Adding less than a mile of track to a railroad line might not sound like an improvement, but it’s expected to spur plenty of business activity in Northumberland County.
The SEDA- Council of Governments Joint Rail Authority, which owns the 27-mile Shamokin Valley Railroad, plans to add about 3,500 feet of track to the train line in Central PA. Of that, 2,000 feet, next to an industrial park under development near the town of Kulpmont, will allow trains to reverse their direction. Another 1,500 of track will serve TimberEnd Inc., a nearby mulch company.
The $1 million project will be paid for with state and federal money. Jeff Stover, the authority’s executive director, says construction should be finished this summer. SEDA-COG, a development agency for 11 counties in Central PA, expects it to entice businesses to come to the area. That would be a welcome development for the Shamokin Valley line, which carried just 206 loaded rail cars last year. The authority’s five lines carried a total of 34,000 cars in 2010.
The Shamokin Valley project is the first of 14 improvements planned for the rail lines the authority owns in central PA. The agency has secured $10 million in federal grants for these projects, most of which are meant to facilitate business stemming from natural-gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation.
Source: Jeff Stover, SEDA- Council of Governments
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen
