With the cooperation of resident Mr Ralph Rockey, we were able to survey a small portion of what we believe to be the Linden Hall Lumber Company route from Galbraith Gap (behind Tussey Mountain ski area) to their mill at Linden Hall. This land has been sold and any traces will likely soon be destroyed under another residential “development” (from Hell).
Mr Rockey had two recollections from his father: (1) that the dinkey locomotives once “almost set the barn on fire”, and (2) that there was a cattle crossing arrangement where the railroad crossed a fence row. Assuming the barn is the present barn (which seems plausible), the route probably crossed Rt 45 and followed the present Rockey Rd, entering the farm’s driveway and curving around behind the barn to ascend the hill. At the top it would have had to make a fairly sharp turn to the left to match with our survey.
The area of his father’s “cattle crossing” recalled by Mr Rockey is indeed quite near where we found the SE end of what we believe to be the right of way.
At the NW end of our survey, the survey merges to a curiously-diagonal fence row which extends to the former PRR railroad grade at a spot I had determined a likely location for the mill, based on scrutiny of Penn Pilot aerial photos from the late 1930s.
It’s frustrating that so much is left unknown about this route, and there is likely so little time before any clues are completely decimated! Such is the path of “progress”.
0.15 miles
