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Bloomsburg and Sullivan Railroad

railway line in the United States of America

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ16952324 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Bloomsburg and Sullivan Railroad, (e.1883-d.1972) also called the B & S Railroad, was a long-lived independent shortline railroad that existed under that name operating independently from 1883 to 1928 in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, when it was made a subsidiary of the Reading Company, which closed it in 1972. The shortline railroad was 29 miles long, running from south of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania past the town, then northwards to Jamison City, Pennsylvania, with 4.45 miles of yard tracks. The Bloomsburg and Sullivan Railroad was one of five railroads serving Bloomsburg near the turn of the 20th century. The Bloomsburg and Sullivan Railroad Company's headquarters was in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and the managers of the company were James Corcoran and Thomas Wheeler. The Bloomsburg and Sullivan Railroad owned five locomotives and seven cars in 1917.

History

In the 1870s and early 1880s, a Bloomsburg newspaper, The Columbian, ran a series of articles promoting a railroad from Bloomsburg to Sullivan County. These articles told of timber, "soft coal", and "iron ore" in the area, and stated that communities along the railroad's route would profit greatly from the railroad. However, the idea to build the Bloomsburg and Sullivan Railroad was first conceived by David Jewett Waller. In August 1883, a meeting was hosted in Benton to discuss the railroad, and the charter for the Bloomsburg and Sullivan Railroad was granted in November 1883. The right-of-way for the railroad was secured by H.J. Connor and Silas McHenry.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Bloomsburg and Sullivan Railroad” as railway line in the United States of America. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bloomsburg, Sullivan and Railroad.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1883, 1972, 1928, 1917—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1888-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Bloomsburg, Sullivan and Railroad providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Bloomsburg and Sullivan Railroad”, the useful work is to connect “railway line in the United States of America” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16952324. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1883, 1972, 1928 and 1917.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bloomsburg and Sullivan Railroad” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.