Cactus Jack wrote:Did Erie ever really go to DuBois ?
Somehow I think they had a mine spur access through Falls Creek towards Reynoldsville but were they an actual player or presence in DuBois ?
After they started running over the BR&P to access the Toby Branch did they still have to run over the PRR to get to WI Tower from Brockway Yard or did they have their own separate track ?
Doug -
Yes, the Erie had trackage rights on the BR&P from Clarion Jct to Eleanora Jct, 49.93 miles of road, shown in my 1954 Moody's Guide. Eleanora was the end of a BR&P branch from Punsxy to the north west, and the site of a large coal mine. My wife's grandfather worked in Eleanora Mine. His family, the Pifers, occupied the area, as shown by two Pifer Schools on the same Dubois Quadrangle, SW corner.
Back to the railroad. The Erie owned two of its own branches from the BR&P south of Dubois, connecting with the BR&P at Eriton and Cramer. So the Erie did serve coal mines south of Dubois although they probably did not have much of a presence in Dubois proper except for trains passing through. I never learned a thing about Erie operations around Dubois, but it's possible that they ran some mine run crews from Dubois, and it's possible that the BR&P could have serviced their engines at Dubois. Or they could have done all of that at Brockway, but I don't recall anything about an Erie engine house at Brockway. They certainly must have had something there to coal and water the engines coming from Salamanca.
As for Brockway, the Erie never had their own track between Clarion Jct. and WI Tower. They had always used trackage rights on the BR&P/B&O. There was a short piece of Erie track from WI to a connection with the PRR (Ridgeway and Clearfield RR), then 0.74 miles of trackage rights on the PRR to the Erie's own Toby Branch. EL was still using those trackage rights until Conrail day in 1976.
Penn Central did not operate anything over that track. As was to be expected, PC didn't spend much time or money to maintain it, which caused some interchange problems when I was there on the Pittsburg and Shawmut during that pre-Conrail time. After Conrail, of course, EL was out of Brockway. The P&S took over the local traffic between Brockway and Crenshaw, so that piece of PRR at Brockway was no longer in service. The P&S interchanged directly with the B&O at Dellwood, but I don't recall any instance of an EL train reaching Brockway via Dellwood and the P&S when they had a derailment on the PRR trackage.
Thanks for prompting me to dig out some interesting refernces.
- Gordon Davids
