Hike #1203; Sellersville/Perkasie Loop
3/2/19 Sellersville/Perkasie Loop with Jennifer Berndt, James Quinn, and Brittany Audrey
The group at Free Will
This next hike would be an unconventional, unplanned fill in. Weather is a constant frustration in the Winter months, and often times I will have a backup plan in case of inclement weather. In this case, I needed a backup plan for my backup plan.
Sellersville Station
We had been doing the Delaware and Hudson series throughout the year, but the point we had reached along the Delaware and Hudson Canal last fall was along the narrows of the Delaware north of Port Jervis. We couldn’t navigate that with massive ice flows and high water, so we ended up doing a Delaware and Hudson Pennsylvania main line section up near where our friend Janet lives instead. That went pretty well for the last one.
This next one I figured would be fine because even if there was snow, much of it gets well beaten down by snowmobilers. It seemed like a full proof backup plan.
Then, the snow hit.
It was far more than anticipated the night before and my road was completely covered. Janet messaged me that the roads up by her had not been touched. I knew that the out of the way park up near the Starrucca Viaduct that I’d posted as the meeting point would not even be clear to park. We’d have to make different plans.
Old Liberty Bell line
I had to think fast. I was all ready to drive up in the morning, but this just wasn’t going to work. I started by opening my google maps on my phone with only aerial features and cycling functions set up. I scanned over all of the reasonable distance areas we’d visited, and tried to find something that would be suitable.
I honed in on the area of Sellersville and Perkasie PA. There was some stuff there I wanted to do, and I’d not visited there for any of our hikes probably in over a decade.
We could use some of the trails I’d done before, as well as other connections that had been on my “to do” list for a while. Also, it would probably have less snow since it was further to the south.
Quickly, I created a route that would give us the mileage I wanted to do with less worry about the depth of the snow, and we convened in the middle of the town adjacent to the historic train station, on the Bethlehem Branch of the Reading Railroad.
Liberty Bell trolley
We started the walk by crossing Maple Ave and heading down Branch Street toward the fire house along the East Branch of the Perkiomen Creek.
Historic postcard of Sellersville station
I’d done some scouting hikes through this area for the Pennsylvania Highlands Trail system with Jen Heisey back in 2008, and made some good group hikes of it.
I’d come up with an interesting route that brought us between Lake Nockamixon through the Unami Hills out to the Perkiomen Trail in Green Lane PA, but there were many other details of the area I’d not included.
One of these, which has been of interest to me for a long time, was the old Liberty Bell trolley line.
The Lehigh Valley Transit Company ran the Liberty Bel Limited, a trolley between Allentown and Philadelphia PA between 1901 and 1951.
Historic map
It was formed from mergers with pre-existing trolley lines, and improvements were made by taking trackage off of roads and onto their own high speed, off road routes. They would return to town centers to pick up passengers, and then have 70 mile per hour fast routes between these points, sometimes hitting 80 when trying to make up lost time.
“Trolley Fever” struck the United States starting around the turn of the century. There were already interurban passenger services drawn by horse before the self-propelled trolleys came to be, and then connections between major towns and cities opened in direct competition with existing railroads.
The line was named the Liberty Bell Route because it was on or closely parallel with the Bethlehem Pike on which the Liberty Bell traveled when it was transported between Philadelphia and Allentown (then Northamptontown) for safekeeping during the British occupation.
East Branch of the Perkiomen and bridge site
The Liberty Bell Line was successful for a time, and like many of the railroads saw a great rise in service during World War I, but a decline through the Great Depression. Many trolleys called it quits then, and the Lehigh Valley Transit hung on for a little while longer.
There has in more recent years been a plan to turn much of the old Liberty Bell line into a trail connecting the cities, but it’s moved along extremely slowly.
MOOSE!
Some sections are very accessible, while others are just a mess and probably impossible to ever make part of a trail system.
For this hike, I wanted to start out by covering a little section I knew we could get on, and behind the firehouse was the first place we could see the snow covered fill making it’s way to where it used to cross the East Branch of the Perkiomen Creek. Only the abutments remain there, adjacent to the old Reading Railroad bridge over the same.
Liberty Bell bed
We utilized the Main Street bridge to get across, then turned right on Park Ave on the other side. We made a ninety degree bend on the road, which was then on or next to the former trolley bed and passed the Royal Order of the Moose Lodge, which as a family one that just had a funny sign.
We turned right on Clymer Ave, and then left on Old State Road south just a bit, then cut off of it to the right. We went downhill through some snow and weeds to a cut passed through by the former Liberty Bell right of way.
Reading Railroad Mill Creek bridge
We then started following the grade to the south.
The snow wasn’t too deep, so it was a pleasant walk. We continued south out of the cut and onto a fill. To the right, an unconventional stabilization job was visible on the old stone culvert that carried the Reading Railroad over the Mill Creek, a Perkiomen tributary.
