Allentown to Auburn Railroad
Updated 02/26/2021
The Auburn and Allentown Railroad was a railway which was first proposed in 1853. Construction began from the Allentown end circa 1855 but the financial "Panic" of 1857 brought the project to a halt. By 1860, the project was deemed to have minimal benefits so the work was never was completed. No evidence of this line exists within the Auburn-area.
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"AUBURN AND ALLENTOWN RAILROAD - We again call the attention of all the citizens of this County, who as property owners and business men, are interested in the speedy completion of a railway connection which will rescue our Region from the embarrassments which now encircle it, to th fact that a mass meeting will be held at the Pennsylvania Hall, in this Borough, on Tuesday next, at 2 o'clock, P. M. At the meeting, a committee from New York, appointed by the Directors of the Road, will be present. Facts and figures will be laid before the meeting, which will add force to the conviction that the construction of the Auburn and Allentown Railroad is the only project which, in the situation of the trade of this Region, offers permanent relief. After hearing the report of the New York committee, it will be decided whether the work shall go on, and it is therefore, very important that all interested should make it a point to be present. Under our Coal Trade head will be found an article on the subject, to which we invite attention." - Undated and unidentified source.
"Work on the tunnel of the new Allentown and Auburn Railroad three miles from Hamburg was resumed. It was reported operations on the whole line will be started up again at an early date." - Undated and unidentified source.
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The Allentown & Auburn Railroad:
story of a dream unfulfilled
By Frank Whelan Of The Morning Call | June 17, 2002
Were it in Europe, the big stone structure in Allentown's Lehigh Parkway might be mistaken for the remains of a castle or some other ancient fortification.But the reality is less romantic, if not less interesting. The square stone pile with three openings at its base is a limekiln: a furnace where limestone is melted down to lime for use in making mortar or fertilizer. It was erected in the 1850s and remains as a monument to the proposed Allentown & Auburn Railroad.
Railroads were the dot.com companies of pre-Civil War America. Every town longed to see its name linked by a railroad's gilded ampersand ("&") to another town or city. It didn't seem to matter that rolling stock was sometimes rickety, boilers prone to exploding and rails -- often held to ties by leather straps -- came loose and smashed through the bottoms of the wooden passenger cars. Railroads were the future.
The Lehigh Valley shared America's love affair with the iron horse. "So necessary have they [railroads] become in this age," said Allentown's Lehigh Register on Nov. 9, 1853, "that no town can expect to prosper without these means of communications to the business world."
Barely two months before, on Sept. 19, 1853, the state Legislature granted a charter for the construction of the Allentown & Auburn. The driving force was the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, better known simply as the Reading.
The A & A was to be constructed from Allentown. Lehigh County stops would include Dorneyville, Wescosville, Trexlertown and Breinigsville. Either a spur route or the main line would service Kutztown. The A & A would then join the the Reading's main line, linking up to it at some point between the seat of Berks County and Port Clinton or Auburn in Schuylkill County.
Both offered links to the Schuylkill Navigation, a canal network that ran north into Schuylkill County's coal regions. Those black diamonds, fuel for the furnaces of the Valley's growing iron industry, were planned to be the A & A's major freight.
The Allentown & Auburn was not considered a significant railroad in and of itself. Its possible connections to the other railroads gave the A & A the potential to make Allentown a transportation center.
"The completion of this link is of great importance to our town and county," Lehigh Register editor C.F. Haines wrote in 1855. "It will connect with the Lehigh Valley Road, and thus place us on the main route from New York, the commercial emporium of the Union, and to the great West, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago."
Added links, the editor noted, could be made to Southern railroads through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. St. Louis, Baltimore and even New Orleans would be only days, rather than months, away. "There is no doubt," Haines concluded, " …that this link will be built."
While dreams of Allentown as the rail hub of the East Coast danced through the heads of newspaper editors, engineers were busy laying out the route. Surveyors went to work under the direction of chief engineer M.E. Lyons.
One thing they discovered was that a number of bridges would be needed. Work was begun on at least two. One was near where Cedar Creek flowed into the Little Lehigh, not far from where Lehigh Parkway is today. The other was to cross the Little Lehigh at Lehigh Street, where the main road came from Coopersburg, not far from where the Good Shepherd Home is today.
Investors in New York took up the A & A as the latest hot railroad stock. On Dec. 5, 1855, the Lehigh Register reprinted a letter from a stockbroker written to the Pottsville Miners Journal.
"In Wall Street our new road is attracting much attention… I have had an extensive intercourse with … others engaged in the railroad stock business … and none of them question the importance of the Allentown road." The writer said that experts, who would today be known as stock analysts, regarded the A & A, "as a splendid investment -- one that cannot fail to be above par in the market."
But what no one anticipated was the thin thread on which the railroad boom hung. Historians still debate what brought on the Panic of 1857, but along with the collapse of grain prices following the end of the Crimean War in Europe and a sudden rise in interest rates by the Bank of England, excessive speculation in railroad stocks is usually included.
The Wall Street tumble hit the Lehigh Valley hard.
Historian Kenneth Stamp states that at least 400,000 workers across Pennsylvania and 20,000 workers in the state's iron region were thrown out of work in 1857. And the Valley was at the heart of the iron region.
Construction on the Allentown & Auburn stopped. But other railroads with more capital took advantage of its distress. On May 11, 1859, the East Pennsylvania Railroad, with a connection to the Lehigh Valley Railroad at Bethlehem, operated the first train from Reading to Allentown.
The Civil War brought prosperity to some railroads, but the Allentown & Auburn was not among them. There was a brief flurry of interest early in 1869 when the Reading Railroad talked of reviving the line. The Lehigh Register claimed surveyors were hard at work.
But on May 1, 1869, the Reading's board agreed to lease the East Pennsylvania Railroad for 999 years. It no longer needed the A & A. On Jan. 10, 1871, the Reading opened a spur from the East Penn's main line at Topton to Kutztown, known as the Allentown Railroad, which mean the A & A offered a near duplication of services.
All that remained of the A & A were memories, bridge abutments and the limekiln. The abutments were there in 1914, nearly 60 years after they were built, when local historian Charles Rhoads Roberts wrote about them in his anniversary history of Lehigh County. They were still there in the 1930s when Allentown architect John K. Heyl recalls seeing them.
