The Everett Railroad is a shortline and

heritage railroad A heritage railway or heritage railroad (U.S. 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) ...

that operates on ex-

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...

trackage in the Hollidaysburg area of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

. It runs

freight train A freight train, also called a goods train or cargo train, is a railway train that is used to carry cargo, as opposed to passengers. Freight trains are made up of one or more locomotives which provide propulsion, along with one or more railroad ...

s over two separate lines, one from Brooks Mill and Sproul, and the other, owned by the Morrison's Cove Railroad, from Roaring Spring to Curryville and Martinsburg. The affiliated Hollidaysburg and Roaring Spring Railroad , which the Everett Railroad operates both under contract and via

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may c ...

, connects the two segments to each other and to the

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

(ex-

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busine ...

) in Hollidaysburg. The Everett Railroad name refers to its former location near Everett, abandoned in 1982.

History

The Everett Railroad was incorporated in April 1954 to take over a portion of the Huntingdon and Broad Top Mountain Railroad and Coal Company (H&BT) near Everett, which was abandoned in May of that year. The line, which extended north from the end of the

's Mt. Dallas Branch at Mount Dallas to a point near Tatesville, parallel to

PA Route 26 Pennsylvania Route 26 (PA 26) is a highway in the south-central area of Pennsylvania. Its northern terminus is at Pennsylvania Route 150, PA 150 northwest of Howard, Pennsylvania, Howard; its southern terminus is at the Maryland state line near ...

, had been constructed from 1859 to 1863 by the Bedford Railroad, which was merged into the H&BT in 1864.

discontinued service on the then-Mt. Dallas Secondary in October 1982, severing the Everett Railroad's ties to the outside world and forcing its abandonment. The company was revived in May 1984, when it acquired a part of Conrail's Bedford Secondary between Brooks Mill and Sproul. Completed in 1910 by the Bedford and Hollidaysburg Railroad, a predecessor of the Pennsylvania Railroad, this line had connected to the Mt. Dallas Secondary near

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population was 106,940. Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire and seat of the Borough of Bedford local government district. Bedford was founded at a ford (crossin ...

until 1982. A second line, the Morrison's Cove Secondary from Roaring Spring to Curryville, along with a short branch into Martinsburg, was acquired by the Morrison's Cove Railroad, organized by local shippers, in mid-1982. The shippers initially contracted with the Allegheny Southern Railway , which operated the line from September 1982 to the end of 1984, but on January 1, 1985, the Everett Railroad took over operations. This line had been constructed by the Pennsylvania Railroad itself in 1871. Conrail continued to operate the remainder of the Morrison's Cove Secondary, from Roaring Spring through Brooks Mill to Hollidaysburg, until Alan W. Maples, owner of the Everett Railroad, organized the Hollidaysburg and Roaring Spring Railroad (H&RS) and bought the line in March 1995. Simultaneously, the Everett Railroad acquired

to Hollidaysburg, and began operating the H&RS under contract.

Equipment

Locomotives

Former units

References

External links

Everett Railroad Company
{{DEFAULTSORT:Everett Railroad Pennsylvania railroads Railway companies established in 1954 Spin-offs of Conrail 1982 establishments in Pennsylvania American companies established in 1954 American companies established in 1982 Heritage railroads in Pennsylvania