Hike #1655: 4/13/25 Quarryville to Parkesburg with Kirk Rohn, Bobbi Landrock, David Adams, Robin Deitz, Diane Reider, Professor John DiFiore, Mike Heaney, Stephen Blank, Stephen's son and friend, and Everen
This next hike would be a point to point and the final one on in my plan to hike the entire Enola Low Grade Trail.
I had done all of the rest of the line, and I wanted to do this one before it got really hot out, before the leaves all grew in to obscure views, and before it would be too hot to handle the limited shade on the line.
In addition to finishing this historic line, this would also tie in directly to my Main Line of Public Works/Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad series.
I had closed in on this section from either direction. Last year, only Diane, Ev, and I showed up for a hike on the section between Shenk's Ferry and Quarryville, which was a really nice day everyone else missed out on.
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| 1972 Bill Sigford Quarryville |
Just recently, we had traced the Main Line of Public Works westward to Parkesburg, and so now I was ready to do that last hike between those two locations.
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| R. E. Small photo, Quarryville |
Officially the Atglen and Susquehanna Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, it was a mostly freight bypass of Lancaster, and part of a major freight cutoff project throughout the line that also included other cutoffs we had explored to the east.
The A&S Branch was built between 1902 and 1906, and it remained in service until 1988. The section on the other side of the Susquehanna across the Shocks Mill Bridge is still in use, but the part from the area of Turkey Hill on through to Atglen was finished, and the tracks I understand were mostly torn up about 1990.
The first time I hiked any of this was part of a hike with Jillane when we stayed in Lancaster, where we walked from Martic Forge to Columbia.
I hadn't bothered with any group hikes on it until more recent years. When Ev was born, I saw the rail trail and some of the other area trails as some of the stuff I could do with him in the stroller. I had been working on down the Conestoga Trail, and reached where it crossed the line, and so we did the stuff I'd already done again as well as the other great trails through the area.
I figured this last bit heading east from Quarryville would be the most boring of the entire route, but it was actually quite a nice and enjoyable walk.
On the last trip through this area, we finished across from the Parkesburg Free Library and Minch Park, where there is a gravel lot used by these facilities as well as a couple of churches.
I chose that as the end point and meeting point since we had already used it before.
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| 1973 R E Small |
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| 1973 R E Small |
After everyone met at the lot, we shuttled in my van and one other car I think it was to the beginning in Quarryville, where we parked in the paved lot adjacent to the Dollar General off of Bank Avenue.
This was quite an interesting location for railroad history.
Here, the former Lancaster and Quarryville Railroad was built in 1875. It connected the Pennsylvania Railroad in Lancaster south to Quarryville, about 15 miles. It later became the Quarryville Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad. k
Originally, the line made connections more associated with the Philadelphia and Reading I understand, but that was severed early on in favor of the PRR connection in Lancaster.
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| 1970s Southern Lancaster Historical Society |
Passenger service on the line ended in 1909, but freight continued until it was badly damaged by Hurricane Agnes in 1972.
This was also the terminus of the Lancaster, Oxford, and Southern Railroad. This connection to the Quarryville Branch of the PRR was completed in 1906, and abandoned by 1918. It was this area's only major narrow gauge rail line connecting down to Peach Bottom.
The line came right through the parking lot we were in, and I'm really interested in continuing south to explore more of the narrow gauge line, which will require a lot of road walking, but I won't mind any of that in the cooler months. It's on my "to do" list.
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| 1917 Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, Quarryville |
After 1972, a connection was re-established with the Enola Low Grade Line to continue service until full abandonment a few years later. A grade that had been used for the construction of the Enola Low Grade was re-established.
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| Walter G. Minnich Jr collection |
I hurriedly got Ev's stroller out of the car and put together, then ran around the lot to try to get the perspective of some historic photos. I had several then and now compilations I wanted to try to get in Quarryville that I'd missed the previous time.
In my defense, I didn't quite understand the layout of Quarryville on the last visit. I didn't even have enough interest to save the information coming in the previous time, probably because I had no frame of reference for it really.
This time, it was of course of great interest. The group helped to watch Ev while I ran around to get these things.
I think everyone was in a bit of a hurry to get moving.
After moving about the lot a bit, we made our way between buildings and out to State Street, which is the main drag through Quarryville. The branch line used to pass between buildings about where the Dollar General is today.
This dollar general has signage that makes it look older than other Dollar Generals which led me to believe that this was one of the earlier ones to come in.
Directly across the street was where the station building used to stand. There are plenty of photos of it still standing in 1973, so it's really disappointing that it lasted that long and then was let go.
