Allentown & Auburn Railroad

The Allentown and Auburn Railroad traces its origins to a charter issued in 1853 to the Dauphin and Susquehanna Coal Company and the Central Railroad of New Jersey for the Allentown Railroad, with construction beginning in 1855 along a planned route from Allentown to Port Clinton via Topton, Kutztown, Virginville and Hamburg. The Allentown Railroad merged with the Auburn & Port Clinton Railroad on January 1 1857, but the Panic of 1857 halted the project; the Dauphin and Susquehanna Coal Company was foreclosed on April 1 1859 and absorbed by the Philadelphia and Reading Railway‑controlled Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad, and the opening of the East Pennsylvania Railroad on May 11 1859 rendered the original line redundant. In the early 1870s the Philadelphia and Reading Railway laid track on the former Allentown Railroad grade between Kutztown and the East Pennsylvania Railroad at Topton, and the line was formally merged into the Reading Company on December 31 1945 before passing to the Kutztown Transportation Authority after the Reading’s bankruptcy and Conrail consolidation. After freight service ceased following a foundry closure, Lindsay and Michael Bast assumed operation of the Kutztown‑Topton segment in 2013, and the Allentown and Auburn Railroad launched tourist service in March 2015.