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Digging into the history of the railroads of Clearfield County turned out to be a time-consuming but rewarding task. It was time-consuming because we found very little in existing histories of the area concerning railroads and as a result spent many hours checking microfilm files of The Clearfield Republican and its predecessors as far back as 1845, The Raftsman's Journal of Clearfield from 1868 to 1875 and many other sources. It was rewarding to see, as our research progressed, the pattern and network of rail lines across and into the county emerge from the initial line, the Tyrone& Clearfield, in the 1860s.

Although early railroad plans apparently considered a route through Clearfield County for a main line between New York and Chicago, none ever materialized. The real impetus for railroad construction into and across the county was the rich coal fields that existed in Clearfield and adjoining counties. As a result, primarily to reach coal sources but also to provide access routes to the metropolitan markets, there was developed some 24 railroads of various sizes in the county over 60 years or so, starting in the 1860s. This was exclusive of name changes as a result of mergers. Eventually all of these lines were abandoned or merged into the Baltimore & Ohio, New York Central or Pennsylvania Railroad corporate structures and today, as a result of recent mergers, the County is served only by the Penn Central and the Chesapeake & Ohio-Baltimore & Ohio Railroads (the Erie-Lackawanna still has trackage rights into the county but has not exercised them for nearly 10 years).

The 31 chapters in this history of Clearfield County Railroads originally appeared as separate, once-a-week
articles in The Progress under the heading "The Clearfield Area - Today-Tomorrow." Although a complete bibliography and list of credits appears in the back, we wish to recognize especially the help and material given us by Dr. Roger B. Saylor of The Pennsylvania State University, Harry G. Ganoe of Clearfield and Mrs. Carl Swales of Clearfield.

140 pages, Paperback  Measures 5 1/2" x 8"