I had several photos of the station from different sources, but a great many of them were collected together by Gregory Pawelski, who has an amazing collection of historic shots.
I had several angles of the station from over the years and I tried my best to emulate them all.
The group waited pretty patiently for this, and eventually I saw some of them start walking down the street. I had to let them know they were going the wrong way.
I hurriedly got the last angles of the station and then we made our way along the right of way through the industrial area to the north.
The track bed goes through the R. H. Rohrer & Sons grain and feed place, and I had a couple of images to get as we headed through this.
Soon, we approached the underpass where the Quarryville Branch went beneath the Enola Low Grade line.
I had a couple of shots to emulate with this one as well, and then we had to figure out how we were going to get up to the top.
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| 1904 Southern Lancaster County Historical Society |
When the Enola Low Grade Line was built, a connection had been established with the Quarryville Branch. After the damages were done to the Quarryville Branch in 1972, the construction track was re-established to get trains down to the businesses that needed it. It was then abandoned a few years later.
We went through the underpass, and I checked out the former connecting track, but it was inaccessible behind fencing and such on the other side.
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| E. G. Small 1973 |
Some of the group decided to climb up to the upper grade on the abutments of the bridge, but I was not going to do that with the stroller.
It was too rough for me to do with Ev in it as well, so he was going to have to walk up. I carried the stroller, and Stephen helped to carry Ev up when it got a bit too steep for him.
We had a good view of the former Quarryville Branch and station site from the top.
The group didn't want to wait around for very long. I got to the top and got a couple of shots, and then they were off ahead. I wanted to stop at the junction with the former connecting track on the left, and I did. I got some then and now shots using historic 1973 ones by R. E. Small.
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| Church Rd, Souther Lancaster Co Historical Society |
The group got way ahead very quickly, and I wanted to point out a couple other historic sites, but they were gone.
I got good comparisons of the former connector, and then pushed Ev ahead. I continued to the
I continued ahead to the Lime Street overpass, and only John had waited for me there. He stayed with Ev for me because I had to get a couple more shots.
When we got to this place last Fall, we had to take an informal grassy path down and it was a little more complicated with the stroller, but since our last visit, there had been a nice new ramp constructed to get down to the street, which was quite nice.
I used the ramp to get to the street, and then ran up the road to the right, back to State Street.
On the corner, there is a lovely old home that I had photographed before, but I didn't know the history of it at the time. Since then, I found more historic images and information.
The site is known as Dickinson Corner, and there is a block in the sidewalk that reads "Dickinson Corner 1906" in the corner of State and Lime Streets.
This was the historic I. Haines Dickinson House on Lime Street, which was called "Dreamworld".
It may date to earlier but it was remodeled in its grandeur in 1906 by store owner Dickinson. More recently the Reynolds Funeral Home and since 2020, Reynolds and Shivery Funeral.
I got the shots and hurried back up to the grade. John started pushing Ev ahead just ahead a bit and the others were way ahead of us.
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| R E Small 1973 |
I had several more shots I wanted to figure out including the trolley line that used to pass beneath Lime Street, but I couldn't just stop and try to get them without falling very far behind.
Quarryville had more stuff I wanted to photograph than the rest of the day, and so this was planned to take longer, but I couldn't let them keep getting ahead and missing more.
We continued ahead and I powered toward the State Street underpass.
The bridge had been built in 1905 originally during the construction of the railroad. The original was a through truss span with some sharp curves near the top. In 1906, of course this mattered little.
In more recent years, the bridge was replaced and the road straightened, but the abutments of the original bridge are still pretty obvious.
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| Mike Carter photo |
I had a couple of shots I wanted to emulate at the top of the bridge, but at this point I didn't have time to stop because everyone was so far ahead.
The current bridge was built over the grade in 1985.
As long as I wasn't hurrying along, this was actually a very relaxing walk. The crushed stone surface was really easy for pushing on.
Just after the underpass, there was a rather new parking area on the left side accessible from State Street. We continued from here and into a deep cut as we continued west of Quarryville.
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| Fred W. Schneider III |
I was rather surprised that right after the parking area, the trail was paved. I wasn't expecting any pavement.
I was a bit worried that the entire trail would be paved east of this point, but fortunately it was not. It was not only paved, but built up through some of the cuts to keep the trail above the mucky water level.
We got into some deeper cuts with some steep vertical rocks on the right side, and Stephens son and his friend started climbing on it. Stephen pointed out that if he fell, at least it would be into the mud rather than onto hard ground. It looked a little rough, because this was a sort of shale slope that crumbled when he grabbed onto it.
