The Reading & Northern Railroad is giving back to a community that hosted its passenger trains in September.

The Mahanoy Area Chamber of Commerce will receive a donation following a successful day of passenger train excursions that took place in Mahanoy City on Sept. 13.

For the third year in a row, Reading & Northern featured three 70-minute round trip diesel-powered train rides from Mahanoy City to Tamaqua as part of the annual Mahanoy City Community Day. The trips proved quite popular again, drawing 600 riders.

Before the event, the railroad pledged a donation of $10,000 to the Mahanoy City Chamber of Commerce. It was made in the hopes of bringing more frequent passenger service to Mahanoy City, which is situated on a Reading & Northern branch that typically sees only freight traffic.

Reading & Northern Railroad’s Senior VP/GM-Passenger Matt Fisher said: “We are happy to visit Mahanoy City every year. Over the past three years, we have had over 2,500 riders take our trains from Mahanoy City. The Borough of Mahanoy City and the railroad have coexisted since their inception, and we look forward to working with them in the future.”

Dawn Frye, treasurer of the Mahanoy Area Chamber of Commerce added: “The Chamber of Commerce is grateful for the opportunity to work with the railroad. We are excited to bring more train rides to the borough of Mahanoy City in the coming months and years.”

Reading & Northern Railroad, with its corporate headquarters in Port Clinton, is a privately held railroad company serving over 80 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 transports nearly 35,000 carloads of freight (which removes over 200,000 trucks from the highway), while its Passenger Department welcomes nearly 340,000 riders annually. Reading & Northern operates its freight and steam- and diesel-powered passenger excursions over 400 miles of track, owns almost 2,000 freight cars, and employs over 350 dedicated people.

Reading & Northern has been repeatedly honored as one of the premier railroads in the nation, including being named Regional Railroad of the Year in 2020 by Railway Age magazine.