According to Heyl's recollection it was the Works Progress Administration, the Depression era government work program, that finally dismantled them. In 1936 the WPA used the stones for the 700-foot-long wall and ornamental gateway that have been a feature of Lehigh Parkway's Park Drive since it opened in late 1930s.
But the limekiln was spared. It remains today, both as a historic artifact and as a puzzle to future generations who know nothing about the long gone A&A; railroad.
story of a dream unfulfilled
By Frank Whelan Of The Morning Call | June 17, 2002
Were it in Europe, the big stone structure in Allentown's Lehigh Parkway might be mistaken for the remains of a castle or some other ancient fortification.But the reality is less romantic, if not less interesting. The square stone pile with three openings at its base is a limekiln: a furnace where limestone is melted down to lime for use in making mortar or fertilizer. It was erected in the 1850s and remains as a monument to the proposed Allentown & Auburn Railroad.
Railroads were the dot.com companies of pre-Civil War America. Every town longed to see its name linked by a railroad's gilded ampersand ("&") to another town or city. It didn't seem to matter that rolling stock was sometimes rickety, boilers prone to exploding and rails -- often held to ties by leather straps -- came loose and smashed through the bottoms of the wooden passenger cars. Railroads were the future.
The Lehigh Valley shared America's love affair with the iron horse. "So necessary have they [railroads] become in this age," said Allentown's Lehigh Register on Nov. 9, 1853, "that no town can expect to prosper without these means of communications to the business world."
Barely two months before, on Sept. 19, 1853, the state Legislature granted a charter for the construction of the Allentown & Auburn. The driving force was the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, better known simply as the Reading.
The A & A was to be constructed from Allentown. Lehigh County stops would include Dorneyville, Wescosville, Trexlertown and Breinigsville. Either a spur route or the main line would service Kutztown. The A & A would then join the the Reading's main line, linking up to it at some point between the seat of Berks County and Port Clinton or Auburn in Schuylkill County.
Both offered links to the Schuylkill Navigation, a canal network that ran north into Schuylkill County's coal regions. Those black diamonds, fuel for the furnaces of the Valley's growing iron industry, were planned to be the A & A's major freight.
The Allentown & Auburn was not considered a significant railroad in and of itself. Its possible connections to the other railroads gave the A & A the potential to make Allentown a transportation center.
"The completion of this link is of great importance to our town and county," Lehigh Register editor C.F. Haines wrote in 1855. "It will connect with the Lehigh Valley Road, and thus place us on the main route from New York, the commercial emporium of the Union, and to the great West, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago."
Added links, the editor noted, could be made to Southern railroads through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. St. Louis, Baltimore and even New Orleans would be only days, rather than months, away. "There is no doubt," Haines concluded, " …that this link will be built."
While dreams of Allentown as the rail hub of the East Coast danced through the heads of newspaper editors, engineers were busy laying out the route. Surveyors went to work under the direction of chief engineer M.E. Lyons.
One thing they discovered was that a number of bridges would be needed. Work was begun on at least two. One was near where Cedar Creek flowed into the Little Lehigh, not far from where Lehigh Parkway is today. The other was to cross the Little Lehigh at Lehigh Street, where the main road came from Coopersburg, not far from where the Good Shepherd Home is today.
Investors in New York took up the A & A as the latest hot railroad stock. On Dec. 5, 1855, the Lehigh Register reprinted a letter from a stockbroker written to the Pottsville Miners Journal.
"In Wall Street our new road is attracting much attention… I have had an extensive intercourse with … others engaged in the railroad stock business … and none of them question the importance of the Allentown road." The writer said that experts, who would today be known as stock analysts, regarded the A & A, "as a splendid investment -- one that cannot fail to be above par in the market."
But what no one anticipated was the thin thread on which the railroad boom hung. Historians still debate what brought on the Panic of 1857, but along with the collapse of grain prices following the end of the Crimean War in Europe and a sudden rise in interest rates by the Bank of England, excessive speculation in railroad stocks is usually included.
The Wall Street tumble hit the Lehigh Valley hard.
Historian Kenneth Stamp states that at least 400,000 workers across Pennsylvania and 20,000 workers in the state's iron region were thrown out of work in 1857. And the Valley was at the heart of the iron region.
Construction on the Allentown & Auburn stopped. But other railroads with more capital took advantage of its distress. On May 11, 1859, the East Pennsylvania Railroad, with a connection to the Lehigh Valley Railroad at Bethlehem, operated the first train from Reading to Allentown.
The Civil War brought prosperity to some railroads, but the Allentown & Auburn was not among them. There was a brief flurry of interest early in 1869 when the Reading Railroad talked of reviving the line. The Lehigh Register claimed surveyors were hard at work.
But on May 1, 1869, the Reading's board agreed to lease the East Pennsylvania Railroad for 999 years. It no longer needed the A & A. On Jan. 10, 1871, the Reading opened a spur from the East Penn's main line at Topton to Kutztown, known as the Allentown Railroad, which mean the A & A offered a near duplication of services.
All that remained of the A & A were memories, bridge abutments and the limekiln. The abutments were there in 1914, nearly 60 years after they were built, when local historian Charles Rhoads Roberts wrote about them in his anniversary history of Lehigh County. They were still there in the 1930s when Allentown architect John K. Heyl recalls seeing them.
According to Heyl's recollection it was the Works Progress Administration, the Depression era government work program, that finally dismantled them. In 1936 the WPA used the stones for the 700-foot-long wall and ornamental gateway that have been a feature of Lehigh Parkway's Park Drive since it opened in late 1930s.
But the limekiln was spared. It remains today, both as a historic artifact and as a puzzle to future generations who know nothing about the long gone A&A; railroad.
Allentown Railroad
Locale:
Lehigh County and Berks County, Pennsylvania
Dates of operation
1870–December 31, 1945
Successor
Reading Company
Track gauge
4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) (standard gauge)
Headquarters
Reading
The Allentown Railroad was a rail line proposed in the 1850s to connect the Central Railroad of New Jersey at Allentown with the Pennsylvania Railroad's main line across the Allegheny Mountains. Though grading was almost entirely finished, the project was halted by the Panic of 1857, and the completion of the East Pennsylvania Railroad in 1859 made the Allentown Railroad's proposed line largely redundant. As a result, track was never laid on most of the line. The small portion that did became a branchline of the Reading Company from Topton to Kutztown, and was nominally owned by the Allentown Railroad until the Reading dissolved it in 1945 to simplify corporate bookkeeping. Other Reading subsidiaries also laid track on parts of the right-of-way elsewhere along the route.