After seeing some of the rocks come loose, his friend decided against trying to climb more himself.
Robin brought her little dog on this one because there would be very few road sections or crossings.
We moved ahead and passed beneath the Hess Road bridge.
We continued to the east for a bit, and came out of the deep cut. It was not long before the pavement switched to crushed stone, which was more pleasant, although noticeably harder to push the stroller through. We soon started ascending onto more of a fill, and there were good views of the surrounding farmlands.
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| John A. Groff collection, 1907 |
We soon reached and crossed Pumping Station Road. I think this was still on an intact stone arch bridge, although many of those were removed due to clearance issues.
While we walked, I chatted with Stephen about his growing up in the area. He was Amish until about six or so years ago he was saying, and that he didn't even have a driver's license yet then. He made a comment about getting his truck and license, and his son made a joke about having a license doesn't mean he can really drive yet. Stephen came back with a comment about him saying that when we got over the next culvert. His son is considering returning to the Amish.
We continued east from Pumping Station Road, and then approached the crossing of Bushong Road.
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| William Siegfried image |
Unfortunately, the stone arch that had carried the railroad over Bushong Road was demolished.
At the approach to the former bridge site, the stones that had been fine cut for this structure were stacked up along the trail delineating its descent to the road level and grade crossing. To the right from here, there was a pavilion and benches and such, so we decided to take a quick break there.
I had not realized that the "Q Tower" it was called, was behind us and we had only just passed it by a little bit.
We paused for a break at a little pavilion that was nice, but soon Stephen and I headed back the way we came, along a small service road probably for maintenance of the trail, which made its way back to the right of way to the west.
Right about where this came back up to the rail bed was the former site of the "Q" tower, so I got another then and now there, and we headed back the way we had come.
The point where the access lane ascended to the grade had a bit of concrete foundation in it as well. I'm not sure what all of the infrastructure there was, but it was obvious that this area was several tracks wide rather than just the normal two it was built with.
We got our group shot sitting on the blocks near the trail crossing ahead, and then moved on across Bushong Road.
The trail started changing a bit in this area. The surfacing wasn't as nicely done, or as recently. We passed through Bart Township, and approached Hollow Road next.
The bridge overpass that once carried Hollow Road up over the tracks was gone, and back filled. There is now a trail that goes up the left side to access the road for a grade crossing. I think this is the one Stephen and his crew cut out at. They had some stuff to do, and Stephen was going to try to catch up with us again later.
The cut got deeper as we continued down again to the grade, and to the east.
The next crossing after Hollow was Mt Pleasant Road. Stephen had told us that there were cool remnants of a Pennsylvania Railroad pumping facility down one of these roads, but I didn't really want to deviate too much from the trail and take more time. This was a pretty straightforward hike, but I didn't want to really add more to it. I don't think I even remembered when we got to where it would have been.
Mt. Pleasant Road was another where the original bridge overpass is long gone, but in this case they replaced it with a giant corrugated pipe at about mile 23 on the trail.
We continued from the other side, and the trail was still a pretty good surface. It had signs of double tire tracks from maintenance vehicles going over it with a line of grass in the middle, but surfacing was still good.
Somewhere in here, Bobbie wanted another drink, and I had some old Budweiser that our group had found in an abandoned house up in Ulster County about three years ago, so I gave it to her. Apparently there was nothing much wrong with it! But, it had been sitting in the trunk of my car the entire time!
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| John Barriger III |
We came out of the cut, and were almost at grade with the land around us. We then approached the crossing of Meetinghouse Creek.
The bridge over the creek was not the original one built for the railroad. Most everything on this line had been done in stone, and the abutments to this one were concrete.
The bridge itself was also a deck plate girder structure. I suspect they probably had some sort of stone arch culvert in this area that got washed out at some point and had to be replaced by a wider span that could accommodate the swelling of the creek.
The span went well out over the flood plain, which tells me that flooding has been an issue here before. There is really not a lot of clearance between the creek and the track bed, which is rather rare on this line and others like it.
I went down to the left to have a closer look at the creek. From that vantage point, I found it odd that the bridge did not have any kind of guide rails or barriers to keep people from falling off.
On the downstream side was a very beautiful view of the creek with farmlands around, and a swing out in the middle of it hanging from a low branch.
We walked on just a little bit, and then there was a side path down to the creek to the right, where there was a fire ring.
An A-frame sign stood at the entrance that read "Leave this place the way you found it. Take all of - your trash - your kid's and dog's trash."
