passenger traffic, although the railroad frequently clashed with the school over unpaid bills. In 1896, Professor John Price Jackson obtained permission from the railroad to run trolley wire over its tracks from State College to Struble. An old Philadelphia Traction Company trolley was operated by electrical engineering students over the line until 1905.
Ore traffic did see a resurgence, as the re-opened Bellefonte Furnace went from sporadic operation during the 1890s to a more sustained level in 1899 and 1900. To supply additional iron ore, the owners of the furnace bought the ore pits around Scotia from the Carnegie interests, who were switching to Mesabi Range ore. The Bellefonte Central relaid almost a mile of the abandoned Red Bank Branch from Graysdale to the mines of Mattern Bank and built a new line from Graysdale to Scotia to reach the Scotia mines, previously served by the Fairbrook Branch of the PRR. However, the railroad lost some of the furnace traffic in 1899 to the Central RR of PA. This railroad was owned by the same interests as Bellefonte Furnace, and in that year, it built a long trestle over the PRR to reach the furnace directly and connect with the Bellefonte Central. The furnace first switched its source of lime to a quarry along the Central RR of PA, instead of the Bellefonte Central, and in 1903, a new interchange between the Central RR of PA and the PRR allowed the furnace to shift inbound coke and outbound iron traffic to the Central as well. Furthermore, the Mesabi ores were beginning to replace local ore, even in Bellefonte.
Search for new traffic
Bellefonte Furnace closed on December 21, 1910, and Nittany Furnace in 1911. Their last contribution to the railroad's prosperity was the huge heaps of slag accumulated at the furnace sites: this was shipped over the Bellefonte Central to the PRR for use in construction projects. While the loss of furnace traffic would ultimately prove fatal to the Central RR of PA, the Bellefonte Central had found new sources of revenue. The McNitt-Huyett Lumber Company opened a mill at Waddle in 1909 and built an extensive network of 36 inch gauge track into the Scotia area, dual-gauging the Scotia branch and making use of the abandoned rights-of-way from the area's iron-mining heyday. The local timber was soon exhausted, and the branches to Mattern Bank and Scotia were abandoned in 1915. However, McNitt-Huyett built further extensions, and continued to haul logs to the Waddle mill until about 1919. Furthermore, high calcium limestone deposits in Bald Eagle Mountain, on the north side of the Buffalo Run valley, were now being exploited, much of their production going to steel mills in Pittsburgh. These quarries, eventually consolidated under the management of the Chemical Lime Company, would replace the iron furnaces as the principal generators of traffic on the Bellefonte Central.
With dreams of expansion towards Huntingdon long gone, the branch to Pine Grove Mills was removed in 1919. However, a new opportunity to lengthen the railroad would arrive. In 1927, the PRR applied to abandon its little-used Fairbrook Branch. The Bellefonte Central, with the blessing of the Interstate Commerce Commission, bought the line from Fairbrook to Stover, and obtained trackage rights from Stover into Tyrone. A new line was built from Struble to Fairbrook (more direct than the roundabout and now abandoned route via Scotia), and service to Tyrone began in 1930. The object of the purchase was to send freight directly to the PRR main line at Tyrone, bypassing the circuitous route via Bellefonte. Furthermore, Professor Ernest L. Nixon (uncle of Richard Nixon) owned a large potato farm near Fairbrook and planned to turn the area into a major potato-growing region. Other traffic would include lumber, clay, and furnace slag. However, the resentful PRR refused to supply cars at Tyrone, and gave the same rate for interchange at Tyrone as at Bellefonte. With no rate differential to offset the costs of the longer run to Tyrone, it was uneconomical for the Bellefonte Central to interchange there. The stockholders brought in new management in the wake of this debacle, in 1933, and operations were suspended on the branch.
Depression, World War II and decline
Litigation over interchange at Tyrone continued until 1938, ending with a decision unfavorable to the Bellefonte Central. The railroad promptly filed to abandon the line from State College to Stover, but approval was not granted until May 1941. The rails were removed by that November.
