Reading line to New Philadelphia

Just curious if anyone knows why the line from Palo Alto to Tamaqua was left in place to Middle Port, PA (just outside of New Philadelphia, PA)??? I know that from Tamaqua to Middleport the RDG sold the line in 1972 to PennDot as PennDOT wanted to expand Rt 209 to 4 lanes but never did.

Can anyone tell me why the RDG kept the line stub ended into Middleport? Was there a rail dependant business there? Seems like the rails now just dead end in the grass near the baseball field.

Also why was this line important to the RDG to go from Palo Alto to Tamaqua and why did they abandon it and sell it?

I am not sure if this is the answer to you question, but if you look on this map, https://mapmaker.millersville.edu/pamap ... onedMines/ , it appears that a mining property was pretty close to the end of that line.