Montour Railroad

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Montour Railroad (MTR) was a short-line railroad in southwestern Pennsylvania. Based in Coraopolis, it carried passengers in its early years and handled freight for many years. At its peak in the 1930s, the railroad served 27 mines and moved about seven million tons of coal each year in Allegheny and Washington Counties.

History
- The Montour Railroad was chartered in 1877 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Imperial Coal Company. The first segment ran from Montour Junction near Coraopolis to Imperial, Pennsylvania.
- In 1901 the Pittsburgh Coal Company took control.
- A major expansion in 1912 extended the line to new coal mines and factories, and by 1914 it reached West Mifflin on the Monongahela River.
- It became an important feeder line, linking to all five major railroads in southwestern Pennsylvania.
- In 1946 the Montour Railroad was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad (a New York Central subsidiary) and was operated jointly.
- A five-mile branch served Moon Run and was operated until 1936. The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad gained sole control in 1975.

Operations
- In 1944 Montour reported 159 million ton-miles of revenue freight and had about 50 miles of road and 84 miles of track.

Westland Branch
- Opened in 1928 to serve Westland Mine No. 1; later Westland Mine No. 2 opened. Westland No. 1 closed in 1981, and No. 2 closed in 1983 and was demolished in 1985.
- In 2010 MarkWest Energy planned to lease the Westland Branch right-of-way for 30 years. The branch was redeveloped as a rail-trail and a railroad by Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway to serve MarkWest’s Westland natural gas processing plant. The project was completed, and the branch began operation in August 2012.

Preservation
- In 2019 Montour Railroad’s SW9 locomotive #82 was acquired by the Age of Steam Roundhouse and restored to its Montour colors. Later, Montour #84, another SW9, received the same treatment.

See also
- Montour Trail