TrainWeb.org Facebook Page
History

Kimberville Branch

Time Period: 1975 to Present
Penn Central to Conrail to Central Pennsylvania Railroad

Early in 1977 an agreement was reached between Consolidated Rail Corporation (ConRail) and a group of business leaders from Philipsburg and Clearfield Pennsylvania for the purchase of the local rail known as the Clearfield Cluster. The agreement would include 400+ miles of track and all the assets based out of Clearfield. In July 1977 the newly formed Central Pennsylvania Railroad (CPRR) took over the operations. Although having a rocky start, within a year they had turned what was once a doomed railroad into a thriving business that remains to this day.

Interchange with Conrail (now Norfolk Southern) was done at two locations. At the East end was Keating that would see 4-5 inbound trains daily and on the West end was Cresson with 2-3 inbound trains daily. One other interchange was with the Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad and was located at CM Junction just south of DuBois. This interchange would only see a couple of trains weekly and would mainly be a coal train outbound for the Homer City Generating Station.

In 1985, the Kimberville Branch was built to service three new and very large deep mines that opened just east of Philipsburg on the Sandy Ridge. These mines would also process coal from their companies surface mines located to the north. As years passed several other businesses moved into the area and in 1988 a small yard was built in the town of Kimberville to handle the local freight traffic that they generated. Since then many businesses have come and gone but the railroad continued to flourish even through the harshest of times.



Here are some of the industries along the 20 mile Kimberville Branch:

Kimber Glass Co. - The largest non-coal related business.
RET Materials
Storage/Team Track
Farmers CO-OP
McDonald Coal
Bulldog Mining
Thorp Feed
Lee trucking
Allied Coal Company
Spencer Salt
Gruda Recycling & Scrap Metals
Burnham Pipe & Steel
EM Brown Coal - Brown #5
McDonald Land & Mining - Wolf Rock Mine
Hepburnia Coal - Moshannon Mine