‘Major renovations’ underway at Lemont railroad crossing after decades of disrepair

Local entities have joined forces to make repairs to a railroad crossing in Lemont, which stakeholders say will not only make boarding trains at the village’s events much easier, but will also make for a smoother drive across the tracks.

Located on Mount Nittany Drive next to the Lemont Granary, repairs to the crossing began Tuesday and are expected to wrap up Friday. The extensive repairs require the entirety of the crossing to be replaced — ties, tracks and all. Mount Nittany Drive will be closed until the project is completed.

Gene Tucker, a maintenance supervisor with the Bellefonte Historical Railroad Society — the organization that owns the railroad — said the crossing had been in disrepair for several decades, as the tracks had essentially been buried under Mount Nittany Drive’s asphalt for just as long.

“It was in pretty bad shape when we dug it all out,” Tucker said Wednesday. “Some major renovations were needed. The rails were very, very old, and we suspected that when we pulled it out of the roadway, that the base of the rail would have been completely eaten up and eroded by road salt over the years, and sure enough it was.”

The crossing also made for a bumpy drive for those who took their cars across it, Tucker said, and inconvenienced plow truck drivers who consistently got their plows stuck on the crossing’s uneven surfaces. The repairs are expected to fix both problems.

Additionally, before the repairs, the crossing’s train tracks were too narrow, and could’ve caused a derailment if a train had tried to cross.

“That would’ve been a huge mess, and a lot of paperwork,” Tucker said.

Collaboration brings project to life

While the project got underway this week, the beginning of the society’s endeavor was initiated long before that. BHRS President Dan Durachko said that the society has had its eyes set on repairing the tracks “for a while now.”

After several months of planning, BHRS went to College Township Council on March 5 to request support. The council unanimously approved requests from the BHRS to close Mount Nittany Drive for the project’s duration, to provide a dump truck and backhoe with operators, to haul away excavated ballast and pavement and to repave the crossing and approaches, all on the township’s dime.

The estimated expense to the township for staff time and resources for the project is roughly $7,500 to $8,000, township assistant manager Mike Bloom told the CDT in an email.

While both Tucker and Durachko were unable to provide an exact project cost for the BHRS, Durachko said that he expected the amount to be “well under $5,000,” and that without the township’s contributions — and help in the form of labor from inmates at Benner state prison — the cost would’ve amounted to “a fortune.”

“They’re good guys, they’re strong, hard workers and it just it makes things so much easier for us to not have us [BHRS members] breaking our backs. That extra manpower is crucial,” Durachko said about the help from inmates.

When the project is complete, the society will at long last be able to take its two Budd RDC-1 trains to the end of the tracks in Lemont, which is located about 50 feet past the crossing on Mount Nittany Drive. According to Durachko, that will be the first time the trains have kissed the end of the line in “at least 30 years.”

The repaired crossing will also make it easier for people attending events in Lemont to board trains when rides are offered. Prior to the repairs, the trains had to be boarded along a segment of the railway next to the granary that had steep banks on both sides — a geographic hurdle that Lemont Village Association Chair Sue Smith dubbed “a big inconvenience.”

“It’s going to be a lot safer for people who want to check out the trains to board them,” Smith said. “Maybe we can have the trains up here for the Strawberry Festival now too, who knows — whatever events they want to come to or hold, we’ll be happy to have them.”

Following the township filling in the asphalt and concrete around the crossing, Smith said that the next improvement project in Lemont will be getting a concrete sidewalk and stairway build alongside the granary so that visitors don’t have to walk in the streets.

Smith also shared that “at some point far in the future,” the BHRS will look to renovate the railroad spur at the end of the tracks, but a timeline for that project, along with the concrete sidewalk, was not shared.

For more information on the BHRS and its upcoming events, visit its website, or its Facebook and Instagram pages. More information about the Lemont Village and its upcoming events can be shared at its website and Facebook page.

This story was originally published April 8, 2026 at 4:37 PM.