EDITORIAL -- Lack of rail access for brewery ironic

But crystal balls were in short supply

It's ironic that the site of the new Yuengling brewery at the Saint Clair Industrial Park could not provide one of Dick Yuengling's preferences: railroad access.

After all, the entire park was once a thriving railroad yard the marshalling point for movement of millions of tons of anthracite.

But as the Reading Company inched toward bankruptcy in the 1960s and '70s, and with the anthracite inudustry on its economic knees, its priorities shifted toward the salvage value of nonessential property.

The yard in its final years was used mostly for storage of coal hopper cars idled by the prolonged anthracite sales slump.

But as bankruptcy and the Conrail era approached, those cars hundreds of them and the rusting rails on which they sat were recognized as a asset with value scrap value.

So the rails were ripped up and the old Reading line that extended from Palo AltoMill Creek Junction in railroad terms all the way to Frackville was abandoned, including the yard that had contained the Reading's largest roundhouse. No one expected the railroad industry in Pennsylvania and the Northeast to rebound from those dog days. Everywhere you looked, trains were being discontinued annulled in railroad terms and lines were being abandoned and tracks ripped up.

Unneeded railroad property was sold off right and left as the railroads sought capital to keep operating. Such a sale gave birth to the Saint Clair Industrial Park, a huge piece of ground ready-made for that purpose.

Subsequently, smaller parcels contiguous to the park property were acquired by Schuylkill Economic Develment Corp., and it is on one of them, an area just south of Mill Creek Avenue and extending into Port Carbon, that the brewery will be built.

Had planners envisioned a future role for rail in that area, surely a right of way and a single track could have been retained. But it would have taken a crystal ball to see such need back in the '70s, when the railroad industry itself appeared to be dying. Within a few short years, most of the colliery branches were abandoned, along with a major section of the Schuylkill Valley line between Middleport and Tamaqua.

Conrail operated the remaining tracks but allowed them to deteriorate witness the recent rash of derailments at Tremont then sold them off to the Reading, Blue Mountain & Northern Railroad Co., which must now compensate for what used to be called deferred maintenance.

Yuengling has been a consistent rail customer, receiving carloads of ingredients for its beers at a siding in Mount Carbon. Presumably, that arrangement will continue when the new brewery opens.

But it's still ironic that the brewery will stand in the foot of an old railroad yard where there isn't a track anywhere in sight.