The Climax on display in modern Corry was constructed in 1927 and shipped to a chemical company, for which it hauled wood until 1941. It then operated on the Southern New York Railway in Oneonta, New York, until it was retired in 1956. It subsequently spent a number of years outdoors in Corry’s Mead Park, until a building was constructed to house it in 1967. In the 1970s, the historical society added on to the building. Over the next two decades, other structures were built at the site to house other equipment and accommodate visitors.
When we visited in 2011, officers of the society were kind enough to give us a private tour. They showed off the Climax and escorted us to see two railroad baggage carts as well as other railroad memorabilia not ordinarily on display. We found their buildings to be jam-packed with materials related to the area’s local history, mostly donations from local residents. Many items had been manufactured in Corry, which had been known for manufacturing. Thanks to the helpful information we received at the historical society, we learned that coal trains, both full and empty, run through town each day. Downtown, we found another Climax, this one in a wall mural that was impossible to miss as we drove north on the town’s main street.
Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad
In 1862, the twenty-seven-mile Oil Creek Railroad was constructed between Corry and Titusville, its original six-foot gauge an indication that its builders intended to do business with the Erie system. However, in 1864, representatives from the New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad jointly purchased most of its stock, placing it in the hands of New York lawyer Samuel J. Tilden as trustee. When the Pennsy’s managers discovered that they were not getting the previously agreed-upon amount of traffic from this arrangement, they purchased the New York Central’s interest in the railroad and took over.
After being merged into the Oil Creek & Allegheny River Railway in 1868, the line connected with the Allegheny Valley Railroad to form a through route between Pittsburgh and Buffalo. The railroad’s earnings shrank with the end of the oil boom and it was reorganized, finally making its way into Conrail, which eventually abandoned it.
In 1968, two groups joined together to form the Oil Creek Railway Historical Society and purchased the old tracks and buildings. The first Oil Creek & Titusville (OC&T) excursion train ran that year, and by 2006, the railroad had carried more than 540,000 passengers. Its freight operation hauls more than a thousand cars each year. Today passengers can board at the Perry Street Station in Titusville or the Drake Well Museum for a ride through Pennsylvania’s oil-boom country. The OC&T’s two diesel locomotives were built in 1947 and 1950. They haul passenger cars built in 1930 and an open car that allows riders to better spot the bald eagles, deer, and black bears in the state park lands through which the railroad travels. A caboose is available for private parties. In 2011, the railroad added first-class seating in a new car called the Wabash Cannonball.
The Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad also operates what it bills as America’s only railway post office in a car built in 1927. Passengers can purchase postcards and mail them from the train, although the actual sorting of mail by postal employees aboard rolling cars ended in 1977.
Lorett Treese Travels
Titusville was home to Col. Edwin L. Drake, who drilled the first commercially successful oil well, as well as Ida Tarbell, the muckraking journalist who took on the oil business operations of the Standard Oil Company. It must have been sometime after the visit of William Wright that it earned the sobriquet Queen City, a town of millionaires able to provide the residents with luxurious services such as waterworks and paved streets. Titusville was pretty quiet when we visited on a Sunday afternoon in August 2011. The first sign of activity we encountered was the crowd at the local County Fair convenience store and gas station complex.
The Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad’s excursion train is ready to depart.
We located the Perry Street Station of the Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad, a restored freight station, for our 1 p.m. excursion. We were about an hour early, so we had time to browse the gift shop and view displays that told the story of the town and the railroad, not to mention the model railroad mounted at a kids’-eye-view level. We nearly bought box lunches at the concession stand, but the couple in line ahead of us purchased the last two with hot dogs, and we didn’t want the alternative with ham or turkey sandwiches, so we headed back to County Fair and bought some hot dogs there instead. We ate them in the train station parking lot in the shadow of the adjacent Caboose Motel, which offers accommodations in twenty-one bright and colorful cabooses, many with deck areas for outdoor seating, and all attractively furnished.
When our train arrived, it had four passenger cars plus the railroad’s new first-class car, the Wabash Cannonball, along with an open-air car that resembled the sort of flat-bottomed car on which barrels of oil had been transported. It was popular with kids, though it had no seats of any kind. We boarded through a car that contained a snack bar and gift shop, as well as the train’s post office operation, where passengers could purchase postcards and have them postmarked and mailed to the folks back home.
As we pulled out of the station, the Perry Street Station staffers came out to wave good-bye. The train passed down a street of houses where many old-timer residents also waved to us from seats on their porches. We were soon within Oil Creek State Park, heading south parallel to Oil Creek and the Oil Creek Trail. This excursion train makes stops, and our first was at the Drake Well Museum. We waited while those who had parked here to tour the museum or have lunch in the nearby picnic grounds boarded.