Origins
The CNJ had reached Phillipsburg in 1852, on the outskirts of the Lehigh Valley, and anticipated extension to Allentown. If a direct route could be built from Allentown to the Susquehanna, western traffic could reach New York faster by this route than by detouring through Philadelphia and coming north over the Camden and Amboy Railroad.
Such a route would run parallel to the mountains in the region, and a lateral coal railroad already extended west from the Susquehanna. The Dauphin and Susquehanna Coal Company connected with the PRR at Rockville (where their main line crossed the Susquehanna), ran north along the river to Dauphin, and turned northeast to run up Stony Valley to the Rausch Gap coal mines. It proved to be a willing partner in the plan.
Construction of route
An unfinished tunnel on the Allentown Railroad in 2009.
The D&S and CNJ jointly procured a charter, issued April 19, 1853, for the Allentown Railroad, which would construct the first segment of the route. It would run from Allentown to the Reading main line between Auburn and Port Clinton, with a branch into Kutztown. The Dauphin and Susquehanna Coal Company had charter rights to connect with any rail line in Schuylkill County, and it began building an extension of its line, starting from the Reading at Auburn and driving westward. By November 4, 1853, the new line of the D&S was open from Auburn to Pine Grove, following Bear Creek to its headwaters and then dropping down Lower Little Swatara Creek. Work continued on the more difficult middle segment, which required heavier grading to climb along the slopes of Second Mountain and enter Stony Valley at Fishing Creek Gap.
On March 13, 1854, a second railroad, the Auburn and Port Clinton Railroad, was chartered for the project. This would connect the D&S at Auburn with the Allentown RR at Port Clinton, running parallel to the Reading main line along the Schuylkill River. The combined railroads were sometimes unofficially referred to as the Auburn and Allentown Railroad. On April 13, 1854, the charters of both the Allentown and the A&PC railroads were amended to allow them to merge with the Lehigh Valley Railroad, then building down through Allentown towards Easton (across the river from Phillipsburg). The line from Pine Grove to Rausch Gap was completed in June, and the D&S ran its first through train.
In 1855, work began in earnest on the Allentown Railroad itself. The route chosen left Allentown in a southwesterly direction, passing through Dorneyville, Wescosville, Trexlertown, and Breinigsville. Ducking through Topton, it ran directly through Kutztown and followed Sacony Creek through the hills to Virginville. From thence it followed small streams west and north to Windsor Castle, site of the line's one tunnel. It was to be 1,100 feet (340 m) long, with rubble masonry portals. Leaving the tunnel, it would skirt the edges of Hamburg and push through the gorge of the Schuylkill to reach Port Clinton. By July 1856, the CNJ was prepared to abandon the project in favor of a rival route, via Reading. However, the other investors pressed on. The Auburn & Port Clinton was merged into the Allentown Railroad on January 1, 1857. The Panic of 1857, however, brought work to a halt. The D&S was foreclosed and reorganized on April 1, 1859 as the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad, under control of the Reading. On May 11, 1859, the East Pennsylvania Railroad opened, connecting Allentown and Reading. From Reading, traffic could either pass north to Auburn and thence over the Schuylkill and Susquehanna, or west over the Lebanon Valley Railroad to Harrisburg. The distance cut off by the direct route from Port Clinton to Allentown was minimal, so when the Reading gained control of the Allentown RR on July 12, 1860, it saw no reason to complete it.
Reading and later operation
The Reading briefly considered a revival of the project in 1869, but on May 1, 1869, it obtained a lease of the East Penn. This road would become a permanent part of the Reading system, and the Allentown Railroad's plants were negated forever. The Reading did lay rail on a small segment of the grade from the East Penn at Topton to reach Kutztown, a branch opened on January 10, 1870 or 1871. The Allentown Railroad remained a corporate entity in the Reading system until it was merged in on December 31, 1945 to simplify the corporate structure of that railroad and to save on taxes, as with a series of other mergers the next year. The line survived the bankruptcy and breakup of the Reading: it is now owned by the Kutztown Transportation Authority and operated by Penn Eastern Rail Lines, Inc.
A portion of the grade from Trexlertown to Breinigsville was used by the Catasauqua and Fogelsville Railroad to build a branch to local limonite deposits. This line, too, eventually came under Reading control. Finally, the Reading used a short segment of the right-of-way in Allentown itself to reach a Mack Truck plant in 1917.
Relics
Grading of the line was nearly complete by 1857, and many traces still remain today. Bridge abutments for the crossing of the Little Lehigh Creek were dismantled by Works Project Administration crews in the 1930s. A portion of the grading can still be seen on the southeast side of the intersection of Cedar Crest Boulevard and Route 222, near Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom, and on the north side of Route 222 between Grange and Krocks Roads. Turning Leaf Trail in Trexlertown and most of Wentz Road in Breinigsville were built on the part of the grade used by the Catasauqua & Fogelsville. Beyond the end of rail in Kutztown, the grade is intermittently intact along the Sacony, and almost continuous from Virginville to Hamburg.
Field Survey from March 2010 shows the graded ROW still very visible on the east side of Grange Road and on the west side of Krocks Road, as well as on the south side of Hamilton Boulevard just east of Cedar Crest Boulevard.
References
Locale:
Lehigh County and Berks County, Pennsylvania
Dates of operation
1870–December 31, 1945
Successor
Reading Company
Track gauge
4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) (standard gauge)
Headquarters
Reading
The Allentown Railroad was a rail line proposed in the 1850s to connect the Central Railroad of New Jersey at Allentown with the Pennsylvania Railroad's main line across the Allegheny Mountains. Though grading was almost entirely finished, the project was halted by the Panic of 1857, and the completion of the East Pennsylvania Railroad in 1859 made the Allentown Railroad's proposed line largely redundant. As a result, track was never laid on most of the line. The small portion that did became a branchline of the Reading Company from Topton to Kutztown, and was nominally owned by the Allentown Railroad until the Reading dissolved it in 1945 to simplify corporate bookkeeping. Other Reading subsidiaries also laid track on parts of the right-of-way elsewhere along the route.
Origins
The CNJ had reached Phillipsburg in 1852, on the outskirts of the Lehigh Valley, and anticipated extension to Allentown. If a direct route could be built from Allentown to the Susquehanna, western traffic could reach New York faster by this route than by detouring through Philadelphia and coming north over the Camden and Amboy Railroad.
