Central Railroad of Pennsylvania (1891–1918)
| Locale | Pennsylvania |
|---|---|
| Dates of operation | 1893–1918 |
| Successor | abandoned |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Headquarters | Bellefonte |
The Central Railroad of Pennsylvania was a short railroad of 27.3 miles (43.9 km) built to connect Bellefonte, Pennsylvania with the Beech Creek Railroad (part of the New York Central) at Mill Hall, Pennsylvania. Sustained by shipments from the Bellefonte iron industry, the abandonment of the iron furnaces there led to its demise in 1918.
The Central Pennsylvania Railroad was incorporated on May 11, 1889 to connect Unionville with Mill Hall, running by way of Bellefonte and the Nittany Valley. On December 11, 1890, the Central Pennsylvania Railroad Eastern Extension was incorporated, to leave the main line of the first company at Lamar and follow Fishing Creek, Sand Spring Run, and White Deer Creek to White Deer on the Susquehanna. This would provide a connection to the Philadelphia and Reading Railway, in addition to that with the NYC at Mill Hall.
The two companies were merged on September 11, 1891. However, the original investors, all of them from Watsontown, Pennsylvania, made little headway in construction. The president was Samuel H. Hicks, who was also general manager and superintendent of the Wilkes-Barre and Western Railway; this railroad terminated at Watsontown, across the Susquehanna from White Deer, and represented a possible connection with the eastern extension. The next year, Philadelphia and New York investors appeared among the directors, including Robert C. Bellville, secretary and treasurer of the Wilkes-Barre & Western, and Charles M. Clement, a prominent Sunbury lawyer and the new general counsel for the railroad. Still, the company lacked the resources to do more than grade 0.5 miles (0.80 km) of right-of-way at Mill Hall in the summer of 1892.
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