Branch of Pa. Short Line Sees Traffic Again

A section of the Nittany & Bald Eagle Railway that has been dormant for years is again hosting freight shipments.

Jeff Stover, executive director of SEDA COG Joint Rail Authority, said Centre Concrete near State College, Pennsylvania, has begun having some of its inventory shipped in by rail.

The facility is located on a line that extends from Bellefonte to the east side of State College.

The last customer on the line had been Corning Glass, but that plant closed in June 2003 and with rail service ended aside from rail car storage.

The N&BE is part of North Shore Railroad and a spokesperson for that company said it has seen an uptick in freight shipping.

The freight cars that the N&BE had been storing on the Bellefonte branch were taken to Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Planned Pennsylvania Excursion Canceled

A planned excursion train in Pennsylvania in conjunction with the 50^th anniversary celebration of the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society has been canceled, a victim of a recent Amtrak policy change banning most special moves and charters.

The train, which would have featured the PRR E8A passenger locomotives and former Pennsy passenger cars owned by Bennett Levin, had initially been approved by Amtrak.

But Levin received a phone call from an Amtrak official saying Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson had ordered an end to special trains.

Although the Amtrak policy change had allowed for exceptions in narrow circumstances, a recent clarification of the policy indicated that Amtrak will not approve excursions that operate on lines not used by the carrier’s scheduled trains.

The PRRT&HS excursion was to operate from Philadelphia to Altoona, Pennsylvania, on May 9 via the Buffalo Line of Norfolk Southern and the Nittany & Bald Eagle short line railroad using former PRR routes via Williamsport and Tyrone.

Levin had submitted a detailed request to Amtrak in December to operate the excursion and he agreed to Amtrak’s price for the trip in early February.

As late as early April Amtrak was still agreeing to operate the trip before backing out in mid April.

Indiana, Pennsylvania Short Line Honored

Short line railroads in Indiana and Pennsylvania were recently honored by the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association for their efforts to design and enact innovative and successful marketing initiatives.

The Indiana Rail Road was cited for its partnership with Canadian National to provide direct intermodal service from the West Coast, extending its intermodal markets into southern Indiana and the Ohio Valley.

INRD invested $2.5 million to upgrade facilities, including construction of a two-track intermodal pad and a five-acre container yard at its Senate Avenue Terminal.

The facility is open six days a week and is within a day’s drive of 80 percent of U.S. consumers.

Containers move from Shanghai, China, to Indianapolis via the Port of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, in 21.5 days on average, which is the fastest overall transit time in the industry.

The service handled 12,563 containers in 2014 and 17,233 containers in 2015. CN and INRD expect to move 18,000 containers in 2016.

The Nittany & Bald Eagle, and the Buffalo & Pittsburgh teamed up with Norfolk Southern to move lime pellets from Graymont Lime at Pleasant Gap, Pennsylvania, to the Homer City Generating Station at Homer City, Pennsylvania.

The lime has transformed the plant from one of the nation’s dirtiest coal-fired power plants to a model of how such power plants can economically reduce pollution.

The three railroads cover the 190-mile haul with 45-car trains operating on a three-and-a-half day schedule.

The service is expected to deliver more than 3,000 cars annually of lime.

Reading & Northern’s latest “Rapid Response” example is its rehabilitation of the Old Forge Warehouse near Scranton, Pennsylvania.

The facility is used to move wood pulp to a large paper mill. The warehouse needed to be located where the wood pulp could be delivered on a next-day basis.

More than 350 carloads were handled during the first six months of operation.

“The four railroads we honored for the 2015 work are risk takers in the very best sense of the word. They work daily to bring new customers to their lines with reliable connections, creative use of real estate assets and flexible service offerings. And in the end, they keep small towns and small shippers connected to the national railroad system,” said Linda Bauer Darr, president of the ASLRRA. “Their success is the result of a commitment to never standing still and never fearing change.”

The Fascination of Railroad Infrastucture

The surviving leg of the wye leading into the Bald Eagle Branch crosses the Little Juniata River in Tyrone, Pennsylvania.

Mention railroads and most people, including those who call themselves railfans, will think of trains.

But there is more to a railroad than trains. I find nearly as fascinating the intricate details of railroad infrastructure.

When I travel I make it a point to photograph the infrastructure that I see.

Such was the case last December when a friend and I spent time in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, along the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia mainline of the former Pennsylvania Railroad.

In the PRR days, Tyrone was a junction point with a branch that ran up the Bald Eagle Valley.

That branch still exists in the Norfolk Southern era, but it is now operated by a short line railroad, the Nittany & Bald Eagle.

In Tyrone, the Bald Eagle Branch ended at the mainline on a wye. One leg of that wye is gone, but the other is part of the interchange between N&BE and NS.

I like to study infrastructure for clues as to how things might have been. For example, in Tyrone, there is a narrow street that dead ends shortly after it passes beneath the still-active leg of the wye.

It seems likely that at one time this street continued to the PRR passenger station,  which has since been razed.

The narrowness of the streets suggests a time when people would have driven Model T cars to the depot.

Surrounding the tracks in Tyrone are the remains of what probably used to be an active industrial district.

There still may be some small industry in those buildings or perhaps they have been re-purposed for other uses.

Whatever the case, it is a reminder of times past and the people who went before who worked and traveled here.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Where there are railroad tracks there will be industrial buildings in urban areas.

Today this is a pedestrian bridge but at one time it may have been the street to the PRR passenger station. It must have been a one lane bridge over the Little Juniata River.

The tracks have been removed from the other leg of the wye that once led into the Bald Eagle Branch.

Pa. Short Line Extends Track for Limestone Mine

The SEDA-COG Joint Rail Authority and the Nittany & Bald Eagle Railroad will build a track to serve a limestone mine.

The authority said in a news release that limestone from the mine will help the Homer City Generating Station become one of the cleanest coal-burning plants in the nation. Lime is used in scrubbers that reduce the emissions of power plants.

Graymont Limited mines high-grade limestone from the Valentine formation that will be used in the scrubbers at the Homer City power plant.

The new track extends from the end of the Pleasant Gap Industrial Track and will ensure sufficient railroad track capacity for additional lime shipments.

Each lime train must be in blocks of 45 with siding space for both a loaded and unloaded car set. The Graymont mine lacked adequate track space for the Homer City business.

A new yard was built to tie into new tracks that Graymont built on its property.

The lime trains will move from Nittany & Bald Eagle to Norfolk Southern and then to the Buffalo & Pittsburgh for final delivery to the power plant.

Pa. Carrier Increasing Capacity for Lime Trains

The Nittany & Bald Eagle Railroad of central Pennsylvania is building a track to hold lime shipments destined for the Homer City Generating station.

The carrier is increasing track capacity in anticipation of increased shipments of rail cars of lime from limestone plant Graymont.

The power plant reduces emissions through scrubbers that use the lime for cleaning.

Each lime train is built in blocks of 45 cars. The Graymount plant had enough siding capacity for its current business, but not enough for the Homer City business,

The lime will move from the Nittany & Bald Eagle to the Norfolk Southern then to the Buffalo & Pittsburgh for final delivery to the power plant.

The 70-mile N&BE is owned by the SEDA-COG Joint Rail Authority and operates between Lock Haven and Tyrone with branches to Bellefonte and State College.