Such a route would run parallel to the mountains in the region, and a lateral coal railroad already extended west from the Susquehanna. The Dauphin and Susquehanna Coal Company connected with the PRR at Rockville (where their main line crossed the Susquehanna), ran north along the river to Dauphin, and turned northeast to run up Stony Valley to the Rausch Gap coal mines. It proved to be a willing partner in the plan.
Construction of route
An unfinished tunnel on the Allentown Railroad in 2009.
The D&S and CNJ jointly procured a charter, issued April 19, 1853, for the Allentown Railroad, which would construct the first segment of the route. It would run from Allentown to the Reading main line between Auburn and Port Clinton, with a branch into Kutztown. The Dauphin and Susquehanna Coal Company had charter rights to connect with any rail line in Schuylkill County, and it began building an extension of its line, starting from the Reading at Auburn and driving westward. By November 4, 1853, the new line of the D&S was open from Auburn to Pine Grove, following Bear Creek to its headwaters and then dropping down Lower Little Swatara Creek. Work continued on the more difficult middle segment, which required heavier grading to climb along the slopes of Second Mountain and enter Stony Valley at Fishing Creek Gap.
On March 13, 1854, a second railroad, the Auburn and Port Clinton Railroad, was chartered for the project. This would connect the D&S at Auburn with the Allentown RR at Port Clinton, running parallel to the Reading main line along the Schuylkill River. The combined railroads were sometimes unofficially referred to as the Auburn and Allentown Railroad. On April 13, 1854, the charters of both the Allentown and the A&PC railroads were amended to allow them to merge with the Lehigh Valley Railroad, then building down through Allentown towards Easton (across the river from Phillipsburg). The line from Pine Grove to Rausch Gap was completed in June, and the D&S ran its first through train.
In 1855, work began in earnest on the Allentown Railroad itself. The route chosen left Allentown in a southwesterly direction, passing through Dorneyville, Wescosville, Trexlertown, and Breinigsville. Ducking through Topton, it ran directly through Kutztown and followed Sacony Creek through the hills to Virginville. From thence it followed small streams west and north to Windsor Castle, site of the line's one tunnel. It was to be 1,100 feet (340 m) long, with rubble masonry portals. Leaving the tunnel, it would skirt the edges of Hamburg and push through the gorge of the Schuylkill to reach Port Clinton. By July 1856, the CNJ was prepared to abandon the project in favor of a rival route, via Reading. However, the other investors pressed on. The Auburn & Port Clinton was merged into the Allentown Railroad on January 1, 1857. The Panic of 1857, however, brought work to a halt. The D&S was foreclosed and reorganized on April 1, 1859 as the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad, under control of the Reading. On May 11, 1859, the East Pennsylvania Railroad opened, connecting Allentown and Reading. From Reading, traffic could either pass north to Auburn and thence over the Schuylkill and Susquehanna, or west over the Lebanon Valley Railroad to Harrisburg. The distance cut off by the direct route from Port Clinton to Allentown was minimal, so when the Reading gained control of the Allentown RR on July 12, 1860, it saw no reason to complete it.
Reading and later operation
The Reading briefly considered a revival of the project in 1869, but on May 1, 1869, it obtained a lease of the East Penn. This road would become a permanent part of the Reading system, and the Allentown Railroad's plants were negated forever. The Reading did lay rail on a small segment of the grade from the East Penn at Topton to reach Kutztown, a branch opened on January 10, 1870 or 1871. The Allentown Railroad remained a corporate entity in the Reading system until it was merged in on December 31, 1945 to simplify the corporate structure of that railroad and to save on taxes, as with a series of other mergers the next year. The line survived the bankruptcy and breakup of the Reading: it is now owned by the Kutztown Transportation Authority and operated by Penn Eastern Rail Lines, Inc.
A portion of the grade from Trexlertown to Breinigsville was used by the Catasauqua and Fogelsville Railroad to build a branch to local limonite deposits. This line, too, eventually came under Reading control. Finally, the Reading used a short segment of the right-of-way in Allentown itself to reach a Mack Truck plant in 1917.
Relics
Grading of the line was nearly complete by 1857, and many traces still remain today. Bridge abutments for the crossing of the Little Lehigh Creek were dismantled by Works Project Administration crews in the 1930s. A portion of the grading can still be seen on the southeast side of the intersection of Cedar Crest Boulevard and Route 222, near Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom, and on the north side of Route 222 between Grange and Krocks Roads. Turning Leaf Trail in Trexlertown and most of Wentz Road in Breinigsville were built on the part of the grade used by the Catasauqua & Fogelsville. Beyond the end of rail in Kutztown, the grade is intermittently intact along the Sacony, and almost continuous from Virginville to Hamburg.
Field Survey from March 2010 shows the graded ROW still very visible on the east side of Grange Road and on the west side of Krocks Road, as well as on the south side of Hamilton Boulevard just east of Cedar Crest Boulevard.
References
- Allentown RR papers from the Reading Company archive at the Hagley Library
- Taber, Thomas T., III (1987). Railroads of Pennsylvania Encyclopedia and Atlas. Thomas T. Taber III. ISBN 0-9603398-5-X.
Dauphin & Susquehanna—Schuylkill & Susquehanna — Allentown Railroads
Less than a year after the discovery of anthracite on Stony Creek, in Dauphin County, the Dauphin and Susquehanna Coal Company secured corporate rights. This charter of April 5th, 1826, allowed the company to own 10,000 acres of coal lands on Short Mountain and Stony Creek, and the right to trade in coal. This property was in Dauphin, Lebanon and Schuylkill Counties, on the southern prong of the First Coal Field. Port Lyon, later Dauphin, on the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal, was the proposed market outlet, but capital for the project did not materialize. A supplemental act of April 11th, 1827, authorized either slackwater or canal navigation on Stony Creek to the mines. In April, 1838, the Legislature authorized either a railroad or a canal and, by 1840, engineer Edward Miller had located thirteen miles from Rattling Run to Dauphin, and had surveyed nineteen additional miles, viz., eleven miles to the summit of the valley and eight to the Union Canal Branch. Extensions to Reading and Pottsville were under consideration. Permission to link the company's proposed railroad with other lines in Dauphin and Lebanon Counties came in March, 1848, and February, 1850.
