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1989throwa t1_j7lgolo wrote

Okay, so I will be referring to this map

Surprisingly, Norfolk Southern does NOT own the rails connecting Tyrone to State College.

Instead, there appears to be one company, one Municipal Authority, and one non-profit organization we would need to work with to make this a reality.

First, there is the Nittany & Bald Eagle Railroad which is an arm of The North Shore Railroad Company & Affiliates (NSRC)

Secondly, there is the Susquehanna Economic Development Association -Council of Governments Joint Rail Authority (SEDA-COG JRA) that appears to own the tracks.

Finally, there is the Bellefonte Historical Railroad Society

Now: it would take some doing, but SEDA-COG is an association where the board of directors are elected officials. Meaning, the rails are publicly owned and it looks like the NSRC has a close association with SEDA-COG (I will do some poking around to get more information about that.) But if SEDA owns the tracks, they are ultimately owned by residents meaning folks who live in the area can make requests.

Also, while we are thinking about it, we could even connect Lock Haven to the State College area as well as Tyrone. Even if we just start with game day, that could be helpful (this would need to cooperate with CATA, but that shouldn't be impossible)

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vortical42 OP t1_j7lgzl7 wrote

The dream would be a line all the way up the Susquehanna valley to Scranton.

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1989throwa t1_j7li6sb wrote

Agreed. The main challenge there would be needing to work with Norfolk Southern since they own lines outside of the North Shore Railroad Company & Affiliates' control between the Susquehanna Valley and Scranton 😕

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[deleted] t1_j7m7jtv wrote

We need a stop in york county too

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1989throwa t1_j7nsuiu wrote

Ideally we would have passenger rail to all major population centers, and it just takes a deliberate choice.

PA has roughly the same population density as Portugal which has 3622 km of rail while PA has 9516km of rail (NOT including SEPTA or PAAC commuter rail systems). This is over 2.5 times more rail.

PA has 13 million residents (or so) which places us between the Netherlands and Belgium which, combined, have less rail than PA.

PA and the nation of England are practically the same size in area, and England had 11,672 km in 2020. England has some of the most heavily used rail system in the world, and they only have a bit over 2000 more km of rail line than we do.

The reason we do not have enough passenger rail in PA is by design and it was a choice. We could have a decent passenger rail system

We could have a line from Harrisburg to York to Hanover to Gettysburg. Or from York to Baltimore.

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[deleted] t1_j7nuvtj wrote

I imagine a line from north to south. State college, harrisburg, york, and it goes into maryland to baltimore.

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Allemaengel t1_j7pu069 wrote

And then the Scranton-Poconos-NYC line being proposed.

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