Williamsport and North Branch Railroad - Decline and Abandonment

Decline and Abandonment

The W&NB's most profitable year was in 1906, when it netted $15,000. Thereafter, it fluctuated between surplus and deficit until 1912, the last year it showed a profit. Most local industries, such as logging, tanning and agriculture, declined through the 1910s, with only coal shipments remaining dependable. The only significant industrial development was the opening of the Big Run Manufacturing Company's stave mill at Sonestown in 1914. Big Run Manufacturing was a project of local loggers, including Col. R. Bruce Ricketts. The company laid a standard gauge rail a short distance on the Eagles Mere Railroad, and then turned up Big Run to collect timber. This line was removed around 1917 or 1918, and a new line was laid on part of the old Nordmont Chemical grade from Nordmont up Cherry Run. Logging trains originating on this line operated over the W&NB from Nordmont to Sonestown until 1922, when the stave mill was closed and its logging line abandoned.

The W&NB went into receivership in 1917 due to its inability to pay off its bonded interest, and the lease of the Eagles Mere Railroad was canceled in 1920. The W&NB was reorganized as the Williamsport and North Branch Railway on May 1, 1921. In addition to the closing of the Sonestown stave mill, Nordmont Chemical sold out to Charles Sones in 1924. He closed the factory, replaced it with a sawmill, and continued to haul logs on the Wyoming & Sullivan until 1930. With local traffic falling off, the W&NB depended on the small amount of bridge traffic allotted it by the ICC to help sustain it. It was only allowed freight traveling over the Grand Trunk Railway and the Lehigh Valley which was destined for the Reading. In practice, this amounted largely to automobiles and grain.

It was the Great Depression that ultimately finished off the Williamsport and North Branch. The Eagles Mere Railroad had been abandoned in 1926 after flood damage, but it no longer supplied any significant traffic for the W&NB. After 1930, the logging and wood products industry had essentially shut down, leaving only the coal mines as regular generators of freight traffic north of Picture Rocks. The furniture factories lower in the valley also suffered during the Depression. During the 1930s, the railroad just scraped along, able to pay its operating expenses but unable to maintain track or equipment. By 1937, it was in so decrepit a state that the owners decided to abandon it. The last train ran on October 11, 1937, and tracks were removed by summer 1938.

Little remains of the railroad, although the Pennsdale and Sonestown stations are now private residences, the Nordmont station stands vacant, and part of the grade has been incorporated into the Loyalsock Trail.