I don't know if this is a spot that is open to camping by an adjacent private owner or something, but it was quite beautiful.
The creek just downstream from this spot, which flowed west beside the rail bed, had stones stacked in it to dam up the water and make a calm section.
There was one tree that was growing almost horizontal out onto the water. Ev was happy to get out and play along the water, and we of course had to make this a break spot.
I walked out toward the girder bridge for the best view of it, and then climbed out onto the swing in the middle of the creek. This made for some great photo opportunities, since it looked so odd with me out in the middle of the creek in my suit and tie.
After this, I went back to where the rest of the group was, and when Ev was done running around finding interesting rocks, he wanted to walk on the horizontal tree, so I held his hand and guided him along that for a bit.
We finally started moving on again to the east, and once again the trail had to ascend to the left where the road overpass was removed ahead.
We climbed to the left and reached Lamparter Road and crossed, then descended on the other side more steeply, back down to the grade in the cut. There were nice farm views from the top.
Almost immediately, the rail bed came out of the cut and was switching to a fill over a low land. We then approached the bridge crossing of the Nickel Mines Mine, just to the south of Georgetown.
Georgetown is by no means a large community, but it's larger than some of the little collections of homes that get colloquial names.
I'm surprised that based on its size, there was never a station stop at this site, at least not that I know of.
The Nickel Mines Run was particularly beautiful from the center of the bridge, and we continued across in open pasture lands with views of farms and barns all around us.
We entered another cut, and then passed beneath an underpass carrying Georgetown Road. We then continued ahead through more farm land.
It was incredibly pleasant. I was glad in these sections that we had done this hike when we planned, because if we had waited much longer into the Spring, we wouldn't have had nearly as many great pastoral views.
We continued back onto another fill in no time at all, and soon we passed over top of South Vintage Road. there were lots more pretty farm views.
We entered Sadsbury Township, and passed some cows on the left. The utility poles continued the entire way as we walked.
Although the tracks are gone, the right of way is sill technically railroad owned, and serves the purpose of a right of way for power from the Safe Harbor Dam to the west. The lines that were overhead still power the Northeast Corridor to this day.
Soon, we crossed Quaker Church Road on another bridge and continued to the east.
I noticed that one of the giant poles read "New Pole" and "This is a hybrid pole" on it, which I found to be funny in a juvenile way.
The scenery got even more beautiful, with farms and ponds all in good view. We were up on a fill, but not a very high one most of the time through this next stretch.
We soon approached White Oak Road. This was a spot where there had been a stone arch underpass, but there was not good clearance, so it was torn out. Now, we had to go down and come back up the other side.
There were annoying yellow gates over the right of way, with no good way around them. I suspect this particularly pisses off cyclists, and is probably one of the reasons hardly anyone was on this section of the trail as we walked it.
There isn't even a tiny thing to get around if riding. Fortunately for me, Ev's stroller just barely fit under the gates if I went to the far left side and pushed the hood down on it.
Ev was getting really tired, and he fell asleep in this vicinity. Fortunately, there weren't many bumps so it was a good nap time for him.
We reached a Sadsbury Township sign on the other side of the crossing, and I got some of the group making sad faces with the sign.
We continued on the other side, and the trail became grassier than it had been so far. Hardly anyone uses this stretch, and it's basically like a well groomed lawn with occasional tire tracks.
We were at grade with the land surrounding us for a bit, and we passed by a farmstead where it appeared that an old railroad tanker car had been overturned and was being used for a farm oil tank.
The area up ahead had a fenced in area parallel with the rail bed, with some very friendly horses. Ev unfortunately slept through the nice greetings.
There were more freshly tilled fields, farm views, and then another crossing where a stone bridge had stood at Brick Mill Road. Once again, I had to push Ev's stroller underneath the left side to get through.
Beyond, we passed into another cut, and there was an overturned bus on the slope above where it looked like someone was using a busted out skylight in it as a hunting blind.
We continued along, and there were abutments where another road had once crossed over the rail bed. We continued from there, and the treadway became less developed. There was a long stretch with annoying ballast rock, and others with bad mud.
Soon, we approached Orchard Buck Road, where the road used to go over he tracks. We had to climb up and then back down the other side again. There were some pretty farm house and barn views on the road.
We continued onto another fill ahead, and then approached the overpass for both Noble Road and the East Branch of the Octoraro Creek. Unlike the other bridges we had been going across, this one had chain link fences over the top.
We could see that the trail up ahead had previously been blocked, but people were still going through anyway. It was all very informal at this point. The treadway was overall pretty easy again.