Construction between Rausch Gap and Dauphin began in 1850 under engineers Miller and Charles R. Paxton. The company opened mines at Fort Lookout, Beartown and Big Flats. At Yellow Springs, near the Dauphin-Lebanon County line, an inclined plane fed coal southward to the main line from coal drifts on the mountain. Rausch Gap was the location of the company's headquarters and machine shop, and a breaker between the main line and veins in the Gap above. The three-mile branch, beginning at this Gap, extended eastward and paralleled the main line at a higher level past Gold Mine Gap and breaker to Black Springs Gap. At Rattling Run a highway through the Gap connected the railroad with coal veins. With abandonment of the Rausch Gap shops and mining, and merger of the S. & S. with the Reading in 1872, the houses at the various breakers and at the Rausch Gap shops were moved by rail into Pine Grove. Railroad repairs began at Pine Grove Shops with the move.
On February 26th, 1852, the D. & S. Company was authorized to extend their rail line to the P. & R. and the Schuylkill Navigation Canal at Auburn. Delivery of D. & S. and other coal in P. & R. and S. N. C. coal cars was one goal of this extension. This proposed section of the road was on the route of the Fishing Creek, Swatara & Schuylkill R. R.,from Fishing Creek to Auburn, via Pine Grove. Location began during September, 1852, under engineers Richard O. Osborne and Henry K. Nichols. The new line insured an immense coal traffic from the west end of the First Coal Field basin to the P. & R.
The D. & S. report for 1852 stated that the company had a first class T-rail line of 291/2 miles with descending grades to their $41,000 Dauphin Canal Basin. A three-mile lateral to Gold Mine, Black Springs and Rausch Gap mines, and those at Yellow Springs, Fort Lookout, Beartown and Big Plats produced 23,472 tons of coal transported by three locomotives and 529 cars. Contracts were under way for thirty-one miles of T- or 60-lb. bar rail, to link the road with the Reading and the Schuylkill Canal at Auburn. The company had floated a million dollar loan in bonds without offering them for public sale. Though mainly financed by New York capital and aided by the Tyler coal interests on Lorberry Creek, John Tucker, president of the P. & R., was a director in 1851.
The Auburn-Pine Grove section, completed November 4th, 1853, was opened to traffic on February 1st, 1854, and the Pine Grove-Rausch's Gap link opened during June. The first D. & S. locomotive to enter Pine Grove, the "Judge Hegins," attracted a crowd of over a thousand. Yet another link, trackage rights over the P. R. R., enabled the road to run into Harrisburg, during February, 1854. In 1854, the movement of coal at Pine Grove showed that the D. & S. carried less than 40 percent of the coal passing over the Union Canal R. R.
With completion of the Pennsylvania from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg, the D. & S. Company caught the "through line fever." A forty mile extension from their chartered terminus at Auburn to the Lehigh Valley at Allentown would make it a part of the "great Atlantic and Pacific Route." D. & S. interests secured a charter for the ALLENTOWN RAILROAD, on April 19th, 1853, linking Allentown with Port Clinton, and for the AUBURN & PORT CLINTON R. R. on March 30th, 1854, to parallel the Reading between those towns in the Schuylkill Valley. Exactly a month later, the Legislature passed an act enabling the Allentown R. R. to consolidate with the Lehigh Valley and/or the Auburn & Port Clinton.
The latter road graded part of its line before merging with the Allentown on January 1st, 1857. Part of this right of way is visible, in 1956, on the right of the Reading below Auburn. Engineer Elwood Morris located the Allentown route, and construction on the entire contract began on March 9th, 1857, by Pierre Chonteau, Jr., of New York. When the depression of 1857 slowed stock installment payments and prevented European sales, by mutual agreement the railroad and Chonteau canceled the construction contract. However, work continued with individual contractors being paid in stock. Work accomplished included grading and many still existent stone viaducts between Port Clinton and Allentown and an uncompleted 2000-foot tunnel between Hamburg and Virginsville in Berks County. The editor of the Kutztown Geist der Zeit boosted stock subscription and invested personally. One story told how $5,000 in Allentown stock was purchased years later bythe P. & R., and with the proceeds the investor's heirs bought a tomb-stone for him. Allentown R. R. subscribers received D. & S. stock as a bonus, which, the D. & S. reported as amounting to $395,739, in 1859, and Poor's told that actual Allentown stock receipts during that year had been $304,118, of which $237,840 had been expended when construction ended.
The Reading Berks and Schuylkill Journal constantly informed its readers about the D. & S. and its Allentown R. R. link, because of the financial and traffic competition with Reading area interest in the Lebanon Valley and East Pennsylvania Railroads, also linking Harrisburg with Allentown. Completion of the D. & S. to Auburn in September, 1853, to Harrisburg in February, 1854, the activity between Port Clinton and Allentown in November, 1855, and the financial backing of this route by New York bankers in 1857, were all duly reported. One paper noted the Reading's operation of a Philadelphia-Harrisburg passenger train via Auburn and the D. & S. soon after completion, and reported the end of this run in May, 1855. A P. & R. advertisement of a reduction in fare for this trip to $3.00 appeared in December, 1857, six months after passenger service began on the Reading-sponsored Lebanon Valley R. R. This indirect Philadelphia-Harrisburg passenger service ended again during March, 1858. The attempted consolidation of the D. & S. with the Allentown R. R., during February, 1858, as allowed in an act of May 4th, 1857, was reported in the Journal, which presented the Allentown R. R. as a direct threat to the East Pennsylvania investment and as a line totally unnecessary, even after traffic began on the East Penn to Allentown and New York. To "end the need" for the Allentown road, the East Penn finally built a branch from Temple to Tuckerton, known locally as the "Bull Run" branch. Abandoned for many years, its right of way can still be seen at Tuckerton, north of Reading.
Despite production of 35,000 tons of coal at a profit of $35,000 in 1854, under the superintendence of Wm. Grant, an experienced Schuylkill County mine operator, the company suffered financially due mainly to its rail expansion. The sheriff of Lebanon County advertised the coal and railroad property, a threat ended by injunction action. The depression of 1857 bore down on the company, despite a coal traffic of 80,000 tons. By May, 1858, the D. & S. made an assignment to P. Chonteau, Jr. This effort ended in a foreclosure sale in March, 1859, which ended merger efforts. On April 28th, 1859, the D. & S. Coal & R. R. Company emerged from re-organization as the Schuylkill & Susquehanna R. R. Company.
