The Wellsboro and Corning Railroad is a

shortline railroad :''Short Line is also one of the four railroads in the American version of the popular board game Monopoly, named after the Shore Fast Line, an interurban streetcar line.'' A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that opera ...

that operates between

Wellsboro, Pennsylvania Wellsboro is a borough in Tioga County, Pennsylvania. The borough was founded by Benjamin Wistar Morris. It is located northwest of Williamsport. The population was 3,472 at the 2020 census. Early in the 20th century, Wellsboro was the shipp ...

and

Corning, New York Corning is a city in Steuben County, New York, United States, on the Chemung River. The population was 10,551 at the 2020 census. It is named for Erastus Corning, an Albany financier and railroad executive who was an investor in the company t ...

, passing through Tioga, and Lawrenceville. It parallels PA Route 287 and U.S. Route 15, following the valleys of Marsh Creek,

Crooked Creek Crooked Creek may refer to: Streams In Australia * Crooked Creek (Clyde River), a tributary of the Clyde River in New South Wales * Crooked Creek (Walsh River), a tributary of the Walsh River in Queensland In the United States * Crooked Cree ...

, and the Tioga River. The railroad connects with

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31, ...

Southern Tier Line The Southern Tier Line is a railroad line owned and operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway in the U.S. states of New York and Pennsylvania. A mostly former Erie Railroad line, it is suggested that the line runs from Suffern, New York northwest ...

at Corning. The line was formerly part of 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 ...

system, and was bought from Conrail by Growth Resources of Wellsboro in 1992. The WCOR began operations in 1993, and was controlled by Richard Robey, owner of the North Shore Railroad System, until January 2008, when Myles Group of

Exton, Pennsylvania Exton is a census-designated place (CDP) in West Whiteland Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. Its population was 5,622 at the 2020 census. The Exton Square Mall and Main Street at Exton are both located within Exton along w ...

bought the company. The Tioga Central Railroad operated

tourist train ''Tourist Train'' (Italian: ''Treno popolare'') is a 1933 Italian comedy film directed by Raffaello Matarazzo and starring Marcello Spada, Lina Gennari and Carlo Petrangeli. The film portrays the comic adventures of a group of summertime traveller ...

s over the line between Wellsboro and Tioga. In April 2012,

RailAmerica RailAmerica, Inc., based in Jacksonville, Florida, was a holding company of a number of short-line railroads and regional railroads in the United States and Canada. In 2007, RailAmerica was acquired by Fortress Investment Group. Before that, it ...

purchased a 20% shareholding.

History

Most of the WCOR was once part of a main line from the New York Central's (NYC)

Water Level Route 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 ...

at Lyons south to Williamsport. The Tioga Coal, Iron Mining and Manufacturing Company opened the portion from Corning south to the state line at Lawrenceville in 1840, and in 1872 the Wellsboro and Lawrenceville Railroad completed an extension through Wellsboro to Antrim. (The main line, finished in 1883 by the Jersey Shore, Pine Creek & Buffalo Railway, branched off north of Wellsboro.) NYC leased the lines in 1899, and in 1914 absorbed successor Geneva, Corning and Southern Railroad. Interstate Commerce Commission, 27 Val. Rep. 1 (1929)
Valuation Docket No. 1022, The New York Central Railroad Company and its Leased Lines
/ref>Edward A. Lewis, American Shortline Railway Guide, 5th Edition,

Kalmbach Publishing Kalmbach Media (formerly Kalmbach Publishing Co.) is an American publisher of books and magazines, many of them railroad-related, located in Waukesha, Wisconsin. History The company's first publication was ''The Model Railroader'', which be ...

, 1996, pp. 329-330, 361 Conrail retained the line when it began operations in 1976, but later abandoned it south of Wellsboro Junction, through

Pine Creek Gorge Pine Creek Gorge, sometimes called The Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, is a gorge carved into the Allegheny Plateau by Pine Creek in north-central Pennsylvania. It sits in about of the Tioga State Forest. The canyon begins south of Ansonia, nea ...

(also known as the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania), turning the line into a minor branch. Growth Resources of Wellsboro bought the line in December 1992, and the WCOR began operating in January 1993. The Tioga Central Railroad, which had operated freight in

Tioga County, New York Tioga County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 48,455. Its county seat is Owego. Its name derives from an American Indian word meaning "at the forks", describing a meeting place. Tioga Cou ...

until May 1992 (when the Owego & Harford Railway took over), began operating tourist trains in May 1994.

Railroad Retirement Board The U.S. Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) is an independent agency in the executive branch of the United States government created in 1935 to administer a social insurance program providing retirement benefits to the country's railroad workers. T ...

Employer Status Determination: Tioga Central Railroad, Inc.
October 30, 2002

Marcellus Shale and railroad operations

The railroad's geographic orientation covers one of the largest and most active portions of the Marcellus Shale formation, which is being actively explored for natural gas. This has resulted in customers referring to the railroad as the "Main Line to the Marcellus". Working closely with sister company IWG Logistics, the family-owned and operated companies provide complete railroad, transloading, logistics, and railcar repair services. The railroad had its busiest year in more than two decades in 2009, fueled by demand from a booming natural gas industry in the region, which uses sand in hydraulic fracturing operations. The sand-hauling portion of the railroad's operations began in 2009, and made up 80% of their business in 2010.Natural gas boom brings riches to a rural town
April 5, 2010

References

External links

Wellsboro and Corning Railroad official webpage - Genesee and Wyoming websiteMyles Group, LLC
{{Pennsylvania railroads Transportation in Tioga County, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania railroads New York (state) railroads Spin-offs of Conrail Railway companies established in 1993 Transportation in Steuben County, New York RailAmerica

History

Marcellus Shale and railroad operations

See also

References

External links