Up ahead, we crossed one more bridge over top of Valley Avenue. We had drove up through this area on our shuttle to the beginning, so it was cool to see from above.
We continued ahead on the high fill, and soon made our way into more of a shelf. We were fast approaching Atglen, where the A&S Branch came up alongside the original Main Line of Public Works and later Pennsylvania Railroad.
A figure appeared in the distance walking the right of way toward us. I was a bit taken by that at first, thinking maybe it was a railroad worker telling us we shouldn't go this far, but of course it was Stephen.
He'd made his way out to the Atglen area and started walking our way, and just in time, because there was some stuff he'd looked into that he wanted to show us.
In the trees between the separation of the two lines once stood a water pumping station that served the tracks of both lines, right between them.
The vegetation was growing in quite a lot by this time, so it would be hard to see anything, but Stephen and I waded into the weeds and briars, and we were able to see some of the stonework base of these structures.
There was once a tower in this vicinity somewhere, as well as a station building at Atglen, which is all gone today.
We continued ahead on the right of way, which was getting more overgrown as it came closer to the active tracks. Daily commuter trains pass through here, but the path from the end of the trail sort of continued. I guess it just continues right on through to the town of Atglen parallel with the active tracks because there wasn't anything telling us not to walk it.
The weeds were a bit heavier, so it was a bit more of a chore to push Ev's stroller through it, but I managed.
I tried to get several photos looking ahead and behind. I didn't really have the time to be trying to make good then and now compilations, because I didn't want to dilly dally near the active tracks as much.
The commuter line operated by Amtrack in this area was originally the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, part of the state owned Main Line of Public Works completed in 1834. The original track bed, as I understand, deviated a bit, and around the corner where we had joined with it, the original line was more to the north and east of the current tracks.
The Main Line of Public Works was originally conceived as an all-canal route across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, connecting Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
However, the arduous terrain of the Allegheny Mountains led to the construction of the Allegheny Portage Railroad, which carried the boats thirty some miles and used ten inclined planes powered by stationary steam engines.
I think early on, the plan to the east was to use the Union Canal, which already connected the Schuylkill River and Schuylkill Navigation with the Susquehanna River to the west, but the decision was made for another railroad, which would only need two inclined planes.
I figured that through the hikes, we had walked the entire Juniata Division Pennsylvania Canal, the entire Allegheny Portage Railroad, and even a lot of the Western Division canal I had done backpacking, so we might as well just fill in the gaps. I'd done almost all of the Pennsylvania Canal between Duncannon and Middletown (with a little bit missing), so we might as well post the Philadelphia and Columbia as mostly cold weather hikes.
We'd started in Philadelphia, and had traced it all the way through to Parkesburg on the previous trip, so this time we would finally connect it to the freight bypass.
The Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad was pretty much double tracked from the start for opposing traffic. Initially, it was horse drawn traffic with no locomotives, but those came soon. At first, private citizens could make use of these rails for a fee, but it complicated things too much, and it soon became company only transportation.
The state realized it was in no position to host such an enormous transportation infrastructure and wanted to get rid of it. Most all of the Main Line of Public Works was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1857. Almost right away, improvements were made to the line, which soon included reroutes and cutting corners.
Despite the upgrades in infrastructure, many original stone culverts remain, sometimes still in use, sometimes buried deep in the woods and weeds parallel.
The main line was improved upon more heavily in the 1880s with the addition of more station buildings, and then it was quadruple tracked on its main lines. At the approach to Atglen, there were those four tracks, the two for the Enola Low Grade, and then however many more for connections and industrial and station sidings.
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| Atglen; John W. Barriger III photo |
The series had been really great fun and very interesting, so I was very into what was coming up despite the end of the trail.
We continued along, and the path got a bit more overgrown, but I could still see a clear track of where the occasional two wheeled bicycle passes through, and so I aimed the stroller wheels for there.
We had a view across the former Pennsylvania Railroad main line to what had been the estate of William Haslam, an English born Quaker who settled here with the prospects of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad. It was a beautiful estate with a square house that had a widow's peak. All four sides appeared to be about the same size. The out buildings included a handsome stone barn with many portals. Haslam committed suicide in 1863. Depression has always been a thing.
The area today known as Atglen,but at the time of these events, it was known as Penningtonville.
A wide area with a siding to the left was the more recent location of the Atglen station. Not even a foundation site was noticeable, but I could tell about where it was.
We continued and soon crossed over top of Zion Hill Road. I had an historic photo from the Triumph book series to set up a then and now at this location, and then we continued just ahead. There was a gravel access road to the right, and a porta john ahead, so some of the group used that.
