"Schuylkill & Conestoga Valley RR" -did it ope

I've got the "Schuylkill & Conestoga Valley" listed as having built 3.5m of line at Gibraltar near Reading PA in 1913, I think up the Allegheny Creek gorge towards its intended terminus of "Brownstone" (which I haven't been able to find). It pulled up its tracks two years later. I haven't been able to find if it ran any trains or bought any rolling stock. Does anybody know?

Taber's "Railroads of Pennsylvania" treats it as a paper railroad and says nothing about track laid. "Brownstone" is "Brownstown," on the (surprise!) Conestoga Creek, lying SSW of Ephrata.

I've noticed other examples of short lines which are listed as paper rr's in the literature but are briefly listed in ICC stats as operating common-carrier rr's. The "Monterey & Fresno" in CA is one I can remember. I wonder if the proprietors of these roads told lies in their ICC returns in order to get their names around? Or did they lay a short bit of line, send someone's pig down it on a handcart and claim a "freight service"?

Somebody was going to run a railroad over the Cascades in Oregon. In order to preserve their charter, they had to have tracks through a particular pass by a particular date. So they hauled rails up to the pass, built a mile (or thereabouts) of track, hauled some cars up, set them on the tracks, and dragged them back and forth. Operating paper railroad.

Don't remember where I read this, but as I recall from 25 years ago, you can see remains along US20 east of Sweet Home.

That was the Oregon Pacific, which was going to build to New York (with a tunnel under the Hudson to Manhattan, like the Pennsy).

choess wrote:Taber's "Railroads of Pennsylvania" treats it as a paper railroad and says nothing about track laid. "Brownstone" is "Brownstown," on the (surprise!) Conestoga Creek, lying SSW of Ephrata.

That old trackbed was the trolley line that ran out of Lancaster, Pa to Epharta Pa............. Some of the old concrete bridge supports are still there over the Conestoga Creek at Brownstown.


hev