Moorhead had made a fortune mining phosphate rock in Florida in the late 1880s,[1] and had previously been involved in promoting the Susquehanna and Southwest Railway during the early 1880s.
[6] The announcement of the Path Valley Railroad in late 1893 temporarily balked plans for a southward extension of the TVRR through Concord Narrows into Franklin County.
To supply this plant, Moorhead planned to tap other local lime deposits, and reportedly surveyed a rail line from Honey Grove to Reeds Gap.
The company ceased operation in 1904, a great blow to Moorhead and the TVRR, which was now dependent on lumber and local agricultural traffic.
As part of the program for doing so, a separate corporation, the Tuscarora Railroad, was chartered in January 1898 to build the southern extension from Blairs Mills to McConnellsburg.
It peaked in 1900, when the Tuscarora Valley hauled 16,024 short tons (14,537 t) of lumber, and remained high for many years, exceeding other traffic in weight by as much as five to one.
[20] The other major lumber broker on the line was Henry Clay Hower, whose large lumberyard in Port Royal received much of the TVRR's traffic.
In 1899, it was rumored that the Oak Extract Company would build a new connection from the Newport and Shermans Valley Railroad to Honey Grove and abandon the TVRR north of there, making it a feeder for tanning operations, but this plan never came to fruition.
[22] Some of the timber logged in the valley probably also went to the old Ross Farm phosphate plant, which was converted to the mill of the Nemo Paper Company in 1904, but it only operated for a few years.
At that time, the logging railroad and facility were sold, dismantled, and shipped to the Midlothian, Maryland operation of the Juniata Lumber Company, co-owned by Hower.
The causes are not understood in detail, although they may be attributable in part to capital improvements to the original lightly built narrow gauge infrastructure, including the construction of concrete abutments for the railroad's bridges and a creamery and warehouse in Port Royal in 1912.
Initially replaced by other local men, the railroad then seems to have fallen into the hands of New York investors, such as Jacob S. Farlee, president from 1910 to 1915.
By protecting the unprofitable railroad, they could ensure that their lumber businesses could retain access to what was, as yet, the only means of transportation in the Tuscarora Valley capable of sustaining them.
[28] Although Blair and Hower's takeover had relieved the railroad from the prospect of foreclosure when its bonds came due in 1917,[28] the business outlook remained grim.
[29] The railroad also had to grapple with the expense of transshipment to standard gauge cars at Port Royal; the Tuscarora Valley was particularly vulnerable due to its lack of a major shipper producing a steady volume of commodities.
[32] The railroad appeared to experience a renascence during the early 1920s, making a slight profit, but this was largely funded through deferred maintenance, and economies such as the abandonment of the shops at Ross Farm, which were moved to a new enginehouse at Blairs Mills.
[33] Income continued to fall in 1928, and while details are not known, the poor quality of the physical plant made it difficult to compete with trucks and automobiles.