Frustrated in its expansion attempt, the Bellefonte Central was sustained throughout the Great Depression by the shipment of construction material to State College. Penn State extensively expanded its campus in the late 1920s and 1930s, in part to keep up with increased enrollment during the Depression, and many supplies traveled over the railroad. A new station was built on North Atherton Street in State College in 1930, and the line was cut back to the power plant. (The Hammond Building now occupies the old right-of-way to the original station.) Shipments from the lime quarries fell as the steel industry collapsed, and Chemical Lime went into bankruptcy in 1935. However, the company continued operating during the bankruptcy, and was prompted to modernize its operations, building a new rail-served lime plant at "Chemical" and abandoning quarrying for deep-shaft mining. While it was bought out by National Gypsum Company at the end of 1940, the modernization (paid for by a Reconstruction Finance Corporation loan) would keep the lime operation competitive for decades, and make it the largest shipper on the Bellefonte Central.
The outbreak of World War II and the ensuing industrial demand further increased lime traffic. The war also brought about a brief resurgence in the Bellefonte Central's original source of revenue, iron ore. The Scotia Mining Company was formed at the beginning of the war to resume mining in Scotia, and built a new ore washer in 1942. The ore was initially trucked to Waddle for shipment, but after it was determined to be insufficiently pure, the company obtained Reconstruction Finance Corp. money for further improvements. A new 3 mile spur was built from the main line at Lagarde (Alto) to a new beneficiation plant at Scotia. However, only 35 carloads of ore were shipped before the Surrender of Japan, and the resulting fall in iron ore prices made mining uneconomical once again.
While regular passenger service ended in 1946, post-war traffic remained strong, again largely on the basis of Penn State construction. The Bellefonte Central also carried construction materials for the building of local homes, as enrollment at Penn State increased under the GI Bill. Although the advent of trucking was steadily eating into the less-than-carload freight business, the railroad still handled bulk deliveries of food to Penn State and shipments of machinery, automobiles, and paper. While the delivery of coal to local homes ended in 1947, the railroad continued to haul about 470 cars per year of coal to supply the Penn State power plant. In 1953, the Bellefonte Central bought an EMD SW9, its first diesel locomotive, and retired its steam locomotive in 1956, after buying an EMD SW1200.
However, the best years of the railroad were now behind it: it recorded its highest operating income in 1955. In 1959, Penn State switched to trucks for coal shipments to its power plant, and scheduled service to State College ended. The collapse in traffic further accelerated in the 1960s, with the general decline of the Northeastern railroads. As the Pennsylvania Railroad (Penn Central after 1968) deteriorated, rail shipments suffered increasingly long delays, for which the Bellefonte Central could not compensate. The era also saw the last passenger service over the railroad, a PRR special from Pittsburgh for the University of Pittsburgh–Penn State football game in 1964. After years of attempting to generate new traffic in State College, the Bellefonte Central finally gave up on the southern end of its line in 1974. The last train left State College on July 22, 1974, and 13 miles (21 km) of rail were pulled up from State College to Chemical in 1976. From now on, National Gypsum would be the railroad's only customer.
Last years and abandonment
New management came to both the lime plant and the railroad in 1976. The plant was bought by Domtar, while the Bellefonte Central was sold to Kyle Railways. Prospects still appeared reasonable for the railroad, as the plant at Chemical (bought by Domtar in 1976) had an extensive customer base. Most of the lime produced there went to steel mills in Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio. Ground lime was also shipped to glass manufacturers, and to chemical and paper companies. However, the Pennsylvania steel industry soon began to falter under the pressure of foreign competition and its own inefficiencies. As the steel industry fell, the lime market also collapsed, and Domtar shut down the plant at Chemical on July 1, 1982. The Bellefonte Central shut down the same day. The Chemical plant was sold in April 1983 to Confer Trucking, a local firm, which operated it at reduced capacity and had no need for rail service. Accordingly, the Bellefonte Central filed for abandonment in 1984. The 4.1 miles from Chemical to Coleville were removed in spring 1985. However, the last mile of track from Bellefonte to Coleville was bought by the SEDA-COG Joint Rail Authority, in order to make use of the enginehouse at Coleville. This track is now part of the Nittany and Bald Eagle Railroad, and the old Bellefonte Central enginehouse is now used for their locomotives. About a mile of the right-of-way on the grounds of The Arboretum at Penn State has been converted to a rail trail, which was opened on May 22, 2006.
The Northern Central Railway (NCRY) caught my attention early in my love for the Pennsy. Two excellent reads on the line are Robert Gunnarsson's The Story of the Northern Central Railway and Bill Caloroso's Pennsylvania Railroad's Elmira Branch (pictured above).
