Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad
[3] Then in 1956, the Baltimore and Ohio sold the remaining 97 miles (156 km) of former Buffalo and Susquehanna track to the H. E. Salzberg Company, who organized the Wellsville, Addison and Galeton Railroad to operate the line.
In 1885 Frank H. Goodyear, a Buffalo lumber and fuel dealer, bought thousands of acres of virgin Hemlock timberland in north-central Pennsylvania.
Up until the 1880s, the lumber industries mostly avoided Hemlock, due to its ring shaking and high knot content,[4] instead choosing to go after the more solid Pine and Spruce forests.
The Sinnemahoning Valley Railroad ran from Keating Summit (Forest House) east to a switchback and then south down the north branch of Freeman Run toward Austin .
In 1891, The Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad Company (of 1891) was started in Galeton and headed south west 14 miles (23 km) to Cherry Springs, Pennsylvania.
The Goodyear's had purchased timber lands along the Pine Creek, north of Galeton, a few years previous, and now it was time to start logging those properties.
Almost 20 miles (32 km) of rail had been built by the Lackawanna Logging Company at Cross Fork, who also constantly moved the tracks to fresh areas to be cut.
This area is located near the current Moshannon State Forest, and became a big lumbering town for the Goodyear brothers and the Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad.
So when in the late fall of 1905, the railroad was completed to the area, the first couple of trains were used by the Hyde-Murphy Company, to ship in materials for the construction of the first ninety houses in Sagamore.
The Goodyear brothers desperately wanted to control all of the transportation of the coal to their mines, so they needed to quickly finish the extension north to Buffalo.
The Goodyear brothers incorporated the Buffalo and Susquehanna Terminal Railroad[33] to do the daily switching of the coal and ore trains around the blast furnaces, the four large modern steel elevators and the foundry.
Early on, coal and coke from the south end of the system generated considerable revenue, as did the operation of numerous tanneries along the line,[8] including the one at Costello, Pennsylvania, which was reported at the time to be the largest in the world.
Very shortly after, in February 1910, Fisk and Robinson, one of the best-known bond houses in Wall Street, and the company that financed the mortgage of the Buffalo and Susquehanna Railway, admitted insolvency and filed for bankruptcy.
By the time the line reached Buffalo, the Hemlock lumber industry was beginning to peak,[7] and logging production started to wind down, as many local forests had already been denuded.
Two months after the Fisk and Robinson failure, in April 1910, the bond holders of the first $6 million mortgage of the Buffalo and Susquehanna Railway formed a committee to put together a plan of action in the event of a default on May 1.
[49] In late December 1910, H. I. Miller, receiver of the bankrupt Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad and Railway, told the committee of bondholders that a reorganization plan would not be finalized until at least spring 1911.
He was quoted as stating that "snow has so much interfered in past years with the operation of the line, that he is not in a position to make any satisfactory report on the earning power of the road until he has been in charge of the company for a period including the Winter months."
[51] To make matters worse for the profitability of the rail line, Austin, Pennsylvania, which was the Goodyears' center of logging operations in the area, was literally wiped off the map by a large flood on September 30, 1911.
Eventually, the Lackawanna Lumber Company owned a big mill in Cross Fork, and the town quickly grew and became a center of logging activity for the Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad.
This sale included the line operating between Wellsville and Buffalo, consisting of about 90 miles (140 km) of trackage, several stations, and rolling stock.
Surprisingly, in early 1916, the Public Service Commission authorized the Wellsville and Buffalo Railroad Corporation to sell $850,000 in common capital stock.
The Buffalo and Susquehanna had a lease agreement with the BR&P to run B&S trains on their tracks for 21 miles (34 km), from Sykesville to Juneu, to access the B&S mines at Sagamore, for 20 years.
On August 3, 1921, the Interstate Commerce Commission, complying with the Transportation Act of 1920, published a tentative plan for consolidation of railroad properties into a limited number of systems.
Non-union miners, called "scabs" by residents of Sagamore, were brought in by the Buffalo and Susquehanna Coal Company to occupy the evicted houses.
In February 1929, the Baltimore and Ohio notified the Interstate Commerce Commission of its intent to ask for permission to buy the Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad Corporation.
By October 23, 1929, it was reported that progress in the plan to merge the Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad with the Baltimore and Ohio had been indicated the previous day by the approval for listing of deposit certificates of the former on the New York Stock Exchange.
The new shorter B&O route across northern Pennsylvania was soon lost to antiquity, as the Great Depression forced the Baltimore and Ohio to focus on other issues to stay profitable.
Even with the mines open on limited production, the Great Depression affected everyone, and the small town of Sagamore continued to die off as more and more houses were vacant and getting torn down, some for firewood.
By November 1942, the mortgage bond holders of the Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad Corporation met to discuss a proposal to abandon and scrap a total of 53.6 miles (86.3 km) of track.
[25] With the failed attempt to create a shorter route across northern Pennsylvania long gone, and with the mines now closed, the Baltimore and Ohio was looking to sell the disconnected part of the old Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad.