Liberty Bell bed
It had a few blocks placed in the stream bed up against the stone wing wall on the east side. Just past this point, the trolley bed too crossed the Mill Creek, on a metal bridge placed on the original trolley bridge’s abutments.
Bridge site
We continued walking it from here, and the Mill Creek remained on our left for a bit. Soon, the trolley bed reached another former crossing of the creek, but this part was never re-bridged.
The old Liberty Bell bridge site, redecked with this new bridge for utility right of way
The abutments appeared to be in poor condition as well, so this was our turn around point. I just wanted to see the trolley remnants to this point, as I knew we wouldn’t be able to continue on much further along it. We turned to the right along the creek, and started heading gradually up slope until we reached the cut passed through by the old Bethlehem Branch of the Reading Railroad.
This rail line started out in the 1850s out of Philly and extended north as the Philadelphia, Easton, and Water Gap Railroad. It later became North Pennsylvania Railroad, and then part of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad system.
Old Liberty Bell bridge site
Like many Reading main lines, it was double tracked (Reading was first railroad to double track it’s main lines), but only one is still in use, and not that often.
Today, the tracks are in place only as far as Quakertown. Until very recently, they were in place all the way to Hellertown and only had a little section missing to Bethlehem. It would have been an ideal connection from Philadelphia to the Lehigh Valley, especially with the opening of the Sands Casino in the former Bethlehem Steel, but they let it go.
Mill Creek
SEPTA took over the line and abandoned it in 1981 when they decided to do away with all service that involved diesels. Tracks have been scaled back and ripped up over the past few years, with the last section having been done in August of 2018 (we hiked it the day it was coming up).
We turned to the north, back the direction we had come on the old Reading line. The snow on the tracks was packed down more than it was in other areas, and the high for the day wasn’t to be that cold, so I had hopes that it would continue to melt.
Bethlehem Branch
We passed the cars and the station again, and then continued to the north under Main Street. We continued through a nice cut, and then parallel with a cemetery where there was some lady hollering at either a dumb child or a dog, we couldn’t figure out which, just up slope from us. We then continued along the tracks and could see a Frisbee golf course off to the right.
The railroad continued through a wooded area until we crossed Park Avenue.
Liberty Bell line
The railroad went over a higher fill here and soon crossed over the former Liberty Bell trolley line which uses a culvert to get under the tracks.
Former Liberty Bell line
We were now in the town of Persasie, which is almost contiguous with Sellersville.
Sellersville was originally known as Seller’s Tavern, a stop along the Bethlehem Pike. The arrival of the railroad sparked an industrial revolution in the area, and Sellersville became a center of textiles as well as tourism. An amusement park along the East Branch of the Perkiomen between Sellserville and Perkasie brought in droves of people from Philadelphia by train in the early twentieth century.
Bethlehem Branch
Perkasie takes it’s name from the Pocasie Creek and Perkiomen creek, both deriving from the Unami Lenape Pèhpahkà sink/Poekskossing meaning “one who goes to the place to crack nuts” (not bust balls). The Dutch and Swedish settlers who arrived before the British pronounced it with an “r” and it stuck.
Perkasie had silk mills, brick yards, lumber mills, tile works, stone crushers, and manufacturers of cigars, tags, and more.
Liberty Bell bridge site
The town suffered an incredible fire in 1988 that destroyed at least 15% of the historic downtown.
Before the next grade crossing, Market Street, we passed the old Perkasie train station. The building has had some work going on from what we could see, which is nice because every town that has it’s historic station still standing has extra charm.
There was a shanty shelter across the tracks which might also be historic, as well as what looks to be a freight depot a bit further down.
Perkasie Station
We continued from here as the railroad began to bend. There was a small trestle into a building to the right that might have been a sort of coaling trestle. I’m not really sure what.
We made the corner and soon began to approach the Perkasie Tunnel. I hadn’t been back to this point in several years, but I always thought it was a really cool tunnel. I’d gone through it the first time I ever hiked into Perkasie, and it’s not very heavily used which makes it pretty safe. There’s also plenty of room on the sides of a train did happen to come.
The tunnel
We passed through the tunnel, which is 2,142 feet long and opened in 1857. We paused when we got to the middle where there is a vent that allows daylight in.
I knew everyone would get a kick out of this, and I made it sort of a surprise when we arrived at it. It definitely adds a little excitement.
Piss train
We headed out the other side, and the line went back to double track (it has switches at either side). We passed through the cut and then came do a more level area where there was a train of cars parked on the side track to the left of us. One appeared to be leaking.
Tunnel
We climbed around on the cars a bit, and laughed at the apparent pissing of the train through a tiny pin hole of rust on it’s side. It was definitely water, not a chemical thing.
Rail car fun
We continued through the cut and beneath Three Mile Run Road, to reach Rockhill Road next. We climbed up there to the right and walked down the road to the south.