Before the foreclosure, the D. & S. represented an investment of $6,208,325. Among its debits were the following:--
Rolling stock consisted of seven locomotives and 33 cars. Of the latter, 24 were freight, 2 were coal, 3 were first class passenger cars, and 4 were second class. Average annual income between January 1st, 1855, and March 1st, 1859, had been $104,213, expenses were $75,903, leaving average net earnings of $28,310, far insufficient for interest requirements.
The P. & R., delivering Lykens Valley coal to Philadelphia, and owning the Lebanon Valley R. R. and an interest in the Northern Central, desired a connection between its lines; it secured legislative approval on April 9th, 1859, for the link and ordered its construction the following January. When the P. R. R. tendered trackage rights over the same route, effective November 1st, 1860, construction ended. At the other end of the road, in September, 1859, the S. & S. failed in an attempt to cross the P. & R. and to reach the Schuylkill Canal.
Prodded by S. & S. control of the Allentown R. R. with its shorter route to market, the decreasing tonnage from the S. & S., and the possible penetration of the Allentown line into the Pottsville region, the Reading began negotiations for lease of the S. & S., in 1860. Failure of coal production from S. & S. lands to earn the road's interest charges led that road to propose sale of the railroad with its coal lands and the Allentown R. R. to the P. & R. A committee from that road reported favorably on this proposal and, on July 12th, 1860, controlling interest in both the S. & S. and the A. R. R. came to the Reading. In August, P. & R. officials took all S. & S. offices. The Journal reported the new control of both lines, adding a mis-statement that Lebanon Valley competition had drawn all traffic from the S. & S. except 3036 tons of anthracite. The Reading report of 1862 told that $517,865.33 had purchased the majority stock of both roads, noting that the line from Auburn to Port Clinton was partly graded and the section between there and Allentown nearly completed. At the merger of 1872, the P. & R. valued the 21,702 shares of S. & S. stock at $404,388.00. The P. & R. also acquired 7500 shares of A. R. R. stock on which $20 per share was unpaid, and created a trust for the unpaid assessments. Court action against subscribers followed.
For the proposed Manufacturers & Consumers R. R. of 1868, Engineer Rufus A. Wilder investigated and recommended the partly-graded Allentown road for one of the possible routes to the Lehigh River, as if it were readily available for purchase and use. At this very time the Reading was ready to renew construction of this route as its part in the Atlantic & Great Western lease of the Catawissa and Morris & Essex Railroads. With this construction the P. & R. canceled the trust set up to collect the unpaid $150,000, and actually built a railroad from Topton on the East Penn, three miles to Kutztown, opened on January 10th, 1870.
In 1873, the Allentown R. R. capitalization was $2,000,000, of which $567,544 was paid in. There was no funded debt, but the floating debt was about $1,000,000. The Reading leased the Kutztown section of the A. R. R. by a verbal agreement until the reorganization in 1896. The line existed as a corporate entity until December 31st, 1945, when the Reading Company ended its existence by merger.
At the request of the Navy Department, during World War II, the entire S. & S., with the exception of a short section at Auburn, was scrapped. Before this scrapping, however, the burning of the covered bridge over the Swatara at Pine Grove had cut the line with little inconvenience to the Reading Company.
LOCOMOTIVES OF THE SCHUYLKILL & SUSQUEHANNA R. R.
The S. & S. engines were taken over by the P. & R. in 1872, except the " Gold Mine, " which had been sold to the Reading in June, 1866. No. 459 was changed to 2nd No. 94, in Sept. 1903, replacing the first No. 94, which was originally No. 6, Catasauqua & Fogelsville R. R.. In 1855, the P. & R. purchased the 25-ton "Pine Grove," a product of Danforth, Cooke & Co., from P. Chonteau, Jr., & Company, the contractors referred to.
Less than a year after the discovery of anthracite on Stony Creek, in Dauphin County, the Dauphin and Susquehanna Coal Company secured corporate rights. This charter of April 5th, 1826, allowed the company to own 10,000 acres of coal lands on Short Mountain and Stony Creek, and the right to trade in coal. This property was in Dauphin, Lebanon and Schuylkill Counties, on the southern prong of the First Coal Field. Port Lyon, later Dauphin, on the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal, was the proposed market outlet, but capital for the project did not materialize. A supplemental act of April 11th, 1827, authorized either slackwater or canal navigation on Stony Creek to the mines. In April, 1838, the Legislature authorized either a railroad or a canal and, by 1840, engineer Edward Miller had located thirteen miles from Rattling Run to Dauphin, and had surveyed nineteen additional miles, viz., eleven miles to the summit of the valley and eight to the Union Canal Branch. Extensions to Reading and Pottsville were under consideration. Permission to link the company's proposed railroad with other lines in Dauphin and Lebanon Counties came in March, 1848, and February, 1850.
Construction between Rausch Gap and Dauphin began in 1850 under engineers Miller and Charles R. Paxton. The company opened mines at Fort Lookout, Beartown and Big Flats. At Yellow Springs, near the Dauphin-Lebanon County line, an inclined plane fed coal southward to the main line from coal drifts on the mountain. Rausch Gap was the location of the company's headquarters and machine shop, and a breaker between the main line and veins in the Gap above. The three-mile branch, beginning at this Gap, extended eastward and paralleled the main line at a higher level past Gold Mine Gap and breaker to Black Springs Gap. At Rattling Run a highway through the Gap connected the railroad with coal veins. With abandonment of the Rausch Gap shops and mining, and merger of the S. & S. with the Reading in 1872, the houses at the various breakers and at the Rausch Gap shops were moved by rail into Pine Grove. Railroad repairs began at Pine Grove Shops with the move.
On February 26th, 1852, the D. & S. Company was authorized to extend their rail line to the P. & R. and the Schuylkill Navigation Canal at Auburn. Delivery of D. & S. and other coal in P. & R. and S. N. C. coal cars was one goal of this extension. This proposed section of the road was on the route of the Fishing Creek, Swatara & Schuylkill R. R.,from Fishing Creek to Auburn, via Pine Grove. Location began during September, 1852, under engineers Richard O. Osborne and Henry K. Nichols. The new line insured an immense coal traffic from the west end of the First Coal Field basin to the P. & R.