The Northern Central Railway was a Class I Railroad connecting Baltimore, Maryland with Sunbury, Pennsylvania, along the Susquehanna River. Completed in 1858, the line came under the control of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in 1861, when the PRR acquired a controlling interest in the Northern Central's stock to compete with the rival Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O). For eleven decades the Northern Central operated as a subsidiary of the PRR until much of its Maryland trackage was washed out by Hurricane Agnes in 1972; after which most of its operations ceased as the Penn Central declined to repair sections.
The Lima-Hamilton 2500 horsepower Transfer locomotive (sometimes referred to by its Specification Number, A-3177 or the railfan designation LT-2500) was a diesel-electric transfer-unit locomotive, built by the Lima Locomotive Works between 1950 and 1951. The LT-2500 was the final locomotive model produced by Lima-Hamilton before the company merged with the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1951.
All twenty-two units were purchased by the Pennsylvania Railroad.
BCRR Track Construction and Removal Dates. (Mike Bezilla)
Despite the poor economic times, the railroad's management remained confident. On May 10, 1894, the directors approved the extension of the main line from Struble to Pine Grove Mills. Such an extension had been contemplated as long ago as 1884, during the BRB&BE era. While Pine Grove Mills would originate some traffic through farming and logging, the extension was primarily contemplated as part of a larger route. By extending south from Pine Grove Mills to Huntingdon, the line could connect with the Huntingdon and Broad Top Mountain Railroad, an independent railroad serving the Broad Top coal region. By linking to the Central Railroad of Pennsylvania at Bellefonte (built in 1893 over the contemplated Nittany Valley & Southern route), the Bellefonte Central could form part of a coal route tapping the Broad Top field on behalf of the New York Central. However, the route faced a formidable obstacle in the crossing of Tussey Mountain. Such a line would require switchbacks or a long summit tunnel. The Pennsylvania Railroad already occupied the only usable gap at Spruce Creek and would not look favorably on its new competitor for the Broad Top traffic. However, the economy remained slow, and the railroad found it difficult to obtain land at favorable prices. After a little grading, the project stalled until 1896, when the railroad lifted the rail from the derelict Red Bank Branch west of Graysdale and used it to lay track on the extension. Service on the extension opened to Bloomsdorf in September 1896 and to Pine Grove Mills in December. Despite a $75,000 subscription offered by the town of Stone Valley (now submerged under Lake Perez) to complete the extension to Huntingdon, the expense of further extension would clearly have outstripped the railroad's finances. The Bellefonte Central undertook no further construction towards Huntingdon.
While regular passenger service ended in 1946, post-war traffic remained strong, again largely on the basis of Penn State construction. The Bellefonte Central also carried construction materials for the building of local homes, as enrollment at Penn State increased under the GI Bill. Although the advent of trucking was steadily eating into the less-than-carload freight business, the railroad still handled bulk deliveries of food to Penn State and shipments of machinery, automobiles, and paper. While the delivery of coal to local homes ended in 1947, the railroad continued to haul about 470 cars per year of coal to supply the Penn State power plant. In 1953, the Bellefonte Central bought an EMD SW9, its first diesel locomotive, and retired its steam locomotive in 1956, after buying an EMD SW1200.
New management came to both the lime plant and the railroad in 1976. The plant was bought by Domtar, while the Bellefonte Central was sold to Kyle Railways. Prospects still appeared reasonable for the railroad, as the plant at Chemical (bought by Domtar in 1976) had an extensive customer base. Most of the lime produced there went to steel mills in Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio. Ground lime was also shipped to glass manufacturers, and to chemical and paper companies. However, the Pennsylvania steel industry soon began to falter under the pressure of foreign competition and its own inefficiencies. As the steel industry fell, the lime market also collapsed, and Domtar shut down the plant at Chemical on July 1, 1982. The Bellefonte Central shut down the same day. The Chemical plant was sold in April 1983 to Confer Trucking, a local firm, which operated it at reduced capacity and had no need for rail service. Accordingly, the Bellefonte Central filed for abandonment in 1984. The 4.1 miles from Chemical to Coleville were removed in spring 1985. However, the last mile of track from Bellefonte to Coleville was bought by the SEDA-COG Joint Rail Authority, in order to make use of the enginehouse at Coleville. This track is now part of the Nittany and Bald Eagle Railroad, and the old Bellefonte Central enginehouse is now used for their locomotives. About a mile of the right-of-way on the grounds of The Arboretum at Penn State has been converted to a rail trail, which was opened on May 22, 2006.
