Chartered in 1839, the
Lehigh Crane Iron Company, was the first enterprise in North America to successfully manufacture
anthracite iron by using
hot blast technology. The company obtained much of its ore supply from
limonite deposits in southern
Lehigh County. The ore initially needed to be hauled over rural roads and across Biery's Bridge to reach the company's furnace and casting complex at
Biery's Port in present-day
Catasauqua. The wagons used to carry the heavy ore did great damage to the roads. As the furnaces expanded, the deficiencies of wagon transport became evident. The application to the
Pennsylvania General Assembly for a railroad charter, around 1853, was met with fierce resistance by local farmers, who feared that trains would frighten livestock, set fires, and destroy the local farming districts. The iron company was forced to compromise and charter the
Catasauqua and Fogelsville Plank Road on July 2, 1853. While
plank roads were a popular improvement in transportation at the time, the short stretch that was constructed was found wholly inadequate for the haulage of ore. The heavily-loaded wagons rapidly damaged the road and rendered it dangerous for travel. The Crane Iron Company persevered, and on April 20, 1854, the plank road was issued a modified charter to operate as the
Catasauqua and Fogelsville Railroad. The newly chartered
Thomas Iron Company partnered with Crane in support of the railroad in March 1856, and construction began shortly thereafter. Crane Iron owned 60% of the railroad stock, and Thomas Iron 40%.
Ore spurs and wharves The railroad could not run a spur to every mine site, and a number of ore wharves were constructed along the
right-of-way. At the wharves, ore could be dumped from wagons into piles, and later transferred to railcars to be shipped to the furnaces. Important mines did, however, warrant the expense of constructing branch lines, authorized by a charter supplement of April 8, 1861. The longest of these left the main line at Trexlertown, and ran as far as
Breinigsville on the unfinished
Allentown Railroad right-of-way. There it diverged, and continued to
Farmington, the site of a large ore wharf, and ended at the ore pits in the vicinity of Klines Corner. A shorter branch, originating at Crane, ran west and then turned sharply north to end at the Wallner iron mine near Haafsville. A switchback was built from the main line between Red Lion and Rittenhouse Gap in the late 1880s, which served the
hematite mines near
Seisholtzville. Another charter amendment of May 26, 1863, allowing the railroad to extend to
Bath, northeast of Catasauqua and terminus of the Bangor and Portland Railroad, was never utilized.
Reading Company acquisition In 1890, most of the stock of the Catasauqua and Fogelsville was acquired by
Reading Company at a moment when iron ore from the
Mesabi Range was representing a competitive threat to local iron mining operations. It was leased to the Reading on December 8, 1893. Between 1916 and 1919, furnace slag was dumped under the Jordan Creek high bridge so that it could be replaced by a fill and culvert. Iron ore traffic continued to decline, and the local mines had all been shut down by the end of
World War I. The mine branches remained in place, derelict, until the 1940s, when the three spurs and the main line south of Lock Ridge were abandoned. The Catasauqua and Fogelsville was formally merged into the Reading on August 10, 1944, probably to simplify the corporate structure of that railroad and to save on taxes, as with a series of other mergers the next year.
Post-merger The line from
Alburtis to the since closed furnaces at Lock Ridge remained in place to haul furnace
slag until 1959, when it was abandoned. Otherwise, the line remained largely intact until after being acquired by
Conrail. The connection in
West Catasauqua with the
Lehigh and New England Railroad, formerly the Crane Iron Company tracks, was abandoned in 1961. Anticipating the abandonment of the former Lehigh Valley main line in February 1982, leaving only the Ironton Railroad connection, the line east of Seiple was abandoned on December 21, 1981. The remainder survived the breakup of Conrail to become the
Norfolk Southern's C&F Secondary line. It is operated as a
branch line from Alburtis, and serves a number of industrial customers in the Chapman area. In March 2010, a field survey found that almost all of the line from Alburtis to Rittenhouse Gap and Seisholtsville was still largely in place and easy to follow, though much of the line now falls on private property. ==Route==