Brogueville
For the normally ever twisting main line of the Ma & Pa, the track ran fairly straight through the Brogueville station area. Larry Altoff worked for the railroad as a brakeman between 1968 and 1972. This photograph was taken by Larry from the caboose of a southbound freight train.
Heading south from York, PA, the narrow guage rails of the Peach Bottom Railway were first laid through this section of York County during the fall of 1874. However, they did not establish a train stop at Brogueville until the spring of 1876. Over the 100-plus years that trains passed through this area of Pennsylvania, the U.S. Mail Agency was placed at three different locations. The post office was at Brogue (a small community at the top of a nearby hill), at the Brogueville country store and train station by the tracks, and at Parke (another nearby small community).
The Ma & Pa never owned any buildings at this location. The Brogueville train station was located in a section of the large two and one-half story building to the left of the tracks in the above photo. The steep-pitched roof provided for a third (or half) story in the attic level for storage. The first floor housed a large country general store, the railroad station, and at various times, the U.S. Post Office. Most likely, the second and third floors contained living quarters and storage areas for the family that owned and operated the store.
According to longtime former Ma & Pa Railroad official James H. (Harry) Dixon, "by 1912 there were four concerns or separate businesses in Brogueville that handled general merchandise." Mr. Dixon also stated that a potato warehouse was at Brogueville, and "that the railroad shipped seed potatoes and fertilizer in each spring and shipped their excess out."
In 1916, the non-agency sideing at Fenmore, PA (about one-quarter mile south of the Brogueville station) officially started reporting to the railroad's station agent at Brogueville. On April 10, 1939, railroad circular #193 stated that the station at Brogueville was now closed as far as having official agency status with the railroad. The station was changed to one of non-agency status. This meant that a railroad employed station agent would no longer be kept there. The owner of the general store then carried out the station agent's duties.
Fischer, Rudy, Scenes From Ma & Pa Country - Then and Now: Brogueville Station Area - York County, Pennsylvania; TIMETABLE, Vol 16, Number 3, Summer 2000; The Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad Historical Society, Inc.
© Copyright The Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad Historical Society, 2000.
