Photo of the Month

October, 2005

NORTH BRANCH BUSES

       An era of trolley service for twenty-five years from Bloomsburg to nearby communities of Berwick, Catawissa, and Danville ended at midnight on June 26, 1926 .   The trolley lines built by the Columbia and Montour Electric Railway Company and Danville and Bloomsburg Street Railway Company had a history of financial problems and a growing decline of passengers with the advent of automobiles which were becoming increasingly popular.   To learn more about the history of trolleys in Columbia County , read Robert Dunkelberger’s forthcoming book, The Future Comes to Columbia, which will be available at the Society in the third week of October.

       The new public transit system was the North Branch Bus Company that began operating on March 3, 1926 , when it replaced the trolleys from Danville to Bloomsburg with buses.   With the demise of the other trolley line at the end of June, the same bus company opened routes between Bloomsburg, Berwick and Catawissa.   The buses made trips from Bloomsburg to Catawissa beginning at 6:00 a.m. and on every hour until eleven o’clock at night.   From Bloomsburg to Berwick, the buses departed from Market Square starting at 5:15 a.m. , with twenty trips during the day and evening until eleven o’clock at night, using a route through Espy and Lime Ridge.  

       The cost for riding the bus in 1926 was ten cents per zone, being the same rate as the trolley fare.   Going from Bloomsburg to Berwick involved four zones, costing forty cents.   Catawissa route entailed two zones, making the fare twenty cents, and the cost to go to Danville was thirty cents.   Employees taking the bus to manufacturing plants such as Magee Carpet Company could buy a hundred tickets for eight dollars.

       The photo taken mostly likely in 1926 shows the kind of buses used in the beginning.   They were made by the Mack Truck Company, model BCA#2, which could seat twenty-five passengers.   The picture was taken in front of the Tustin Mansion on the west side of Market Street which became the Elks Lodge in 1923.   Imbedded in the brick street, in front of the buses, are the trolley tracks.

       Fred M. Ent was the long term manager of the company beginning 1941 until it went out of business in 1970.