The Lewisburg and Tyrone Railroad (later Railway), previously the Lewisburg, Centre and Spruce Creek Railroad, was a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in central Pennsylvania. Originally intended to connect the Susquehanna Valley with Tyrone and the ore lands to its northeast, it was built in two discontinuous and never-connected pieces, one from Tyrone to Fairbrook and one from Lewisburg to Lemont. These served as lightly trafficked branches of the PRR into the early 20th Century. The line from Tyrone to Fairbrook passed into the hands of the short line Bellefonte Central Railroad in 1927, but the PRR's manipulations ensured its abandonment in 1941. The line between Lewisburg and Lemont was severed in 1970 and was gradually cut further back towards Montandon. Regular service ended on the last remaining part of the line in 1997, and it was abandoned in 2008.
Lewisburg, Centre and Spruce Creek
The Lewisburg, Centre and Spruce Creek Railroad was chartered on April 1, 1853, to run westward from the vicinity of Lewisburg, on the west bank of the West Branch Susquehanna River, through the southern valleys of Centre County, Pennsylvania to Spruce Creek, on the main line of the PRR. Its charter was amended on March 3, 1854, allowing it to reach the PRR at Tyrone, a town more industrially developed than Spruce Creek.
Funding was hard to come by, and construction slow in starting. During the mid-1860s, the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad considered building a line to Bellefonte to reach the LC&SC, and then use the LC&SC to reach the Catawissa Railroad. The plan fell through, but it drew the attention of the PRR to a potential competitor.
The railroad was leased to the PRR on July 23, 1869, and it was the PRR that would provide support for construction and operate the railroad. By the next year, the railroad had been opened from Montandon, on the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad east of the Susquehanna, across the river into Lewisburg. In 1871, it was open as far west as Mifflinburg, about up the Buffalo Valley. The company continued grading west towards Laurelton and did some work on the line east of Tyrone, but the Panic of 1873 slowed construction again. However, by 1877, the railroad had pushed its line through the narrow valley of Penns Creek to Rising Springs (now Spring Mills). The twisting line required two tunnels, through Paddy Mountain and Tunnel Mountain, cutting across loops in the winding course of Penns Creek through the mountains and extending its total length to . On December 13, 1879, the company defaulted on its bonds, and on December 31, 1879, it was reorganized as the Lewisburg and Tyrone Railroad. The new company was leased to the PRR as well on January 1, 1880.
Lewisburg and Tyrone
For the time being, the controlling PRR saw little prospect of traffic from completing the railroad. The projected western division of the Lewisburg and Tyrone, however, had considerable promise. A line east from Tyrone to Scotia and the surrounding iron ore region held great potential, particularly when Andrew Carnegie invested in the Scotia deposits. The new line left the PRR main line just east of Tyrone, in the Brush Mountain narrows of the Little Juniata River, and followed Logan Spring Run north to Eyer. Ambling up the broad valley between Bald Eagle Mountain and Tussey Mountain, it turned southeast at Marengo to pierce Gatesburg Ridge by the gap of Halfmoon Creek, which it followed to Spruce Creek below Pennsylvania Furnace. Running north along Spruce Creek and then the Beaver Branch, it ended in a station near Fairbrook by 1881, in all. No further construction in the direction of State College and the eastern division was undertaken, but the Scotia Branch swung through another gap in Gatesburg Ridge and ran another to reach the vast ore pits of Scotia. In 1882, another short line of , the Juniata Branch, was built off of the Scotia Branch just north of Gatesburg Ridge to reach ore pits of the Juniata Mining Company west of Scotia.