Frackville Grade today

carajul wrote:Would anyone care to guess what the service/train frequency was toward the end for the Frack grade track? I know St Nick was still open and operating in 1971, but the arial shots from that year show it down to 1 track and not in the best of shape. The 5 tracks thru Frack were gone too.

Also why did the PRR abandon their line in 1968? Was traffic down that much?

Here is the Conrail Final System plan recommendations from 1975. See page 451, line number 921 (St. Clair through Frackville to Bear Run Junction). (Apparently by 1975 the Reading controlled the ex PRR line heading northeast (and downhill) from Frackville to Bear Run junction). Anyway, the report says the grade we have been mostly talking about, St. Clair up to Frackville, was out of service already. I guess any local traffic for Frackville went up the other way, from Bear Run Jct. The whole piece was not recommended for inclusion in Conrail. Not sure if that section ever came back.
http://www.multimodalways.org/docs/govt ... %20VII.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Jim S

Someone stated in another threat that the Frackville grade was washed out near Weatherhill Jct from hurricane Agnes in 1972. The washout was so bad the tracks were just suspended in mid-air. The line never saw service again. With coal traffic so low and St Clair yard closed in 1963 and the RDG was financially broke I assume they just said screw the trackage and put the line oos. You can read on page 452 of that system map that the washout would have to be repaired.

There are still a few telegraph poles and ties here and there present day.

And how did certain parts of the row turn into commercial businesses? On that aerial view it appears that the ROW seems to run right into a small strip mall, near the Walmart. Well, that forever prevents the ROW from being used as a railroad again if new businesses are blocking the ROW at spots. Would have been neat to see R&N run up that way.

Typically if not included in Conrail, the line was left to the former company to dispose of however they liked.

As above that is correct. RR companies that did not dissolve after c-day were usually taken over by corporate raiders as their stock was trading for pennies. This was the case with the RDG. The stock was virtually worthless trading on pink sheet for a few pennies per share, and a rich lawyer bought the company. Anything not RR-related CR did not buy, so the ex-RR corporation still owned it. A lot of valuble real estate was left with the ex-RR corps. Said real estate was sold and made the corporate raiders rich.

As for the R&N using the Frack grade, there would be no reason. They own both lines to the north and south of Frackville, and there is no more coal or online customers, so it's a moot point.