We descended to a parking area between Main Street and East Main Street where everyone had a break.
Ev and I headed to the west a bit and walked across Main Street to the Borough Hall and Borough Hall Park.
There was a picture window at the building that had plenty of old bottles on display, as well as many historic photos from around Atglen. We checked those out, and Ev took some time to play on their nice playground which had all the kinds of climbing things that he likes.
When everyone was about done with their break, we headed back over to the parking lot, and then continued on our way under the railroad tracks via Main Street.
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| Atglen; Chester County Historical Society Archives |
It was a girder bridge with stone abutments, and on the other side was the intersection with Liberty Street. There were steps where a house used to stand right on the corner.
Some old street views show the building still standing recently, and it was a beauty. It was one of the confirmation things I had to tell I had the station photos right, because the home was seen in the background. I found out the old Atglen Station was torn down in 1965.
The house was reportedly built in 1890, and it was still standing in 2019, gone by 2021.
In fact, all of the trees are gone from around it, and from the surrounding area where there is a development under construction.
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| Atglen Station |
We turned right on Liberty, and traveled a little bit past the intersection with Green Street, which had a handsome stone culvert beneath the tracks. We continued ahead then and beneath Rt 41.
Historic 1873 A R Witmer Atlas of Chester County, from when the settlement was still called Penningtonville, shows a property of a Cloud Chalfant and a bone mill were around the location of the stone ruin that sat up against the slope near the highway.
The road ahead under Rt 41 changed names to Swan Road. Stephen pointed out to us to the right, that there was a bit of a grade parallel with the road, and that this was the original Philadelphia and Columbia line.
We walked ahead, and there was an access lane into a small municipal yard of some sort. He wanted to go into it, but I didn't want to take a chance with the stroller.
He said that he'd been back there, and to the site where the original Philadelphia and Columbia crossed over Officer's Run, and had found an old sleeper stone in the middle.
We made our way around the corner, and then to the intersection with Upper Valley Road where we turned right.
The signs on the road at the creek crossing read "Octaroro Creek", but the Google maps show Officer's Run. Indeed, this is a tributary of the Octaroro Creek anyway.
The others stayed with Ev, and Stephen and I bushwhacked into the woods along the creek for a bit so I could see the site where the railroad originally crossed.
We got to the site, and there was a lot of stone laying around from the former crossing, but we didn't initially see any sleeper stones.
I assume that the bridge that had been here was a stone arch like so many of them are, but I can't be totally sure. With not even a remnant of an abutment, I can't tell.
We continued to walk along, through where the bridge used to be, and I could see the fills continuing on either side.
We searched in the creek but could find no sign of any sleeper stones at this time.
Before I got far turning back, Stephen called me to the the shore on the west side, in an area inundated with a lot of Japanese Knotweed. He had found an old sleeper stone with the two holes in it that held the rails and bolts in place, just laying on the ground.
Back in the early days of railroading, the lines did not use wooden railroad ties as we do today. Instead, they used stone "sleepers", which would be carved in such a way as to secure plates and rails to them.
Stephen would love to have one of these, but the problem is they are huge, much larger than one might expect, on top of being rather inaccessible.
We made our way back along the creek the way we came, content that we had found this bit of the obscure old railroad.
The rest of the group started pushing ahead of us pretty fast. Robin went the fastest ahead because she had brought her little dog with her, and she didn't want to be out on a road for very long. Certainly, it was not that busy a road, but nonetheless she didn't want to have the dog anywhere dangerous for long.
I think Mike was hurting a bit too. He had borrowed my walking stick I keep in my van, which my old friend Jeff Allen had recently given me, and he and the others were pushing ahead.
We made our way across the creek to an open area with a large yard on the right, and a large pasture and pond on the left. Out beyond the pond, there was the stone ruins of an old building.
Talking with Stephen, I assumed that it might have been an old mill, because there was some disturbance in the grassy surface ahead that looked like it might have been the remnants of a filled raceway.
We pushed ahead a little more, and there was a guy working in his yard to the right of us.
I'm sure the man didn't often see people walking down his road, especially wearing a suit and pushing a stroller, and he came over to greet us.
We chatted with him about what we were doing, which he found interesting, and I asked him about the old building across the street.
The main's name was Bill, and he explained that the old stone ruin was actually a house, which had served two families at one time. He said that what looks like lage doorways was actually doors with windows overhead. One day he arrived home to see a group of kids knocking out the sections of stone above what had been two doorways on either side.
