Reading & Northern Railroad announced that it had a record-breaking year on a number of fronts in its operation, including carload volumes, revenue and passenger ridership.

On the freight side, the railroad handled a total of 28,940 carloads, a 19 percent growth in operations, which surpassed 2014's record by over 4,500 cars, and pushed revenue up by over 30 percent.A contributing factor to this increase in freight operations was revenue from new transloading and startup warehouse businesses; as well as a diverse mixture of commodities handled, including wood pulp, paper, metals, food products, plastics, forest products, chemicals and minerals, and the North American anthracite coal market.Railroad officials said the company performed well in most of these areas when other railroad saw overall traffic decline."Our record breaking volumes for 2015 prove that our decision to offer our customers guaranteed service windows does grow the business," said Andy Muller Jr., CEO and owner of the Reading & Northern. "In 2016, we are taking this commitment one step further by improving our already excellent service by hiring more crews and running more trains faster.""Obviously we could not have achieved this growth without the hard work of the 200-plus men and women in the Reading & Northern family," said Wayne Michel, president of Reading & Northern.Michel said the railroad has increased employment almost 8 percent in 2015 and is hiring more employees at this time.He added that much of the railroad's growth was due to taking entrepreneurial risks to develop more traffic.In recognition of the railroad's focus on customers and entrepreneurial initiatives Reading & Northern was named Regional Railroad of the Year in 2015 by Railway Age magazine.Reading & Northern's sister company, Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway, also closed its 2015 season with a record year as over 100,000 visitors rode on one of its many steam or diesel-powered excursion trains.Reading & Northern Railroad, with its corporate headquarters in Port Clinton, is a privately held railroad company serving over 60 customers in Berks, Bradford, Carbon, Columbia, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Northumberland, Schuylkill and Wyoming counties.