Lake Erie, Franklin and Clarion Railroad

The Lake Erie, Franklin, & Clarion Railroad (reporting marks: LEF) was a fifteen mile long short line that ran from a Conrail connection at Summerville, Pennsylvania, to Clarion, Pennsylvania, the county seat of Clarion County, and included a short branch from Sutton to Hedrick. The road was incorporated in 1913 as a consolidation of several other railroads, the Pennsylvania Northern, Pennsylvania Southern, and the Pittsburg, Clarion and Franklin, which itself was formed from the Pittsburg, Summerville, and Clarion [which began operation in 1904 and was leased to the Pennsylvania Southern in 1910. Length peaked at about 80 miles of track in around 1924. It should be noted that the corporate name was somewhat optimistic: the railroad never reached either Franklin or Lake Erie.

In the late 20th century, traffic included sand for Clarion’s glassmaking plant, glass bottles, lumber, and outbound shipments of coal, some of it in unit trains from the extensive coal deposits around Clarion. Traffic also included brick from the Hanley Brick Plant in Summerville. The line ceased operation in the last decade of the 1900’s due to a sharp decline in coal mining in the area. The track was taken up and the roadbed in now a hiking path. One of the railroad’s cabooses had been used for several years as a Chamber of Commerce roadside information booth across the highway from the local Wal-Mart, but has been removed and is now serving much the same purpose in the town of Foxburg on the Allegheny River, a few miles to the southwest.

The line’s yard and engine facility were located in Clarion, just south of U.S. route 322 and behind many of the buildings of Clarion University of Pennsylvania, formerly Clarion State Teachers’ College. Motive power in the line’s final years was six EMD MP15DC switchers, which replaced four earlier EMD SW1500s. During the final years when steam locomotives powered LE,F & C trains, most of the road’s locomotives were 2-8-0’s which had been acquired second hand from other railroads.

References

*"American Shortline Railroad Guide", Kalmbach Books, 1986

ee also

*List of Pennsylvania railroads