Bill told us another house stood to the right, which was the home of the White family, but it was destroyed by fire resulting in a casualty of a young child.
There had been a mill in the area, but it was closer to the creek, west of this location.
The 1873 A R Witmer Atlas of Chester County is difficult to be sure with, but this may have been a property of Robert F. Innes at that time.
We also chatted with Bill about owning a little piece of the old Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad. It looked like much of the fill had been plowed away through what is now his yard.
I looked at his house and assumed it's age and look meant that it was in place the same time as the railroad, but I often forget that the original main line right of way has been out of service since sometimes the 1850s, so even structures that replaced it are themselves very old. I think Bill might have said it was 1880s or something.
Bill had a sleeper stone from the railroad of his own he offered to show us, and so we walked with him a short distance to where it was sitting on his property. The others who went ahead were really missing out on some cool history.
We continued uphill and thanked Bill for his time.
We watched below us as we gained elevation, and could see where the railroad right of way would have been. In this area of yards, there were stones in areas that I figure might have been some of the old sleeper stones, but we couldn't be sure so far away.
As we continued on, we came to a driveway on the right that was lined with similarly sized stones.
We were amazed that almost all of these were old sleeper stones. These things that we have so valued seeing on all of the hikes in this series were just laying around it seemed everywhere!
The next properties all seemed to have them sitting around.
We continued walking along these properties, and at a point near the height of the land on the road, most of the group was waiting for us ahead.
I didn't know why they had chosen the seemingly random spot they had chosen at first, until I walked up on them and looked off into the woods as I had been doing.
Down below us, beyond the last house, we could see plain as day the old Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, sleeper stones all still in place where the tracks had laid, nicely mowed. There would have been two tracks but only one was obvious at this point.
We could see ahead where the right of way was coming out of the wooded area and into a larger open meadow.
The original grade was no longer obvious ahead, but it most certainly makes its way back into the grade used by the active railroad in plain sight.
There was a lovely old farmstead just below us near the open area, a modest old building.
The stone house, as per the 1873 A R Witmer Atlas of Chester County, was that of Jason Kilmartin.
The Valley Road was quite a lovely walk at this time. We had some views of the tracks, as well as nice farm lands lined with stone walls that were somewhat collapsing into the road.
The grade of this road is very old and actually predates even the original railroad. It had originally been the McCall's Ferry Road, which stretched from the ferry on the Susquehanna River to Atglen. For a time, McCall's Ferry was also home to the longest covered bridge in the world, but it was destroyed.
We passed another handsome stone house on the left, which the historic atlas shows as the home of Harman Albright.
Soon, we approached the small settlement of Lenover. There was a time when this looked like it would be the more prominent location, more so than Atglen or maybe even Parkesburg.
We soon were passing some old industrial buildings, repurposed, in the settlement located in Sadsbury Township, Chester County (there is the other Sadsbury, but it is in Lancaster County).
Historic 1873 A R Witmer Atlas of Chester County shows the Chalfont machine shops and blacksmith shop located here.
Amazingly, they even made cars in this location, and Stephen was telling me about it as we walked by some of the old stone buildings that served the purposes.
It was mostly a farm machinery manufacturer operated by Fillmore Chalfant, but they did put cars together from 1906 to 1914. Parts were purchased from other manufacturers and assembled here.
Several locals once owned Chalfant cars, but maybe only one or two still exist today.
The industrial past of the buildings was more obvious when we were really looking hard. The easternmost building was pretty obviously the old masonry structure, but another to the west was not so obvious because the outside of the stone work had been covered over with stucco.
We continued ahead, and Stephen pointed out where old Lenover Road used to turn right. It headed downhill and crossed a bridge over the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks.
Stephen said he remembered crossing it when he was a boy in a buggy, and that the bridge was in pretty bad shape then. It just looks like a closed off driveway today.
Just ahead, on the north side of the road, there were old stone walls, which must have either been a barn or some other industry, with an enormous silver maple in front of it.
The next oddity we came across was on the north side of the road also.
There was a large Emu in an enclosure, which walked over to greet us as we walked up. It was kind of cute in an odd sort of way. It had big red eyes.
I asked Ev if he wanted to pet the Emu, and he responded "No, Emus is not friendly".
I wasn't going to let him try because I don't know this giant bird's disposition either, but I think it's so cute and amazing the more Ev articulates things.
We continued ahead a bit, and I was looking at maps and checking out all of the historic buildings along the way.
We passed a ruin of a house, with only the chimney really still standing on the left. We then moved ahead and passed a handsome home with a sort of A frame center peak section.
