Catawissa Railroad Company

Today's caboose attraction carries the name of the original Catawissa Railroad, whose roots reach to 1831, when the Little Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad was chartered with Catawissa men Christian Brobst and Joseph Paxton among its principals. After the Panic of 1837 stalled construction, the company reorganized in 1849 as the Catawissa, Williamsport and Erie, reached Milton in 1854, and began passenger trains between Catawissa and Tamaqua that July; by 1855 expresses ran from Philadelphia toward Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and Chicago over its difficult 65-mile route of three tunnels and eight bridges and trestles. Bankruptcy in 1859 produced the Catawissa Railroad in 1860, and the town donated land for an engine house and machine shop built in 1861, joined by a passenger station in 1878. The Reading leased the line in 1872 and formally absorbed the company in 1953; Conrail later abandoned what remained of the Catawissa Branch after 1976. The present operation preserves a piece of that legacy in Catawissa with a historically restored caboose available by reservation.