Air cargo the area surrounding the city and thus land access. As this access was closed, in the so-called Berlin blockade, an airlift remained the only option to get increasingly urgent deliveries of food, coal, and other supplies to West Berlin. Over 330 days to 12 May 1949 a total of 2.26 million tons of cargo were airlifted to Berlin, an average of 6,800 tons a day, 80% by the US and 20% by the UK. Although freight traffic developed modestly, reaching only 800,000 tonnes worldwide by the mid-1950s, the world economy was hitting its post-war stride. Germany and Japan were emerging
Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad estimated 120 Million tons of coal. The largest of the Buffalo and Susquehanna Coal and Coke mines would be at the southern end, in Sagamore, PA, where an estimated 2 Million tons per year could be mined from this single drift mining plant alone. To reach their largest coal holdings at Sagamore, the Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad had to build southwest of DuBois, and then lease trackage rights from the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway Company. For a distance of between Stanley, Pa to Juneau, PA, the B&S had to use the tracks of the BR&P, with a 20-year lease