Bellefonte Central Railroad
Historical Summary
(Above, BFC 2-8-0 No. 4, an ex-PRR class H1, and ore car, Bellefonte, circa 1905, M. Bezilla collection)

The Bellefonte Central Railroad superseded the Buffalo Run, Bellefonte and Bald Eagle Railroad, which began operations as an iron ore carrier in 1886. The 19-mile BRB&BE was built primarily to haul iron ore from deposits near Strubles, just west of State College, to a large furnace at Bellefonte. When the furnace closed, the BRB&BE fell on hard times. It was reorganized by a group of its bondholders in 1892 as the Bellefonte Central. These bondholders then became stockholders in the new company. Corporate offices were in Philadelphia, where most of the stockholders lived. The company’s shop and enginehouse were at Coleville, just outside the Bellefonte borough limits.

The iron ore trade revived briefly in the early 1900s, and the BFC supplied ore to two large furnaces in the Bellefonte area. It even built a three-mile branch to the community of Scotia, to tap ore deposits that were previously mined by Andrew Carnegie to supply his Pittsburgh steel mills (via a separate branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad). The McNitt-Huyett Lumber Company logged the forests around Scotia and for several years shipped hundreds of carloads of wood products via the Bellefonte Central.

The shortline also handled considerable passenger and general freight traffic to State College. After about 1910, when the furnaces shut down permanently, lime and limestone business became the railroad’s primary source of revenue. Several companies mined the famous Bellefonte Ledge, a high-calcium vein of limestone of superior quality that stretched the length of the Nittany Valley. Much of the stone was made into lime for use in the manufacture of steel, glass, paper, leather, chemicals, and many other consumer and industrial products. Over the years, the BFC interchanged millions of tons of lime and limestone with the Pennsylvania Railroad at Bellefonte for shipment to customers throughout the northeastern U.S. and Canada. From 1893 to 1918, the BFC also interchanged traffic at Bellefonte with the Central Railroad of Pennsylvania, a shortline that connected with the New York Central Railroad at nearby Mill Hall.

From the late 1920s onward, a single customer provided 80 percent of more the of the BFC’s annual tonnage. The Chemical Lime Company operated three lime plants adjacent to the BFC’s mainline, several quarries, and one underground mine. National Gypsum, headquartered in Buffalo, New York, bought Chemical Lime in 1940 and consolidated lime-making in a single plant, fed from the underground mine, which was greatly expanded. This complex, about 3.5 miles west of Bellefonte, was commonly known as “the Gyp.”

The BFC operated three mixed trains (i.e., carrying both passengers and freight) Monday through Saturday each way between Bellefonte and State College until 1917, when service was reduced to a single roundtrip. For a few years afterward, a second daily train served lime and stone customers; but by 1940 or so, a single train did all the freight and passenger work along the line, Monday through Saturday. Passenger service was officially discontinued in 1946 when the coach that served as a passenger and express car and caboose was no longer fit for operation. After the early 1920s, few passengers rode the railroad anyway. In the 1950s and early 1960s, several special trains traversed the BFC using PRR equipment. All but one carried fans to Penn State football games. The exception came in 1953, when President of the United States Dwight Eisenhower traveled to Penn State by train to visit his brother Milton, who was president of the university.

Although State College was for most of the BFC’s history the end of the line, there were two relatively short-lived extensions. Between 1896 and 1919, the BFC served Pine Grove Mills, four miles beyond State College. This extension was part of a planned-but-never-built line that would have taken the Bellefonte Central into Huntingdon County and a connection with the Huntingdon and Broad Top Mountain Railroad. Between 1930 and 1933, the BFC operated a 25-mile line between State College and Tyrone via Warriors Mark. Most of this route was a former PRR branch that the BFC had purchased. About five miles was new construction.

State College itself received daily train service until 1959, when Penn State switched from rail to truck for receiving power plant coal (more than 30,000 tons annually). Trucks were then making inroads in all aspects of the rail freight business, and soon the BFC was sending its train to State College only once or twice weekly. The BFC discontinued service to State College altogether in 1974.

As part of the State College abandonment, the railroad cut back operations to the line between Bellefonte and the Gyp, which was its sole remaining customer. In 1975, the BFC’s stockholders sold the railroad to San Francisco-based Kyle Railways, which owned shortlines throughout the U.S. The following year National Gypsum sold “the Gyp” to a Canadian firm, Domtar. Domtar and the Kyle-owned Bellefonte Central operated until 1982, when a severe slump in the steel industry caused Domtar to halt production. The BFC ran its last train in June 1982 and was abandoned two years later. The Gyp later reopened under a local owner, Con-Lime, but all shipments were made by truck. Later still, the underground mine closed, and lime-making was continued by another Canadian firm, Graymont.

Another shortline, the Nittany and Bald Eagle, now bases its operations at the former BFC enginehouse and shop. The BFC track west of Coleville has been removed. Only the mile or so to the east, between Coleville and the former Pennsylvania Railroad interchange at Sunnyside yard, remains in service. The NBER uses this segment to gain access to the rest of the PRR’s Bellefonte-area trackage. It also continues the BFC tradition of providing a shortline railroad alternative for shipments of Centre County lime and stone and other products.