Can anyone shed any light on an abandoned rail line that ran near Snow Shoe, PA? An interesting trestle or viaduct for this railroad is visible from I-80 at milepost 183.
If memory serves, that place is up on top or nearly so on the Milesburg Grade on I-80. A 10 mile or so pull.
There used to be coal up there in mines. I think it went to Bellafonte and Milesburg. But will have to do some googling to look this over some more and refresh memory.
Years ago on that grade, with the older Big Cam 4’s we would be upgrade slow enough to see dozens of deer in the wintertime among the trees. Now with today’s CAT’s and Detroits we zip up at 46 to 51 mph, too fast to be spotting deer.
Iron was king in those hills. Furnances all around no EPA in sight.
Now that I think of it, there is just Iron Ore, Coal and Timber in abundance all along that area maybe as far as Lock Haven and down through the valleys. Rich and abundant supplies of all things to make Iron, Charcoal, maybe even brick too along with lumber and some of the very best coal.
Everyone today loads coal out of wyoming by the trainload at one or two places. In Snowshoe and many other places you had small mines that put out maybe a hopper or three worth of coal a day if not a little more. Turning a engine to get to all these mines to assemble a decent trainload of good hard coal would take some railroading and labor. Something today’s railroads wont do very much.
If they did make a railroad, I would make a guess that they would have had so much work to do in abundance as to be even debt free. It would take a depression to kill it off, unless the PRR bought it out.
You can probably think that the PRR will at least be involved with that area at some point. One thing I remember about that area, is many small roads and some tracks going to mountain tops and down into every little valley. I think every time someone had a mine or something to haul, they ran rail down there or up there however they can do it.
But I must tell you that th
As I have been discovering from my own digging, most if not all of those abandoned tracks originally belonged to the NYC and ran to one strip mine or another. NYC operated a large yard at nearby Clearfield. What hasn’t been abandoned is now part of the RJ Corman Pennsylvania Short Line, notably through Clearfield and Curwensville. The “Pennsylvania” here refers to the state of Pennsylvania and not the old PRR, as Corman operates short lines in seven states.
A lot of the abandoned NYC trackage is either now or becoming part of the Mahoning Shadow Rail-Trail, including the viaduct that caught my eye just north of I-80. See aerial view at http://tinyurl.com/9oazt6
I think you’re headed in the right direction here.
First, I think the I-80 ref. should be about MP 138+, not 183 as in your 1st post above (Snow Shoe is MP 147). This is just north of the boundary of Pennsylvania’s Black Moshannon State Park, about 10 - 15 miles northeast of Philipsburg, PA. Locally, the nearest towns are Winburne to the west and Grassflat to the northwest. The stream underneath both the I-80 bridge and the RR bridge is the Moshannon Creek.
Per my SPV Railroad Atlas (1995, Map PA-6 - PUNXSUTAWNEY - BELLEFONTE, pg. 58), it was then still active as a CR line, formerly NYC, part of the line from Lock Haven on the east to Clearfield (on the west). Locally, the closest towns that are on a PennDOT State Transportation Map are Snow Shoe to the east, and again Winburne and Grassflat as above. The wye to the south of the bridge / north of I-80 appears to have been known as “Peale” - probably just a RR “station” place name, not a real town - and there is a tunnel there (see the SSRT link below).
I don’t normally do this, but I’ll make an exception here: For more information, look at the following other forums:
http://www.railroad.net/forums/index.php - esp. the “Pennsylvania Railfan” board, at:
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=130&sid=38528d01eb78d7390a907f114f657678 .
Look especially for posts by Brooks W. Parker = “bwparker1” - he lived out there for a while (maybe still does) - and is really good at running these old lines down. In fact, check out this thread there started by him, and all the links in it, esp. at the end:
Paul,
Thanks for the additional insights. I will read the additional threads you suggested.
WRT the I-80 milepost marker, it is exactly milepost 183.
I also verified the mile marker on site the same day as my original post.
I couldn’t get any closer than I-80 on my last trip, but through binoculars the viaduct looks to be in good shape. Be it a metal trestle or viaduct, I leave the bridge’s classification to others.
If Corman wishes to reactivate any of those abandoned lines, he will have to lay new track. All the old rail has since been removed. New track costs a minimum of a half million per mile to lay. I presume he will avoid signaling by operating on a warrant system.