Daguscahonda Railroad

I really didn't know about this railroad until recently.

It ran from the Dagus Mines south of St Marys to a connection with the Philadelphia & Erie at Daguscahonda, PA.

It was abandoned in 1907 due to Erie Railroad improvements in Brockway. The line had a steep grade down to the P&E interchnage.

The topo map of the Daguscahonda area:

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=41.39806,-78 ... marys%20pa

The railroad was built in 1866.

Stations along the line from a 1892 passenger time table:

Dagus Mines
Centerville
Connors
Lock's Camp
Daguscahonda

The route pof this railroad is clearly visible on the north side of Dagus Mines. It does not show on the topo maps, not very well anyway. Up at Daguscahonda there is no evidenve of the connection to the PRR but there is a side road heading southeast off the main road which almost certainly is on the r-o-w. We were last down there two years ago. In Dagus Mines itself there is the old company store building but nothing else of significance. HTG

I was re=reading Kilmer's Erie's Braford Branch book.

The line was 6 miles long.

There was a bad wreck towards the end of operations. The wooden coal cars were just left at the wreck site. Locals were still taking coal from the wreck in 1987!

[quote="erie2937"] Up at Daguscahonda there is no evidence of the connection to the PRR but there is a side road heading southeast off the main road which almost certainly is on the r-o-w.

The bridge abutments and some old bridge timbers are clearly visible at Daguscahonda where the railroad crossed Elk Creek to interchange with the PRR. About 2 or 3/10's miles east of the crossing in town.

Did some digging. In the late 1800's the mines in the Dagus area and Coal Hollow areas were run by the Northwestern Mining and Exchange Company. Somehow it was linked to the Erie RR, at least as a major supplier to them and maybe owned by them. I believe they owned (and built?) the RR line we are talking about at one point.

By 1903, according to the this State of Pennsylvania report, it was called the "Daguscahonda and Elk Railway", 5.5 miles, owned by the New York Lake Erie and Western Coal and Railroad Comapny, and leased to the Erie RR. The entry has the Toby Branch of the Erie right after it. See page 182 http://books.google.com/books?id=H7o2AA ... 22&f=false

The demise of the Daguscahonda RR may have been when the Erie Toby branch (coming up northeast from Brockway) finally made it up into Coal Hollow - this reference says that then they didn't need to lift the coal up from Coal Hollow to get it to the Daguscahonda RR any more. http://books.google.com/books?id=Fr9JIO ... 22&f=false - look around pages 70-71 , and more for pictures. Also, page 44, it describes the dangerous downhill (loaded) trip to Daguscahonda, and the wreck thebigham mentioned earlier. Not all the pages come up in this link, and sometimes different ones come up - good luck. Somewhere (another web site I can't find it now) it said there was a 300 ft plane (not sure total length or vertical) from Coal Hollow up to the Daguscahonda RR.

Link to pictures of mining remnants in Dagus, including the store mentioned by HTG.
http://www.coalcampusa.com/westpa/shawm ... /dagus.htm

JS

Found an 1885 State Geological Report on Elk and Forest counties. http://books.google.com/books?id=NlXWAA ... us&f=false
Go to page 200 for a diagram of the plane lifting up from Toby Creek to a loader on the "Dagus Railroad" which connects with the P&E. Note there is button to zoom in. There is a brief discussion of this on page 181-2. Interesting they already are using meters (along with feet) in the scale bar in 1885.

ANother interesting link, see page 142 http://books.google.com/books?id=ewP0AA ... da&f=false -- about some legal battle related to the Daguscahonda Railroad and the Toby Branch (I think) but I have no idea what it's all about.
JS

EDIT: Loooking on http://www.pennpilot.psu at 1939 arial photos, the ROW of the Daguscahonda & Elk ROW can be traced out from Daguscahonda to Dagus Mines. ALso, you can see where the old plane from Coal Hollow was - about 1400 feet long and 200 feet up (and then 40 feet down to the tipple according to the diagram linked above). On this map link (if it works) A to H is the old plane ROW (what looks like a ROW in modern area photos is something newer - don't know if it was for sending coal up or down or something else like a telephone line - it runs slightly more north-south than the original, if I am interpreting it all correctly. Markers H to D are the ROW of the Daguscahonda and Elk.
http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=41.35774,-78 ... ersey%20PA
Finally, another thing that probably killed the Daguscahonda and Elk - around 1903 or 1904 the Pittsburg Shawmut and Northern was constructed, intersecting the D&E at point C. On the 1939 Pennpilot map you can clearly see a wye there, so loads from Dagus Mines could go either way on the PSN - no need to keep the rest of the D&E and the steep downhill to the Philadelphia and Erie (PRR) anymore.