The excursion had a recorded narration punctuated by music, but we could barely hear it over the noise of the train, including the persistent flange squeal. We did hear some information about the pits in the ground where oil had been extracted pre-Drake and the replica derricks built on the hill over Benninghoff Run to lend a little flavor of the old days. We also heard a staff member periodically reminding us to visit the gift shop and snack bar and send a postcard home.
The tracks had been laid on a ledge overlooking Oil Creek, and passengers on the running right outbound could see that it was clear and shallow as we approached our stop at Petroleum Centre. We saw a small station and trailhead for the bike trail. At this stop, quite a few people walked their bikes onto the train. An illustrated notebook that our conductor had handed us told us that this burg had once been a metropolis of hotels and theaters locally known as “the wickedest city on earth.”
When we reached our southern destination at Rynd Farm, we got off to visit the snack and souvenir concession while our locomotive was switched to what would be the front of the train on our way back. We had been sitting in the last passenger car before the open-air car, and through its open rear door, we had noticed a black tank car behind the open-air car. While we sat on the boarding platform at Rynd Farm, we watched our locomotive pick up what turned out to be two tank cars and move them to adjacent tracks before coupling with the open-air car. Our excursion train had hauled freight!
Being directly behind the locomotive made the open-air car seem even less attractive, so we remained in our passenger car but moved to seats across the aisle, where we could continue to gaze down at Oil Creek. As we lumbered back into Titusville, some of the same old-timers were still sitting out on their porches and waved to us again as we went by.
The Region’s Rail-Trails
Those intending to hike the Oil Creek State Park Trail in Venango County are warned to stay off the active railroad tracks and out of the way of the Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad excursion trains. Hikers can begin at the trailhead at Petroleum Centre, where a train station visitors center houses historic displays, or at the Drake Well Museum, where reproduction wells are still pumping oil. Although the Oil Creek State Park Trail runs through oil-boom country in Oil Creek Gorge, today the scenery again resembles the wilderness that this area was before Edwin L. Drake struck oil. The trail is equipped with historical markers to indicate the vanished sit
es of Pennsylvania’s oil industry. There are routes connecting with the Samuel Justus Recreation Trail, also located in Venango County.
In neighboring Crawford County, the Pymatuning State Park Spillway Trail is located in one of the Commonwealth’s largest state parks, near the massive reservoir created by Pymatuning Dam, which was opened in 1934 to regulate the flow of water to the Shenango and Beaver Rivers.
In Erie County, the Corry Junction Greenway Trail extends into New York from the town of Corry. It began life in 1865 as the Oil Creek Cross Cut Railroad and operated under various owners and names until 1978.
Other rail-trails in this region include the Sandy Creek Trail, Clarion Highlands Trail, Allegheny River Trail, Ernst Bike Trail, East Branch Trail, and Shenango River Trail.