The home was reportedly built in 1827, and noted as home of Ezekiel Young in the 1873 A R Witmer Atlas of Chester County.
As we moved ahead, and while I was paying attention to other things, Mike apparently disappeared.
The others said they were having a conversation with him, and he turned down a driveway to pee or something. I had just been talking to him earlier about how he had been approved to be an official historic interpreter for the City of Philadelphia, so everything seemed good.
We didn't end up seeing him for a bit, but I thought maybe he had to get to a restroom more quickly and he headed down an old road that went more directly to the tracks. We were approaching the development around Parkesburg more quickly, so I suppose there were a few ways to go.
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| Parkesburg, Dan West collection |
We passed Limestone Road, which we could tell very obviously used to go through, then made our way past a youth center with a large parking lot.
Ahead, the road shifted to the right a bit, and straight ahead, the name of the direct route is still McCall's Ferry Road.
There was a handsome stone house on the corner of the road there, which was reportedly built in 1774 and one of the oldest homes in the Parkesburg community.
The road became Main Street and we continued ahead. West Bridge Street turned to the right as a dead end, and still has a bridge up over the railroad tracks, but it is abandoned and closed off entirely.
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| Dan West collection |
There were good views of the tracks as best we could see through the fencing around the outsides. This area was about where the Atglen and Susquehanna Branch really merged in with the old main line again.
On the other side, we turned left and started making our way east along Maple Street into Parkesburg.
The settlement was established as a coach stop known as Fountain Inn, for the inn of the same name, in 1734. The Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, part of the state owned Main Line of Public Works, was established a century later in 1834. The settlement was renamed for noted politician John G. Parke.
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| Northwestern Pennsylvania Railroad Telegraph Co collection 1920 |
The Philadelphia and Columbia shops were well established here by 1840, and the settlement grew around them. The Pennsylvania Railroad took over the line in 1857 and made major improvements that eventually included a four tracks main line and newer stations.
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| 1997, from the Triumph series |
The current station structure on the south side of the tracks was built in 1906 to replace an earlier one on the north side.
We went a couple of blocks on Maple Street, and then turned to the left into the parking lot of the station. Here, I had several then and now historic compilations I wanted to get, so I was going to have to depend on the patience of the group to wait and let me get them.
Some decided to just head back to the cars, but I tried to get as many then and now compilations as I could at the station.
Ev hung out with the group while I ran along the tracks, past the station after getting a shot of that, and then under the girder bridges with stone abutments to the north side of the tracks again.
I tried getting shots at every angle, just because even though I didn't have any photos featuring all of this, I figured I might find some that happen to line up. This happens to me pretty often.
The station building that stands today was built in 1906. It is no coincidence that it was built the same time as the A&S Branch we had started walking.
The rail yard had to be expanded with tracks added with the freight bypasses were built. Previously, the station had been located on the north side of the tracks, and the current one replaced it apparently for the need for more track space.
There had apparently also been a freight station and tower on the north side of the tracks based on the historic images taken at the site.
I got plenty of shots, then ran back around to the station with the rest of the group to continue on the home stretch.
As I was reaching the other side of the bridge again, Mike showed up and gave me my walking stick back! He hadn't gone so much a different way, just had gotten up ahead of us at some point! He headed directly back to his car at this point, while the rest of us took a bit more of a detour because Stephen had some more cool stuff to point out to us.
We headed down from the station and onto Maple Street heading east. As we walked up along the street, we passed the historic Parkesburg Electric Light Company which operated from 1895 to 1925, Parkesburg Pennsylvania.
It became more important in 1907 when power was provided for the PC&L Trolley, which upgraded the output at this site.
We continued on, and Stephen showed us where another street had once crossed over the tracks from the left. We then cut through a larger parking area and headed south to 1st Avenue.
Here, we saw the old opera house building. The venue reportedly dates back to around 1912, before which a laundry business occupied the site.
From there, we were parked just a little bit down West Street, and the hike felt like it ended just all of a sudden.
I had really loved this trip, but it felt weird too because I knew we would be sort of "giving up" on this series for a little while, at least until it gets cooler again. I would not post heavy road walk hiking through Lancaster County in the Summer to continue with the Main Line of Public Works stuff. We'd have to come back for that.
Looking at the maps, I could probably finish the entire Philadelphia and Columbia line in only three hikes, but it is very likely I will stretch it out to six of them and do all of the interesting stuff that lies between. What might be 3 so-so hikes, I think are going to be six very interesting ones.
This is the way to live; there are great things to look forward to every month of the year.