The D. & S. report for 1852 stated that the company had a first class T-rail line of 291/2 miles with descending grades to their $41,000 Dauphin Canal Basin. A three-mile lateral to Gold Mine, Black Springs and Rausch Gap mines, and those at Yellow Springs, Fort Lookout, Beartown and Big Plats produced 23,472 tons of coal transported by three locomotives and 529 cars. Contracts were under way for thirty-one miles of T- or 60-lb. bar rail, to link the road with the Reading and the Schuylkill Canal at Auburn. The company had floated a million dollar loan in bonds without offering them for public sale. Though mainly financed by New York capital and aided by the Tyler coal interests on Lorberry Creek, John Tucker, president of the P. & R., was a director in 1851.
The Auburn-Pine Grove section, completed November 4th, 1853, was opened to traffic on February 1st, 1854, and the Pine Grove-Rausch's Gap link opened during June. The first D. & S. locomotive to enter Pine Grove, the "Judge Hegins," attracted a crowd of over a thousand. Yet another link, trackage rights over the P. R. R., enabled the road to run into Harrisburg, during February, 1854. In 1854, the movement of coal at Pine Grove showed that the D. & S. carried less than 40 percent of the coal passing over the Union Canal R. R.
With completion of the Pennsylvania from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg, the D. & S. Company caught the "through line fever." A forty mile extension from their chartered terminus at Auburn to the Lehigh Valley at Allentown would make it a part of the "great Atlantic and Pacific Route." D. & S. interests secured a charter for the ALLENTOWN RAILROAD, on April 19th, 1853, linking Allentown with Port Clinton, and for the AUBURN & PORT CLINTON R. R. on March 30th, 1854, to parallel the Reading between those towns in the Schuylkill Valley. Exactly a month later, the Legislature passed an act enabling the Allentown R. R. to consolidate with the Lehigh Valley and/or the Auburn & Port Clinton.
The latter road graded part of its line before merging with the Allentown on January 1st, 1857. Part of this right of way is visible, in 1956, on the right of the Reading below Auburn. Engineer Elwood Morris located the Allentown route, and construction on the entire contract began on March 9th, 1857, by Pierre Chonteau, Jr., of New York. When the depression of 1857 slowed stock installment payments and prevented European sales, by mutual agreement the railroad and Chonteau canceled the construction contract. However, work continued with individual contractors being paid in stock. Work accomplished included grading and many still existent stone viaducts between Port Clinton and Allentown and an uncompleted 2000-foot tunnel between Hamburg and Virginsville in Berks County. The editor of the Kutztown Geist der Zeit boosted stock subscription and invested personally. One story told how $5,000 in Allentown stock was purchased years later bythe P. & R., and with the proceeds the investor's heirs bought a tomb-stone for him. Allentown R. R. subscribers received D. & S. stock as a bonus, which, the D. & S. reported as amounting to $395,739, in 1859, and Poor's told that actual Allentown stock receipts during that year had been $304,118, of which $237,840 had been expended when construction ended.
The Reading Berks and Schuylkill Journal constantly informed its readers about the D. & S. and its Allentown R. R. link, because of the financial and traffic competition with Reading area interest in the Lebanon Valley and East Pennsylvania Railroads, also linking Harrisburg with Allentown. Completion of the D. & S. to Auburn in September, 1853, to Harrisburg in February, 1854, the activity between Port Clinton and Allentown in November, 1855, and the financial backing of this route by New York bankers in 1857, were all duly reported. One paper noted the Reading's operation of a Philadelphia-Harrisburg passenger train via Auburn and the D. & S. soon after completion, and reported the end of this run in May, 1855. A P. & R. advertisement of a reduction in fare for this trip to $3.00 appeared in December, 1857, six months after passenger service began on the Reading-sponsored Lebanon Valley R. R. This indirect Philadelphia-Harrisburg passenger service ended again during March, 1858. The attempted consolidation of the D. & S. with the Allentown R. R., during February, 1858, as allowed in an act of May 4th, 1857, was reported in the Journal, which presented the Allentown R. R. as a direct threat to the East Pennsylvania investment and as a line totally unnecessary, even after traffic began on the East Penn to Allentown and New York. To "end the need" for the Allentown road, the East Penn finally built a branch from Temple to Tuckerton, known locally as the "Bull Run" branch. Abandoned for many years, its right of way can still be seen at Tuckerton, north of Reading.
Despite production of 35,000 tons of coal at a profit of $35,000 in 1854, under the superintendence of Wm. Grant, an experienced Schuylkill County mine operator, the company suffered financially due mainly to its rail expansion. The sheriff of Lebanon County advertised the coal and railroad property, a threat ended by injunction action. The depression of 1857 bore down on the company, despite a coal traffic of 80,000 tons. By May, 1858, the D. & S. made an assignment to P. Chonteau, Jr. This effort ended in a foreclosure sale in March, 1859, which ended merger efforts. On April 28th, 1859, the D. & S. Coal & R. R. Company emerged from re-organization as the Schuylkill & Susquehanna R. R. Company.
Before the foreclosure, the D. & S. represented an investment of $6,208,325. Among its debits were the following:--
Rolling stock consisted of seven locomotives and 33 cars. Of the latter, 24 were freight, 2 were coal, 3 were first class passenger cars, and 4 were second class. Average annual income between January 1st, 1855, and March 1st, 1859, had been $104,213, expenses were $75,903, leaving average net earnings of $28,310, far insufficient for interest requirements.
The P. & R., delivering Lykens Valley coal to Philadelphia, and owning the Lebanon Valley R. R. and an interest in the Northern Central, desired a connection between its lines; it secured legislative approval on April 9th, 1859, for the link and ordered its construction the following January. When the P. R. R. tendered trackage rights over the same route, effective November 1st, 1860, construction ended. At the other end of the road, in September, 1859, the S. & S. failed in an attempt to cross the P. & R. and to reach the Schuylkill Canal.
Prodded by S. & S. control of the Allentown R. R. with its shorter route to market, the decreasing tonnage from the S. & S., and the possible penetration of the Allentown line into the Pottsville region, the Reading began negotiations for lease of the S. & S., in 1860. Failure of coal production from S. & S. lands to earn the road's interest charges led that road to propose sale of the railroad with its coal lands and the Allentown R. R. to the P. & R. A committee from that road reported favorably on this proposal and, on July 12th, 1860, controlling interest in both the S. & S. and the A. R. R. came to the Reading. In August, P. & R. officials took all S. & S. offices. The Journal reported the new control of both lines, adding a mis-statement that Lebanon Valley competition had drawn all traffic from the S. & S. except 3036 tons of anthracite. The Reading report of 1862 told that $517,865.33 had purchased the majority stock of both roads, noting that the line from Auburn to Port Clinton was partly graded and the section between there and Allentown nearly completed. At the merger of 1872, the P. & R. valued the 21,702 shares of S. & S. stock at $404,388.00. The P. & R. also acquired 7500 shares of A. R. R. stock on which $20 per share was unpaid, and created a trust for the unpaid assessments. Court action against subscribers followed.