CONTACT INFORMATION FOR REGIONAL SITES
Greater Philadelphia and Lehigh Valley
New Hope & Ivyland Railroad
32 W. Bridge St.
New Hope, PA 18938
215-862-2332
www.newhoperailroad.com
Newtown Square Railroad Museum Association
P.O. Box 21
Newtown Square, PA 19073
www.newtownsquare-railroadmuseum.org
Reading Terminal Market
12th and Arch Streets
Philadelphia, PA 19107
215-922-2317
www.readingterminalmarket.org
Suburban Station
34 N. 16th St. and JFK Blvd.
Philadelphia, PA 19102
215-580-5739
www.septa.org
Thomas Leiper House
521 Avondale Rd.
Wallingford, PA 19086
610-566-6365
Thirtieth Street Station
93 N. 30th St. and Market St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
215-580-6500
www.septa.org
The Train Factory
Franklin Institute
222 N. 20th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-448-1200
www.fi.edu
West Chester Railroad
230 E. Market St.
West Chester, PA 19382
610-430-2233
www.westchesterrr.com
Valley Forge National Historical Park
1400 N. Outerline Drive
King of Prussia, PA 19406
610-783-1077
www.nps.gov/vafo
Dutch Country
Choo Choo Barn
P.O. Box 130
226 Gap Rd.
Strasburg, PA 17579
717-687-7911
www.choochoobarn.com
Gettysburg Railroad Station
c/o Gettysburg Convention & Visitors Bureau
35 Carlisle St.
Gettysburg, PA 17325
717-337-6274
www.gettysburg.travel
Harrisburg Transportation Center
4th and Chestnut Streets
Harrisburg, PA 17101
717-232-3303
Harris Railroad Switch Tower Museum
637 Walnut St.
Harrisburg, PA 17101
717-232-6221
www.harristower.org
Heritage Rail Trail County Park
400 Mundis Race Rd.
York, PA 17406
717-840-7440
www.yorkcountyparks.org
Lincoln Train Museum
425 Steinwehr Ave.
Gettysburg, PA 17325
717-334-5678
www.gettysburgbattlefieldtours.com
Lititz Springs Park & Train Station Welcome Center
P.O. Box 110
Lititz, PA 17543
717-626-7960
www.lititzspringspark.org
Manheim Historical Society
P.O. Box 396
88 South Grant St.
Manheim, PA 17545
717-665-7989
www.manheimpa.com
Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad Preservation Society
P.O. Box 5122
York, PA 17405
www.maandparailroad.com
Middletown & Hummelstown Railroad
136 Brown St.
Middletown, PA 17057
717-944-4435
www.mhrailroad.com
National Toy Train Museum
300 Paradise Lane
Strasburg, PA 17579
717-687-8976
www.nttmuseum.org
Railroad House of Marietta
280 W. Front St.
Marietta, PA 17547
717-426-4141
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania
300 Gap Rd.
Strasburg, PA 17579
717-687-8628
www.rrmuseumpa.org
Red Caboose Motel and Restaurant
312 Paradise Lane
Ronks, PA 17572
717-687-5000
www.redcaboosemotel.com
Strasburg Rail Road
301 Gap Rd.
Ronks, PA 17579
717-687-7522
www.strasburgrailroad.com
Valleys of the Schuylkill and Susquehanna
Caboose Lodging in Catawissa
c/o Walt Gosciminski
119 Pine St.
Catawissa, PA 17820
570-356-2345
www.caboosenut.com
Historical Society of Berks County
940 Centre Ave.
Reading, PA 19601
610-375-4375
www.berkshistory.org
Knoebels Grove Amusement Park
390 Knoebels Blvd.
Elysburg, PA 17824
570-672-2572
www.knoebels.com
Pioneer Tunnel Coal Mine and Steam Train
19th and Oak Sts.
Ashland, PA 17921
570-875-3850
www.pioneertunnel.com
Reading Railroad Heritage Museum
500 S. Third St.
Hamburg, PA 19526
215-723-5848
www.readingrailroad.org
Reading Society of Model Engineers
P.O. Box 13011
Reading, PA 19612
610-929-5444
www.rsme.org
Roadside America
109 Roadside Drive
P.O. Box 2
Shartlesville, PA 19554
610-488-6421
www.roadsideamerica.com
Wanamaker, Kempton & Southern, Inc.
42 Community Center Drive
P.O. Box 24
Kempton, PA 19529
610-756-6469
www.kemptontrain.com
Pennsylvania Wilds
General Thomas L. Kane Memorial Chapel and Museum
30 Chestnut St.
Kane, PA 16735
800-473-9370
Kane Depot Preservation Society
1 S. Fraley St.
Kane, PA 16735
www.kanedepot.org
Kinzua Bridge State Park
c/o Bendigo State Park
Johnsonburg, PA 15845
814-965-2646
Lycoming County Historical Society
858 W. Fourth St.
Williamsport, PA 17701
570-326-3326
www.tabermuseum.org
Pennsylvania Lumber Museum
5660 U.S. 6 West
P.O. Box 239
Galeton, PA 16922
814-435-2652
www.lumbermuseum.org
Tioga Central Railroad
256 Eagleview Blvd.
Exton, PA 19341
570-724-0990
www.tiogacentral.com
Upstate Pennsylvania
Asa Packer Museum
P.O. Box 108
Jim Thorpe, PA 18229
570-325-3229
www.asapackermansion.com
Hooven Mercantile Company Museum
42 Susquehanna St.
Jim Thorpe, PA 18229
570-325-2248
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Jim Thorpe Visitor Center
Lehigh Ave.
Jim Thorpe, PA 18229
570-325-3673
www.delawareandlehigh.org
Lackawanna Coal Mine
McDade Park
Scranton, PA 18504
717-963-6463
www.lackawannacounty.org
Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway
1 Susquehanna St.
Jim Thorpe, PA 18229
570-325-8485
www.lgsry.com
Mauch Chunk Museum and Cultural Center
41 W. Broadway
Jim Thorpe, PA 18229
570-325-9190
No. 9 Mine & Museum
9 Dock St.
Lansford, PA 18232
570-645-7074
Old Jail Museum
128 W. Broadway
Jim Thorpe, PA 18229
Railroads of Pennsylvania Page 36