Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad crossing Oil Creek

The Oil Creek and Titusville Railroad is a

tourist railroad A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...

that runs from Titusville to Rynd Farm north of Oil City in the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

state of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. The Oil Creek and Titusville Lines is the designated operator of the railroad, as well as the

freight Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including tran ...

carrier on the line.

History

The Oil Creek and Titusville operates over tracks that were originally built as the main line of the Buffalo, New York and Philadelphia Railroad in the 1880s; trackage in Titusville was originally owned by the

Dunkirk, Allegheny Valley and Pittsburgh Railroad The Dunkirk, Allegheny Valley and Pittsburgh Railroad is a historic railroad company that operated in Pennsylvania and New York. Chartered in 1867, its first passenger train ran in 1871. After several mergers and name changes, it was leased to ...

. The Buffalo, New York and Philadelphia was reorganized in 1887 into the Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad, which was eventually acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1900. The Pennsylvania was merged with the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mid ...

in 1968 and became

Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania, New York Central and the ...

. In 1976, Penn Central went bankrupt, along with several other railroads, and was combined into Conrail. In 1986, the line was acquired from Conrail by the Oil Creek Railway Historical Society, with the first tourist trains running on July 18; freight operations began on September 25, 1986. Briefly, from December 2, 1995 to August 1996, the Oil Creek and Titusville operated over the former Conrail main line between Meadville and Corry. The operation and ownership of that line reverted to Conrail before being turned over to the Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad.

Infrastructure

The OC&T is notable in that it operates the only working

Railway Post Office In Canada and the United States, a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service as a means to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly tr ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. For income, it may carry a few freight cars at the end of the passenger cars. The trackage was formerly Conrail and was out of service in 1986 when it was purchased by the founders. The inaugural excursion came in July of that year. The railway travels through the

Oil Creek State Park Oil Creek State Park is a Pennsylvania state park on in Cherrytree, Cornplanter and Oil Creek Townships, Venango County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The park is adjacent to Drake Well Museum, the site of the first successful commercial ...

on its journey over of track. It hauls over 1,000 carloads of freight and 15,000 passengers each year.

Stations

Four stations along the line that have been used off and on to present day: Perry Street, Petroleum Centre, Rynd Farm, and Drake Well. It has seven passenger cars converted from powered units and an open-air,

gondola The gondola (, ; vec, góndoła ) is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian lagoon. It is typically propelled by a gondolier, who uses a rowing oar, which is not fastened to the hull, ...

car. It has three operating locomotives:

MLW M-420 The MLW M-420 was a diesel-electric locomotive manufactured between 1973 and 1977 in Montreal, Canada by the Montreal Locomotive Works. A total of 88 units were built for Canadian railways, including eight B units built for the BC Rail, British Co ...

#3568, and

Alco S-2 The American Locomotive Company (often shortened to ALCO, ALCo or Alco) was an American manufacturer of locomotives, diesel generators, steel, and tanks that operated from 1901 to 1969. The company was formed by the merger of seven smaller locomo ...

's #75 and #85 (the

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geograp ...

50T 00 is not used). The railway also has a

caboose A caboose is a crewed North American railroad car coupled at the end of a freight train. Cabooses provide shelter for crew at the end of a train, who were formerly required in railway switch, switching and Shunting (rail), shunting, keeping a l ...

marked O.C.T.R. 10R, plus the Caboose Motel, made up of several cabooses no longer in service.

References

External links

Oil Creek and Titusville Lines

Oil Creek and Titusville Railroad
{{Pennsylvania railroads Heritage railroads in Pennsylvania Pennsylvania railroads Railway companies established in 1986 Transportation in Crawford County, Pennsylvania Transportation in Venango County, Pennsylvania Titusville, Pennsylvania 1986 establishments in Pennsylvania

History

Infrastructure

Stations

See also

References

External links