For the proposed Manufacturers & Consumers R. R. of 1868, Engineer Rufus A. Wilder investigated and recommended the partly-graded Allentown road for one of the possible routes to the Lehigh River, as if it were readily available for purchase and use. At this very time the Reading was ready to renew construction of this route as its part in the Atlantic & Great Western lease of the Catawissa and Morris & Essex Railroads. With this construction the P. & R. canceled the trust set up to collect the unpaid $150,000, and actually built a railroad from Topton on the East Penn, three miles to Kutztown, opened on January 10th, 1870.
In 1873, the Allentown R. R. capitalization was $2,000,000, of which $567,544 was paid in. There was no funded debt, but the floating debt was about $1,000,000. The Reading leased the Kutztown section of the A. R. R. by a verbal agreement until the reorganization in 1896. The line existed as a corporate entity until December 31st, 1945, when the Reading Company ended its existence by merger.
At the request of the Navy Department, during World War II, the entire S. & S., with the exception of a short section at Auburn, was scrapped. Before this scrapping, however, the burning of the covered bridge over the Swatara at Pine Grove had cut the line with little inconvenience to the Reading Company.
LOCOMOTIVES OF THE SCHUYLKILL & SUSQUEHANNA R. R.
The S. & S. engines were taken over by the P. & R. in 1872, except the " Gold Mine, " which had been sold to the Reading in June, 1866. No. 459 was changed to 2nd No. 94, in Sept. 1903, replacing the first No. 94, which was originally No. 6, Catasauqua & Fogelsville R. R.. In 1855, the P. & R. purchased the 25-ton "Pine Grove," a product of Danforth, Cooke & Co., from P. Chonteau, Jr., & Company, the contractors referred to.
Excerpt from the website http://allentownandauburnrr.com
"The Allentown & Auburn Railroad has its beginnings all the way back in 1853 when part of our current line was referred to as the “Auburn and Allentown Railroad”.
In that year a charter was procured for the Allentown Railroad by the D&S and CNJ for a railway that would run from Allentown to the Reading main line between Auburn and Port Clinton, PA with a branch into Kutztown.
In 1855, work began in earnest on the Allentown Railroad itself. The route chosen left Allentown in a southwesterly direction, passed through Dorneyville, Wescosville, Trexlertown, and Breinigsville. Ducking through Topton, it ran directly through Kutztown and followed Sacony Creek through the hills to Virginville. From thence it followed small streams west and north to Windsor Castle, site of the line’s one tunnel. It was to be 1,100 feet (340 m) long, with rubble masonry portals. Leaving the tunnel, it would skirt the edges of Hamburg and push through the gorge of the Schuylkill to reach Port Clinton. By July 1856, the CNJ was prepared to abandon the project in favor of a rival route, via Reading. However, the other investors pressed on. The Auburn & Port Clinton was merged into the Allentown Railroad on January 1, 1857. The Panic of 1857, however, brought work to a halt. The D&S was foreclosed and reorganized on April 1, 1859 as the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad, under control of the Reading. On May 11, 1859, the East Pennsylvania Railroad opened, connecting Allentown and Reading. From Reading, traffic could either pass north to Auburn and thence over the Schuylkill and Susquehanna, or west over the Lebanon Valley Railroad to Harrisburg. The distance cut off by the direct route from Port Clinton to Allentown was minimal, so when the Reading gained control of the Allentown RR on July 12, 1860, it saw no reason to complete it.
The Reading did lay rail on a small segment of the grade from the East Penn at Topton to reach Kutztown, a branch opened on January 10, 1870 or 1871. The Allentown Railroad remained a corporate entity in the Reading system until it was merged in on December 31, 1945 to simplify the corporate structure of that railroad and to save on taxes, as with a series of other mergers the next year. The line survived the bankruptcy and breakup of the Reading: it is now owned by the Kutztown Transportation Authority and operated by us, The Allentown and Auburn Railroad."
"The Allentown & Auburn Railroad has its beginnings all the way back in 1853 when part of our current line was referred to as the “Auburn and Allentown Railroad”.
In that year a charter was procured for the Allentown Railroad by the D&S and CNJ for a railway that would run from Allentown to the Reading main line between Auburn and Port Clinton, PA with a branch into Kutztown.
In 1855, work began in earnest on the Allentown Railroad itself. The route chosen left Allentown in a southwesterly direction, passed through Dorneyville, Wescosville, Trexlertown, and Breinigsville. Ducking through Topton, it ran directly through Kutztown and followed Sacony Creek through the hills to Virginville. From thence it followed small streams west and north to Windsor Castle, site of the line’s one tunnel. It was to be 1,100 feet (340 m) long, with rubble masonry portals. Leaving the tunnel, it would skirt the edges of Hamburg and push through the gorge of the Schuylkill to reach Port Clinton. By July 1856, the CNJ was prepared to abandon the project in favor of a rival route, via Reading. However, the other investors pressed on. The Auburn & Port Clinton was merged into the Allentown Railroad on January 1, 1857. The Panic of 1857, however, brought work to a halt. The D&S was foreclosed and reorganized on April 1, 1859 as the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad, under control of the Reading. On May 11, 1859, the East Pennsylvania Railroad opened, connecting Allentown and Reading. From Reading, traffic could either pass north to Auburn and thence over the Schuylkill and Susquehanna, or west over the Lebanon Valley Railroad to Harrisburg. The distance cut off by the direct route from Port Clinton to Allentown was minimal, so when the Reading gained control of the Allentown RR on July 12, 1860, it saw no reason to complete it.
The Reading did lay rail on a small segment of the grade from the East Penn at Topton to reach Kutztown, a branch opened on January 10, 1870 or 1871. The Allentown Railroad remained a corporate entity in the Reading system until it was merged in on December 31, 1945 to simplify the corporate structure of that railroad and to save on taxes, as with a series of other mergers the next year. The line survived the bankruptcy and breakup of the Reading: it is now owned by the Kutztown Transportation Authority and operated by us, The Allentown and Auburn Railroad."