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The Williamsport and North Branch Railroad was a short line that operated in north-central Pennsylvania between 1872 and 1937. After a long struggle to finance its construction, it was completed in 1893. It derived most of its freight revenue from logging and to a certain extent from anthracite coal traffic. It also carried many passengers to mountain resorts in Sullivan County, Pennsylvania. With the decline of the logging industry and increased accessibility of the region by automobile in the 1910s and 1920s, the railroad's business rapidly declined. The economic blow of the Great Depression proved insurmountable, and it was abandoned as unprofitable in 1937. ==Muncy Creek Railway== The railroad was originally chartered as the Muncy Creek Railway on May 21, 1864. It was intended to provide a railroad outlet for Laporte, the newly established county seat of Sullivan County, via the valley of Muncy Creek. Some surveying, and possibly even grading, was done, but the new corporation ran out of money around 1867 and remained quiescent for several years. Interest in the railroad did not resume until 1871, when the Catawissa Railroad, later part of the Reading system, completed its line up the east bank of the West Branch Susquehanna River, passing through Muncy and Halls. Muncy, near the mouth of Muncy Creek, was an established town and would have been the logical terminus of the railroad. However, residents of Muncy feared the railroad would compete with an existing plank road to Hughesville and refused it permission to enter the town. Accordingly, the railroad was built from Halls to Hughesville in 1872, but money for further work was again lacking. The railroad was extended to Picture Rocks in 1875 using wooden rails to save money. However, the wooden rails could not withstand the weight of trains and the extension was abandoned in early 1876. The Muncy Creek Railway continued to struggle along until 1881, when the bondholders petitioned to have it placed in receivership. It was foreclosed on August 9, 1882, and reorganized on September 1, 1882 as the Williamsport and North Branch Railroad. ==Completion== The new owners still intended to extend the railroad towards Laporte and the coalfield at Bernice, but this could only be accomplished in slow stages. The track from Halls to Hughesville was rebuilt to make up for the deferred maintenance of previous years, and in late 1883, construction north and east began again. The new line followed a different route from the unsuccessful wooden-railed extension, following the west side of Muncy Creek through Tivoli up to Glen Mawr, which was reached in 1884. There was a picnic grove at Tivoli which was the destination of summer excursions, and a stage connection to the resort of Eagles Mere, then called Lewis Lake. Extension of the line continued. At Glen Mawr, the railroad crossed Muncy Creek and followed its east bank up to Sonestown, which it reached in 1885, and Nordmont, where it ended in October 1886. Here the railroad's expansion ceased again, but the sawmills and tanneries of the Muncy Valley provided the revenue to keep it solvent. In the late 1880s, the Pennsylvania Railroad took an interest in the W&NB as a means of reaching the Bernice coalfields. The State Line and Sullivan Railroad, a subsidiary of the Lehigh Valley, had already reached the area,and the Bloomsburg and Sullivan Railroad, backed by the Reading interest, had been chartered in 1883 to reach Bernice from the south via Fishing Creek. The PRR backed a new syndicate which took over the W&NB in 1888, and named George Sanderson president. However, the PRR's interest in the W&NB quickly waned, especially after the Bloomsburg & Sullivan's construction halted in Jamison City, never to reach Bernice. The failure of Sanderson's bank in 1891 resulted in the transfer of his investment in the W&NB to his creditors, including John Satterfield; Satterfield now became vice-president and Henry C. McCormick president of the railroad. Satterfield was determined to complete the railroad, and after raising money and surveying, construction began in 1892. At Nordmont, the railroad crossed Muncy Creek on a horseshoe curve and began climbing up the other side of the valley, then turning up Deep Hollow and crossing over into the Loyalsock Creek watershed. The new line passed Lake Mokoma and Laporte and descended high on the east side of the Mill Creek valley, turning and descending along the Loyalsock to Ringdale. The line from Ringdale to the summit between Loyalsock and Muncy creeks was built on a 1% grade to facilitate handling heavy coal trains from Bernice. At Ringdale, the line crossed the Loyalsock on a high trestle, long, and ran up Birch Creek. The line forked at Birch Creek Junction, with one branch going up a tributary of Birch Creek to a junction with the State Line & Sullivan at Dohm's Summit, while another followed Birch Creek to join the State Line and Sullivan at Bernice. The line was completed into Laporte in August 1893, and to Dohm's Summit in September. The latter was renamed Satterfield in honor of the promoter who had completed the W&NB. Construction of a depot at Satterfield began in October, but a dispute with the Lehigh Valley over property ownership resulted in its demolition, and it was relocated in November. The W&NB did obtain trackage rights over the State Line & Sullivan to Towanda for its passenger trains. The branch to Bernice was finished in 1894. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Williamsport and North Branch Railroad」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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