A payment to Lansford is moving forward for the borough’s portion of the sale of Carbon County’s railroad earlier this year.

On Thursday, the board of commissioners approved a $500,000 expenditure from the Railroad Economic Development Fund. That payment to Lansford represents 25% of the $2 million down payment for the line.

In May, Reading Blue Mountain and Northern agreed to pay $3 million in cash over eight years, as well as provide $1.7 million in rail line improvements.

The $500,000 payment will go to Lansford as part of the agreement penned with the borough in 1981 when the town helped the county by securing a grant for the purchase of the defunct Nesquehoning Valley Branch Line.

The line runs from Packerton Yards in Mahoning Township, through Jim Thorpe and Nesquehoning and to Haucks Junction in Schuylkill County.

In August, Lansford borough officials met with Carbon County because members questioned if the borough should have had more say in the sale of the line to Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad. The sale was announced in May and closing occurred in June.

At the time, the commissioners said it appeared there had been a miscommunication because Lansford thought the county had sold the line that was in the borough. Carbon County doesn’t own that line.

In September, Lansford Borough Council moved ahead with hiring Slusser Law Group of Hazleton to review the sale and see if Lansford should have had more say with regards to the negotiations.

“The 3,000 taxpayers (of Lansford) own that railroad. We have to make sure they are being properly treated with that sale,” Bruce Markovich, president of Lansford Borough Council said in September.

“If they say there’s nothing we can do about this, we take our money and go. If they tell us something else should be done here, we were entitled to something different, then we’ll proceed.”