Reading & Northern Railroad, Pennsylvania’s largest privately owned railroad, will begin operating regular weekend passenger excursion train service from the new Wilkes-Barre-Scranton Regional Railroad Station at Pittston to Jim Thorpe on May 27.

Tickets will go on sale at 9 a.m. on March 1.

Reading and Northern boasted a quarter million train riders in the Jim Thorpe and Reading markets last year. Now, the company is focusing attention on the Wilkes-Barre-Scranton market.

According to Matt Fisher, general manager of passenger, “The railroad knows there is a strong demand and interest for passenger excursions in the Wyoming Valley. What better place to start up passenger service than the Pittston property at 718 North Main St., operating excursion trains to our most popular location, Jim Thorpe?”

Andy Muller, CEO of RBMN, said the new passenger facilities construction is funded without any public money taken from taxpayers’ dollars.

Planning and groundbreaking has already begun at the Pittston location on a station platform, ticket booth, and parking area. The remainder of the construction will be handled in phases. The area leading to the station will be lined with trees and shrubs. The station will be maintained to handle the passenger trains, which will be the first in nearly 50 years operating from the Wyoming Valley through the Poconos.

The excursion trains will be all-day, round-trip affairs, departing 9 a.m. from the Wilkes-Barre-Scranton Regional Railroad Station at Pittston. The train will make station stops at Penobscot (Mountain Top) and White Haven en route to Jim Thorpe. Passengers will have over three hours to explore, dine and shop in Jim Thorpe before reboarding the train in the afternoon for the return trip north.

Reading & Northern Railroad, with its corporate headquarters in Port Clinton, is a privately held railroad company serving over 70 customers in nine eastern Pennsylvania counties (Berks, Bradford, Carbon, Columbia, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Northumberland, Schuylkill, and Wyoming). It has expanded its operations over the last 40 years and now handles over 34,000 carloads of freight and 250,000 excursion riders annually over 400 miles of track.

Reading & Northern operates both freight services and steam, and diesel-powered excursion passenger services.

The railroad owns over 1,700 freight cars, and employs nearly 300 people.