Dillsburg and Mechanicsburg Railroad

The Dillsburg and Mechanicsburg Railroad was built with the backing of the Cumberland Valley Railroad primarily to haul iron ore from the vast reserves around Dillsburg to furnaces in the Harrisburg region.

There were earlier attempts to build a railroad between Mechanicsburg and Dillsburg but they had been blocked by the CVRR. In early 1871 they agreed to provide financing for construction and the Dillsburg and Mechanicsburg Railroad Company was officially incorporated on November 1, 1871.¹ Construction was completed by October 1872 and the line was operated by the CVRR under a 99 year lease.² It was intended to be a feeder line for the CVRR.

A picnic grove was built by the Williams family around 1850. This was expanded into Williams Grove Park after the coming of the railroad becoming a popular site for picnics and reunions. The park became the home of the annual Granger’s Picnic in 1874. The Great Granger’s Interstate Picnic and Exhibition, sponsored by the National Grange, became a national event and created extremely heavy excursion traffic for the CVRR and the D&M. At its peak the railroad frequently carried over 30,000 passengers on some days of the show.³

In 1906, to accommodate the high traffic to the Granger’s Picnic and to lower operating costs, the branch was equipped for electric operation. At this time the Cumberland Valley Railroad owned a local trolley company and the equipment was based on that technology. Two powered cars were re-built from older passenger cars in the CVRR shops. The electric cars simplified operation at peak times and could pull an additional coach if needed. The last passenger train operated on the D&M ran on January 15, 1928 and the line became freight only.⁴

Although there were large scale efforts to develop some remaining iron ore and clay reserves around Dillsburg in the early 1900s these sources of traffic ended by 1910. Even before that revenue from the branch was not adequate to pay operating costs and debt service and the company was foreclosed in 1906.⁵ The Dillsburg and Mechanicsburg Railroad Company was purchased by the CVRR at that time and became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad when they acquired the Cumberland Valley Railroad.

The line later became the property of the Penn Central Railroad which operated the line at a loss. The Dillsburg branch did not become part of Conrail when that company took over the assets of several bankrupt railroads in the northeast in 1976.^[5] The rails were removed in 1980.⁶

In 1959 a group of local train buffs and collectors of steam traction engines revived the tradition of the Granger’s Picnic as a way to display and operate their equipment. They subsequently formed the Williams Grove Steam Engine Association. This group later installed about a mile of track adjacent to the park where they now operate a retired PRR steam engine.⁷