PHOTO PROVIDED Above, a photo of White Deer around 1907 when the White Deer and Loganton Railway was still in operation. Below, one of many trains that would make its way from White Deer in Union County to Loganton right here in Clinton.

PHOTO PROVIDED
Above, a photo of White Deer around 1907 when the White Deer and Loganton Railway was still in operation. Below, one of many trains that would make its way from White Deer in Union County to Loganton right here in Clinton.

From Staff Reports

LOGANTON — John Duncan’s White Deer and Loganton Railway (about 24 miles long from the village of White Deer in Union County west through Sugar Valley to Loganton) began passenger service with a first arrival in Loganton over 100 years ago on May 10, 1907.

In addition, mail was transported on the train, with conductor John Bubb, who was remembered for his snowy white goatee, serving also as the mail carrier. He used a wheelbarrow to cart mail sacks back and forth between the Loganton train station and the post office, half a mile apart.

Incoming freight included coal, fertilizer and various types of merchandise. Outgoing freight mainly was finished lumber from a small sawmill in town.

Unfortunately, the railroad never was extended west beyond the borough, and, with the depletion of timber resources, the railway couldn’t operate profitably on the remaining passenger, freight and mail service. It shut down in 1916, with the rails promptly removed.

The most noted of its four Climax locomotives, named “The Pot” because of its strange upright boiler and operated by engineer Floyd Meixsel, was sold to a brick plant in Watsontown.

If you’re looking at the existing White Deer station the standard gauge rails to the right is the now defunct Reading Railroad. But the W.D.& L. wye narrow gauge tracks were on the left side of the station.

The abandoned Reading Railroad equipment is still on the tracks at the station and is landlocked due to a bridge that collapsed during a flood about 10 years ago. But not for long, the Union County Industrial R.R. is reactivating the abandon line through Allenwood, Pa. so they are replacing the bridge.

The Express would like to thank local train enthusiast Jon Cassel for sharing this information and photos with our readers!