 |
 | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Kempton, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Reporting mark | WKS |
| Locale | Pennsylvania |
| Dates of operation | 1963–present |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
The Wanamaker, Kempton & Southern, Inc. (WK&S) is a privately owned heritage railroad company in Kempton, Pennsylvania. The company was founded in 1963 and operates over an isolated remnant of a former Reading Company line. Its nickname is the Hawk Mountain Line due to its proximity to the Hawk Mountain range.
The WK&S operates tourist trains on about three miles (4.8 km) of track between Kempton and Wanamaker regularly on weekends between May and November as well as on special occasions using either diesel or steam engines. Its Kempton station is not the original one, but consists of buildings from the Reading Company that were brought to their current location. The ticket office was the original station at Joanna, Pennsylvania.
The company owns a shop building and an additional 1.5 miles (2.4 km) of track south of Kempton.
The origins of the Wanamaker, Kempton & Southern date back to 1870 with the charter of a new railroad, the Berks County Railroad. In a very short time, the new line was bankrupt. It went to the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad as the renamed the Schuylkill and Lehigh line, a small branch line from Reading to Slatedale where the Reading connected with the Lehigh Valley Railroad. With the decline of railroads, the Reading Company filed abandonment of the Schuylkill and Lehigh line.
In 1963 a group of volunteers founded the Wanamaker, Kempton & Southern Railroad with its main purpose to preserve railroad history. The original plan for the line was to operate 11.5 miles (18.5 km) of track from Kempton to Germansville. However this did not happen because an uncooperative land owner forced the new railroad to stop where the owner's land started, which is why the railroad stops just a north of Wanamaker along Route 143. The new railroad purchased three miles (4.8 km) of track for $65,000. After the rest of the line was abandoned, the tracks south of Kempton were next on the list to be scrapped, but the WK&S had no money to purchase the line. However, the scrapper donated 1.2 miles (1.9 km) of track south of Kempton. The end of the line to the south became North Albany.
Tamaqua is a borough in eastern Schuylkill County in the Coal Region of Pennsylvania, United States. It had a population of 6,934 as of the 2020 U.S. census.
The history of rail transport began before the beginning of the common era. It can be divided into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of track material and motive power used.
Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW) was an American manufacturer of railway locomotives from 1825 to 1951. Originally located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it moved to nearby Eddystone in the early 20th century. The company was for decades the world's largest producer of steam locomotives, but struggled to compete when demand switched to diesel locomotives. Baldwin produced the last of its 70,000-plus locomotives in 1951, before merging with the Lima-Hamilton Corporation on September 11, 1951, to form the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation.
The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad in the Northeastern United States built predominantly to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Northeastern Pennsylvania to major consumer markets in Philadelphia, New York City, and elsewhere.
The Reading Company was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and freight transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states from 1924 until its acquisition by Conrail in 1976.
H.K. Porter, Inc. (Porter) manufactured light-duty railroad locomotives in the US, starting in 1866. The company became the largest producer of industrial locomotives, and built almost eight thousand of them. The last locomotive was built in 1950, but the company continues to produce industrial equipment to this day.
The Main Line of Public Works was a package of legislation passed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1826 to establish a means of transporting freight between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It funded the construction of various long-proposed canal and road projects, mostly in southern Pennsylvania, that became a canal system and later added railroads. Built between 1826 and 1834, it established the Pennsylvania Canal System and the Allegheny Portage Railroad.
Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad (P&CR) (1834) was one of the earliest commercial railroads in the United States, running 82 miles (132 km) from Philadelphia to Columbia, Pennsylvania, it was built by the Pennsylvania Canal Commission in lieu of a canal from Columbia to Philadelphia; in 1857 it became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It is currently owned and operated by Amtrak as its electrified Keystone Corridor. The Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad's western terminus was located near the former ferry site known as Wright's Ferry, in the town once of that name, but now Columbia in Lancaster County. There the P&CR met with the Pennsylvania Canal—navigations and improvements on the Susquehanna River east bank approximately 30 miles (48.3 km) south of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Most of its right-of-way was obtained by the actions of the Pennsylvania Canal Commission which operated the railroad under the various enabling acts of the Pennsylvania legislature known as the Main Line of Public Works in support of a far sighted plan to link the whole state by canals. With an engineering study reporting back a finding that obtaining sufficient waters to flood the intended 80+ mile canal from Philadelphia to Columbia, the Canal Commission and legislature authorized the railway on the right of way intended for the canal.
The Lehigh and New England Railroad was a Class I railroad located in Northeastern United States that acted as a bridge line. It was the second notable U.S. railroad to file for abandonment in its entirety after the New York, Ontario and Western Railway. It was headquartered in Philadelphia.
The Lahaina, Kaanapali and Pacific Railroad (LKPRR) is a steam-powered, 3 ft narrow gauge heritage railroad in Lāhainā, Hawaii. The LKPRR operated the Sugar Cane Train, a 6-mile (9.7 km), 40-minute trip in open-air coaches pulled by vintage steam locomotives. The tracks connect Lahaina with Puukolii, stopping briefly at Kaanapali. A narrator points outs sites of interest during the trip, which crosses a 325-foot (99 m) curved wooden trestle whose elevation yields panoramic views of neighboring islands and the West Maui Mountains. The line is currently not operating and all equipment is stored west of Lahaina.
The Black Hills Central Railroad is a heritage railroad that operates in Keystone, South Dakota, United States. The railroad was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 5, 2003.
The Arcata and Mad River Railroad, founded in 1854, was the oldest working railroad in California. It operated on a unique narrow gauge until the 1940s when standard gauge rails were laid. Service ceased in 1983 due to landslides. It is California Historical Landmark #842.
The New Hope Valley Railway is a heritage railroad in Bonsal, North Carolina operated by the North Carolina Railway Museum, Inc., an all-volunteer, nonprofit, and tax exempt educational and historical organization.
The Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad, sometimes shortened to Reading and Northern Railroad, is a regional railroad in eastern Pennsylvania. Its headquarters is in Port Clinton. The RBMN provides freight service on 400 miles (640 km) of track. Its mainline consists of the Reading Division between Reading and Packerton and the Lehigh Division between Lehighton and Dupont. Its main freight cargo is anthracite coal.
The Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum is the official state railroad museum of Alabama. Dedicated to the preservation, restoration, and operation of historically significant railway equipment, the museum is located at 1919 Ninth Street, Calera, Alabama, on I-65 approximately 30 miles (48 km) south of Birmingham.
The Schuylkill Branch was a rail line owned and operated by the former Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in Pennsylvania. The line ran from the Philadelphia to Harrisburg Main Line at 52nd Street in Philadelphia north via Norristown, Reading, and Pottsville to Delano Junction, about 2.5 mi (4.0 km) northeast of Delano. From Delano Junction, the PRR had trackage rights over the Lehigh Valley Railroad's Hazleton Branch and Tomhicken Branch to Tomhicken, where the PRR's Catawissa Branch began.
Wanamaker is small community in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. It is part of the Lehigh Valley metropolitan area, which had a population of 861,899 and was the 68th most populous metropolitan area in the U.S. as of the 2020 census.
The Nesquehoning Valley Railroad Company, herein called the Nesquehoning Valley Railroad (NVRR), is now a fallen flag standard-gauge, steam era shortline railroad built as a coal road to ship the Anthracite mined in the Southeastern Coal Region on either side of the Little Schuylkill River tributary Panther Creek and the history making coal towns of the Panther Creek Valley down the Lehigh River transportation corridor to the Eastern seaboard.