Out of the tunnel
We crossed the pretty Three Mile Run on the road bridge, then turned to the left on Three Mile Run Road, which had a trail along the edge of it heading to the east. Unfortunately, the amount of snow made it not fun to walk, so we just stayed on the road to the intersection with Schoolhouse Road, where we turned right.
The next leg of the trip was to turn left from this road onto a trail leading into William H. Markey Centennial Park. I had hiked some of this once before years ago but never got back to it again, nor did I ever use this connection.
We passed the entrance to the trail, because the snow made it just look like a private driveway. The clearing for the airport area was on the right, and I knew we’d gone too far based on the google maps, so we turned back and spotted the sign that read “Walk Trail”. That was where we were supposed to turn.
We went right, and headed into the park area, then turned to the south in the Markey Park.
Tunnel
We passed one lady in the park, really the first trail user or walker of any kind we passed during the day, and then continued to the south side adjacent to Ridge Road.
Markey Park
When the trail entered the woods near the entrance, we turned to the right. There was a veterinary place just to the left, and homes were further down to the right. My plan was to use the wooded swath with no houses to bushwhack down through the high school property. I believe I’d done this once before for a hike years ago.
We headed downhill through woods to the fields, where there were kids sledding off to our left. We ended up behind the football area and ran into some mock jock things they use for training, then continued down hill to 5th Street. We were able to cross right over that through an open field to a playground thing, where a paved trail led into the apartments south of it.
Mood's Covered Bridge
From the main road in the apartments, Campus Drive, there is a connecting trail to the greenway trail along the East Branch of the Perkiomen Creek.
This section is much much smaller than where we had first seen it in Sellersville, which is pretty amazing considering it’s not all that far away. My plan was to, for the most part, follow this greenway all the way back, with one side trip.
Mood's Covered Bridge
We started hiking the route, which was snowy but not too hard to walk, on the north side of the creek. We continued from an open area out through some woods to Blooming Glen Road.
East Branch of the Perkiomen
At this road, we reached Mood’s Covered Bridge.
The original bridge at this site was built in 1874, a Towne truss sort of span, and remained there until I think it was 2004 when a group of six kids were hanging out and watching Dodgeball, and decided they were going to torch the old bridge. They went out with a can of gasoline, doused and torched it. They were caught, and each had to pay something like $66,000. I think they also got some jail time. The bridge was rebuilt and reopened in 2008.
WALK TRAIL
We walked up through the bridge, and then turned right on the other side to another trail section. This one went across the East Branch of the Perkiomen Creek again on a nice arched foot bridge. Once on the other side, we turned left on the trail again to follow it further west.
YUM
We passed through a section of woods that was pretty nice, then skirted an open area with apartments before reaching the crossing of Callowhill Road. At the other side, we turned left and crossed the creek on another foot bridge. The trail then continued on the other side.
We followed the trail out to Walnut Street where we turned to the left up uphill to reach Free Will Brewing. We always try to add brewery and winery visits into the hikes where possible, and this one was pretty good.
Perkasie Church built in 1860
They had a couple of strong beers I liked, but there weren’t any I liked as much as one called “Ella”, which was a Belgian quadruple ale aged in apple brandy barrels. It was one of the closest things to Weyerbacher’s Blasphemy I’ve ever had.
We were going to do the tour, but it was getting late and they were taking far too long to get it going. We decided to leave then, and head up hill a bit. The food place up the road was closed, so we soon turned to the right on the Pleasant Spring greenway.
Pleasant Spring Creek
Pleasant Spring Creek flows down to the East Branch of the Perkiomen, and has a nice trail on it most the way. We headed down to where there was a side path back out to the road we’d been on, and Jen cut out there to get picked up later.
The rest of us continued on the greenway as it was getting dark, passed beneath the bridge at South Main Street, and continued on the trail to the corner of Spruce Street and Constitution Ave. We continued briefly on Spruce Street until we got to a double foot bridge over the South Branch of the Perkiomen Creek.
WPA bridge
The bridge was a project of the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression in 1937(WPA), and is known as the WPA Twin Bridges.
We crossed the suspension spans and turned left on the other side along the greenway heading west. The section ahead follows the same old Liberty Bell trolley line we had been following before.
Sellersville PA Washington house historic view
We soon came out to the main street in Sellersville where we turned to the right. It was only a short distance up to the theatre area and Temple Avenue that took us back to the cars where we’d parked.
The day wasn’t perfect, but it was really a cool hike. It’s always good to make the best of situations if we can. Life will never hand us anything ideal. We might get some tastes of perfection here and there, but the sad inevitability of some disappointment is always looming. It’s important to appreciate the good fortune we do have; less than ideal conditions, sometimes even poor conditions, can easily taint our perspectives of the world. During these times, my personal therapy is to take a step back and look at a bigger picture. As a whole, life is great and life is amazing, and misfortune is a brambled part of an otherwise clear trail.
HAM
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