The Little Schuylkill & Susquehanna Railroad (Original Catawissa Railroad)

The Catawissa Canal and the Conversion to a Railroad

The Little Schuylkill & Susquehanna Railroad (LSSR) began its existence as a potential canal.  In 1822 a prominent resident of village of Catawissa, Pennsylvania, Christian Brobst, proposed a canal be constructed up Catawissa Creek to its headwaters.  The plan was to meet the headwaters of the Little Schuylkill River, about 3 plus miles away. Another canal would be constructed in the Little Schuylkill River to Port Clinton, where it would join with the Schuylkill Canal and Navigation to Philadelphia.  Brobst, although not an engineer, proceeded to himself conduct a survey in 1825 of the proposed Catawissa Canal with home-made instruments. 

The plan went "nowhere".  The difficulty of digging a three mile canal (to connect the two rivers) through mountainous terrain was one example of the difficulties.  However, Brobst used his Catawissa Canal project to get elected to the Pennsylvania State Legislature in 1827. In the period between 1827 and 1829, in the first and second coalfields, the preferred mode of transportation was shifting from canals to railroads.    Five proposed canals or navigations now emerged as railroad companies:

• Mill Creek & Mine Hill Navigation and Railroad Co., incorporated on February 7,1828, remained as such,
• Schuylkill Valley Navigation Company, incorporated March 20th, 1827, became the Schuylkill Valley N. & R. R. Company, on April 14,1828,
• Schuylkill West Branch Canal, of March 29th, 1819, became the Mine Hill & Schuylkill Haven R. R., on March 24,1828,
• Schuylkill East Branch Navigation Co., of February 20, 1826, became the Little Schuylkill Navigation, Railroad & Coal Co., April 14,1828 (this was the proposed connection of the Catawissa works to the Schuylkill River at Port Clinton), and
  
• Norwegian Creek Slackwater Company, of April 14, 1827, became the Mt. Carbon R. R., April 29,1829.

Brobst now advocated a railroad through the Catawissa Valley.  Brobst persuaded Stephen Girard, Philadelphia banker and capitalist, and Moncure Robinson, engineer for the Pennsylvania Canal Commission and an accomplished railroad engineer, to tour the route where they were favorably impressed.  The Legislature authorized a professional survey for this railroad.  Robinson supervised this survey. 

Discussion of this route versus the Danville and Pottsville Railroad (which also proposed connecting the Susquehanna and Schuylkill Rivers) occurred immediately after both official surveys were released, in 1827, of the two potential routes by Robinson . Robinson reported that the LSSR route was suitable for locomotive power to the summit, but also to reach the Little Schuylkill (at that time) inclined planes would be necessary - those for the Catawissa line saw the locomotive statement; those against it, the need for planes. Robinson also noted that the route was the most direct route from the North Branch (of the Susquehanna Rover) to Philadelphia and, via the Quakake Creek, a direct route to the Lehigh Canal and to New York City—would command a more extensive trade than any other between the North Branch of the Susquehanna and the Delaware.

The view from Catawissa town east towards the headwaters of the creek. From Harper's Monthly 1862.

Construction of the LSSR

On March 31, 1831, the legislature granted a corporate charter to the LSSR. The railroad was eventually built following the line that Brobst surveyed in 1825. In addition to that western line (from at or near Catawissa to Tamanend, a junction of the Little Schuylkill Railroad), an eastern portion of line was to be constructed from Quakake to the Beaver Meadows Railroad, with connections using the Lehigh Company Railroads and Canals to the Morris Canal and thence to New York, as Moncure Robinson had envisioned.  This eastern portion was called the Lehigh Branch. Contemporaneous books and documents indicate that the connection to the Little Schuylkill Railroad was to occur at Lindner's Gap, a cut in the Broad Mountain, near Ginthers and not at Tamanend.  Tamanend only became prominent as a railroad connection more than two decades later when the Mahanoy Tunnel opened up the Second Coal Field to the east.

Work began on the LSSR in 1835 and continued for several years.  The banking panic of 1837 restricted the investment required and the LSSR was only partially completed (the Lehigh Branch). 

However a significant amount of work was undertaken and performed throughout the western part of the line. Two tunnels were dug - the 400-ft. Shuman's Tunnel and a year later, the 1,150-ft. Summit Station (Lofty) Tunnel.  Seven bridges, totaling over 4,000 feet in length, and varying in height from 90 to 130 feet above grade, were partially constructed.  The system of tunnels and bridges allowed for a uniform grade of about 30 feet per mile to Lofty.  The Little Schuylkill Railroad (already in operation from November 18, 1831) had also built but only one mile of its route to Tamanend from Tamaqua, a total distance of about eight miles. A 66-ft. per mile grade was required on the three miles to Tamanend Junction and a third tunnel was required at Ryan's Cut. These remained uncompleted.   

The Lofty Tunnel, photo by John Moran.  Tunnelling work completed during construction of initial Catawissa Railroad in 1835-41 (New York Public Library)

However as noted above, the Lehigh Branch was partially completed. This railroad branch was then operated by the Beaver Meadow Railroad between Black Creek Junction on the Lehigh River and Quakake. This completed part of the Lehigh Branch of the LSSR at Quakake Valley was 165 feet below the Catawissa-Little Schuylkill level at Ryan's Cut at Lindner's Gap. Contractors had managed to grade this before in 1840 but in 1840 only twenty-seven tons of coal passed over this Lehigh Branch to the Beaver Meadow Railroad from LSSR coal lands. Then the Lehigh flood of 1841 occurred and ended transportation on both the Beaver Meadow Railroad and the Lehigh Canal for a substantial period. When the financial depression of 1841 occurred, the LSSR had expended over $1 million on its project, but only the Lehigh Branch had been marginally operational for about a year. It was not rebuilt. 

Much like its competitor between the Susquehanna and Schuylkill, the Danville and Pottsville Railroad, the LSSR sat for over a decade in an unfinished condition; bridges, partially constructed, decayed and fell down, walls and embankments crumbled and became useless.  It would not be until 1849 that the LSSR would re-organize as the Catawissa Williamsport & Erie Railroad (CW&E).  In 1853, the CW&E would then successfully complete the Catawissa to Tamanend route to connect to Philadelphia and to also re-establish the Lehigh Branch to connect to New York as planned two decades earlier.

Bibliography

Hard Coal Times, (2005), CoalHole .com, Bloomsburg, PA.

Hydinger, Earl J., Group Vl, The Little Schuylkill, THE E. M.; L. S. & S.; CATAWISSA; T. H. & N.; D. S. & S., RLHS Bulletin  Vol 108,  April 1963

Roberts, Jeanne B. & Albright, Rev. John R. (editors), A History of Catawissa Pennsylvania, 200th, Anniversary, Lititz, PA, 1974