This is copied from a Pennsylvania Magazine from 1987
The Lebanon and Tremont Branch proper consisted of the former Lebanon and Tremont RR lines from Lebanon to Pine Grove and Lorberry Junction to Tremont, and the former Union Canal RR line from Pine Grove to Lorberry Junction. The Good Spring RR became the Brookside Branch, and the Lorberry Creek RR became the Lorberry Branch. Around 1872, the tail of the second Lorberry Branch switchback was extended, and ran by a switchback down the north side of Stony Mountain to reach the Kalmia Colliery. This line was known as the Kalmia Branch, or sometimes as the Lorberry Extension Railroad. It was then extended by another switchback into Clarks Valley, and ran some distance along Clarks Creek. This was known as the Clarks Valley Branch. In 1892, the Williams Valley Railroad built a line into the Williams Valley from Brookside, which later came under Reading control.[1]
Several other Reading branches connected with the Lebanon and Tremont: the Lebanon Valley at Lebanon, the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Branch at Pine
Grove, and the Tremont Extension and Mount Eagle Branch at Tremont.
Abandonments
The Clarks Valley Branch and the Kalmia Branch between Ecco and Kalmia collieries were removed before 1920. In 1940, the rest of the Kalmia Branch was removed; around this time, the second switchback on the Lorberry Branch was abandoned, as the Lincoln Colliery had ceased operation in 1930.[9] A new spur and loop was constructed at Lorberry, possibly to serve strip mines. In 1965, the Lebanon and Tremont Branch between Pine Grove and Suedberg was abandoned, severing it. The whole of the Lorberry Branch was abandoned in 1966. In 1971, the Good Spring Branch was cut back from Brookside to Keffers, and in 1973, back as far as Good Spring.[1]
The remaining trackage was transferred to Conrail in 1976. The line from Lorberry Junction to Pine Grove was abandoned before 1978, and the remaining parts of the Lebanon and Tremont Branch (Lebanon—Suedberg and Pine Grove—Lorberry Junction) were abandoned before 1981.[1] Only the Brookside Branch between Tremont and Good Spring remains in operation.
Dauphin County Railroads in the First Coal Field
All of the lines described to this point were completely within Schuylkill County except the Lebanon & Pine Grove to the iron city of Lebanon. By switchbacks the Reading extended both their Good Spring route into Lykens, in the Wisconisco Valley, and their Lorberry route into Clarks Valley, in northeastern Dauphin County. Both valleys drain into the Susquehanna River and form the fishtail of the First Coal Field. U. S. Topographic Maps of 1892 and 1893, reprinted in 1936 and 1939, locate the now-abandoned Clarks Valley switchback. Climbing to above 1400 feet out of Lorberry Creek, the westernmost point of the upper switchback was at 1250 feet. Kalmia Colliery and the eastern point were at 1150 feet, while the lower section extended down Clarks Creek nearly 6.5 miles from Kalmia to the 700-foot level. The abandoned right of way can be seen in 1956 from Gold Mine Trail, between Tower City and Lickdale.
The Good Spring-Brookside switchback, existing in 1956, parallels Big Lick Mountain at levels from 1400 to 1200 feet, while Lykens station is near 650 feet. There never was any physical connection between this Reading branch and the P. R. R. at Lykens, though authorized in 1870.
The Williams Valley R. R. received legislative sanction on September 19th and November 24th, 1891, to build 7.2 miles from Lykens to Brookside on the Good Spring Branch. Train operations began on July 1st, 1892. Tonnage in 1894 consisted of 5287 of anthracite and 12,022 in miscellaneous freight. Capitalization in 1896 was $90,000 in stock and $87,000 in five percent bonds. By 1906, the P. & R. owned $20,000 in bonds. Operating deficits by 1909 were $15,685. When taken over by the Reading, between June, 1908 and June, 1909 one locomotive, the "A. F. Baker," No. 1, came to the parent company, becoming No. 1460. It was a Baldwin 2-6-0, shop number 12806, 1892, having 18"x24" cylinders and 54" drivers, and was scrapped by the Reading in 1916.
An item in the Harrisburg Patriot of September 27th, 1956, stated that steam locomotives would replace Diesels on some Reading Company coal lines; especially mentioned was the Good Spring-Lykens switchback.
Among the lines proposed to tap the northern prong of the First Coal Field fishtail in Dauphin County were the William Valley Rail Road & Mining Company, and the Union Rail Road & Mining Company, of 1839-40, both financed by Harrisburg capital. The Williams Valley plan called for a two-mile tunnel completely through Big Lick Mountain from the floor of Wisconisco Valley to Rausch Gap, thereby cutting every coal vein. Unfortunately, the coal pitched northward, opposite the slope of the mountain and, as a result, the eighty yards excavated failed to reach coal. This "Red Shale Tunnel" is visible today at the head of Seventh Street in Tower City. The railroad was to have run southwesterly from this tunnel to and down Clarks Creek Valley to the Susquehanna. Joseph W. Cake was president and Hother Hoge was chief engineer, with headquarters at Pine Grove. Litigation over land titles ruined the company. On May 7th, 1855, this corporation revived as the Schuylkill and Dauphin Improvement Company. That the tunnel plan was feasible is proven by a similar post-War II project of the P. & R. Coal & Iron Co., in this same valley.
Hope that helps.
Len
_____________________________