Last run of the Lewisburg and Tyrone/WestShore Railroad

They made fast work in the ripping up of the line.. Last Tues. I had made a trip up there and they were about a mile east of Mifflinburg between Buffalo Creek Road and Skunk Hollow Road. Yesterday after coming home from a chase of the Lycoming Valley KH27, they were pulling up the rails right in front of the old Pennsylvania House Furnature Co. in Lewisburg. Amazing.. Almost the entire line in a over a week.. They finished up there for the time being as this was the place all the rails were being staged to be cut up into pieces to be loaded into gondolas. I managed to luck out on one of those pickup moves by the LVRR last week. Very sad.. Was one heck of a scenic line...

Amazing how it can be torn up so fast, but would take a decade or more to bring back. Funny how we don't need to do MIS/EIS to rip out a rail line such as this one.

Where did they stop tearing up the rails? Did they keep the line past the Rt 15 crossing in Lewisburg?

They haven't gone across rt 15 yet as they are still cutting up and loading the scrap rails into gondolas. Sure it won't take them long to clean it up though.

Channel 16 has a story on the removal and how it will become a rail-to-trails:

http://www.wnep.com/news/

Should be the first video.

JP

2011??? Wholy crap. They can build a railroad faster than that!

jgallaway81 wrote:2011??? Wholy crap. They can build a railroad faster than that!

Yeah, I guess the wheels turn a bit slower for this type of project.

JP

4 million dollars for a rail trail? Ridiculous.

thebigham wrote:4 million dollars for a rail trail? Ridiculous.

You know something is definatly wrong in this current world we live in when you see that!!!

blockline4180 wrote:

thebigham wrote:4 million dollars for a rail trail? Ridiculous.

You know something is definatly wrong in this current world we live in when you see that!!!

I couldn't agree more. What I'd like to see, is an itemized list of just how this project amounts to that sum of money. I think it should have been made available to the taxpayers funding the project BEFORE the project got underway. Somehow I doubt the general public would have access to it for many reasons (Cough-corruption). Another behind closed doors deal where un-named individuals are lining their pockets.

JP

They ripped up the line? Well, that's another failed PA tourist railroad, like Knox and Kane. I was there several years ago at Delta Place Station and Mifflinburg when the train wasn't running. The tracks once went beyond Mifflinburg toward Centre Hall and beyond, past Mifflinburg you can see the rail bed where it crossed the highway. What line was this? Was it a PRR branch? Now the last section of the branch is gone. Shame they couldn't bring the tourist train back, now it's gone forever. At least the North Shore Railroad operates some excursion trains over different lines in that area, like Williamsport, Danville, etc. for special events. On satellite maps, it looks like they took out a RR bridge over a road in White Deer south of the station. There are coaches parked at the station, are they trapped now? The rails seem to continue north of White Deer but overgrown at spots. Wouldn't a Delta Place-White Deer route have worked for excursions if the bridge was still in? What is that RR bridge that crosses from West Milton to Milton? What line is that through Milton? So, are the tracks still in from Winfield to White Deer now and who owns and operates them? Is the only outside rail access via that bridge from West Milton to Milton? What happened to the West Shore's coaches? Are any still on the property? Were any sold or scrapped?

Delta Place Station is still intact at the intersection of Hafer Road and Route 15 in Lewisburg, PA, some 24 years after tourist service stopped. The station is now on private property and cannot be directly accessed.

http://photos.greatrails.net/s/?p=265372

The Union County Industrial Railroad still runs on the line in front of the station.

EH

More photos:

Bridge over the Susquehanna River which was abandoned in 1988:

http://photos.greatrails.net/s/?p=265375

Also the line to Mifflinburg is now a trail:

http://photos.greatrails.net/s/?p=265373
http://photos.greatrails.net/s/?p=265374

EH