Grassroots Railroad Sports?

In reply to NickD :

Maybe a few of us should go in on a "group-buy" and see if we can get the railroad & equipment for fire-sale prices?

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

The mine and railroad were owned by a Ukrainian steel mill, who was using the coal for metallurgical purposes. Maybe we could parlay the federal government to give us a loan to buy it off the Ukrainians to support them.

The few photos there are of it makes it seem like it's a gorgeous route, but, wow, it is just so remote. At the very least, I hope the locomotives escape scrapping 

That Hippo 2-10-0 sitting in Hamburg N.Y. would drag a train up those 13 miles of 1.8%.

In reply to LS_BC8 :

That she would, but I know that the NRHS chapter that owns it will not let go of it. The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania wanted PRR #4483 so bad, because it was the only part of the Northumberland collection that they didn't end up with (PRR sold it to Westinghouse before finally finding a place to give the whole collection to). I know they tried to persuade them to trade PRR #4483 for NKP #757 for years, and it made sense on paper, since NKP had a solid presence in Buffalo, certainly more than PRR, and it would unite the Northumberland collection in one location. Nope, they wouldn't budge. I swung by Hamburg and saw #4483 a couple years ago and she's in okay condition. Not pristine, but I've seen worse display locomotives out there. I imagine that selling the Coast-to-Coast tender that they also had to the T-1 Trust should go a long way towards getting her looking really nice and maybe get a roof over her head.

So, I took a half day today to make it down to Huntingdon, PA to visit the East Broad Top tomorrow. I decided to swing by Scranton and see NKP #190, since the timing would be too rough on Sunday. 

Yeah, it's gorgeous, and I'm amazed that I got the chance to actually see an Alco PA in person. With one in Texas and this one originally in Oregon, I figured that I would never get the opportunity. What a machine. It's too bad that Alco wasn't able to move as many of them as EMD E7s and E8s. Fun fact: Nickel Plate Road actually tried painting them in blue with nickel paint where the white is, but had issues with the nickel paint, leading to them painting them more of an aluminum paint. Even that still had severe issues with oxidizing and fading when being washed, and they went to the white paint, although they were still tinkering with trying to come up with a nickel-style paint as late as 1959 before throwing in the towel.

This photo from across the turntable pit has two incredibly rare machines side-by-side. The NKP #190 is one of four, but the #426 next to it is an EMC switcher that is so early that it predates a model name even. It has the early cast frame, and the styling is so unlike all the later EMD switchers, like with the headlamp on top of the body. I will admit though, that I was a little disappointed that Steamtown didn't put NKP GP9 #514 or NKP 2-8-4 #759 outside next to the #190. Seems like a real missed opportunity.

Once again, went to Steamtown and there were no steam engines, or actually any trains period running. Also, despite it being nearly, they aren't allowing you into any of the buildings because of the heating system failure. But at least they weren't charging admission. So I walked around and checked out a few of the other things on display.

First, we have Illinois Central 2-8-0 #790. That weird ugly sand dome is an Illinois Central signature feature, and was used because they were easier to fabricate, but damn, if they don't look terrible. It was used for "flood duty" in April 1965 at the Clinton Corn Processing Company where it "plowed through overflow from the Mississippi River." It also came up my way to Lake Placid on the NYC Adirondack Division that same year for a planned tourist operation that sadly never materialized, before Nelson Blount bought it and moved it to Steamtown USA in Vermont.

Reading T-1 #2124 sitting outside. This is one of the final ten T-1s built, which used even less of the I-10sa donors than the earlier ones (and that wasn't much) and were intended for passenger service. So #2121-#2130 were all built with steam heat lines and roller bearings on the axles. Granted, the T-1s spent extremely little actual time in passenger service, mostly just troop trains during WWII and the Korean War, but it came in handy when the #2124 was used on the Iron Horse Rambles. While #2100, #2101 and #2102 all had excursion careers after Reading was done with them in 1964, the #2124 has never run since, but she looks pretty damn good still.

Rahway Valley #15 sitting out in the yard with a neat little demonstration freight train. This was Nelson Blount's second steam locomotive, after he found out that CN #47 was required to be overhauled by the ICC because it was out of flue time. It was a primary motive power on the Green Mountain the into the early '70s, until a flue burst and scalded engineer Andy Barbera and it was retired. Interestingly, despite Rahway Valley being based out of NJ, the #15 did come to Scranton at least one for major overhaul at the DL&W's Scranton shops, the same shops that Steamtown now uses.

Groveton Paper Co. #7, a really neat 2-4-2 saddletanker. This thing is chunky. Too small for their purposes, but it's an awesome-looking machine.

They wrapped up a cosmetic restoration of #4012 a couple years ago, and it is gorgeous. Supposedly it is more correct, cosmetically, than UP #4014. Although I have to wonder how far that supposed $1 million dollars would have gone towards getting #3713 up and running (side not, I was cringing when another guest was asking a park ranger what the status was on #3713 and the Smokey responded with "Uh, which one is #3713?"). Nelson Blount was actually offered both a Big Boy and a Challenger by Union Pacific, but he declined the Challenger because he didn't have room for both and felt the Big Boy was more noteworthy. Unfortunate because there is no place where the public can see a Big Boy and a Challenger side-by-side to compare them, and also there are eight Big Boys saved (of a total 25) while only two Challengers (of a total 105) are preserved. They also had the cab open for guests, so I can now say I've sat in the cab of a Big Boy and an Allegheny (the one at The Henry Ford last summer)

Much sadder is Canadian National X-10-a class 4-6-4 tank engine #47, built for Montreal commuter service. I get the whole "focus on American engines" (I don't necessarily agree with it, but I get it), but this is the very first engine that Nelson Blount bought , and it's the only engine of it's design in the United States, plus the Central Railroad of New Jersey had very similar 4-6-4Ts. I don't think it has received any attention since they were in Vermont, and it shows. The wooden cab doors are literally falling apart, the cylinder jacketing is falling apart, there are trees growing out of the coal bunker, and I'm pretty sure there is still asbestos boiler lagging present under the jacket. Just really sad to see, considering this engine was where it all began.

Delaware-Lackawanna was also working the Scranton yard, and they had a ton of Alco power out and about, and they really brought out the rare stuff.

The #414 is their Lehigh Valley heritage unit. This C420 was ordered by Lehigh Valley, painted in the yellowjacket livery that was unique to their C420s, and then was swiped by D&H when Conrail was formed. It later went to Southern Railroad of New Jersey, and then D-L got it and painted it back in the original LV livery.

Also, off to the left you can see D-L #2045, which is an M420W that previously belonged to BCRail, where it was #645, and then did some time on the northern end of the Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern and the Lowville & Beaver River still in BCRail green, before being moved down to the D-L and being repainted and renumbered.

It was also paired up with their Erie-Lackawanna heritage unit, one of the E-L C425s that went to British Columbia to serve on BCRail, and then came back to the northeast, similar to the #2453, #2455 and #2456 on sister Genesee Valley Transportation line Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern

I was super excited to see this M630 in the gray, white and red paint colors. Why? Well, this is a really bizarre machine. In the late '80s, GE launched their Super-7 rebuild program. The idea was that old U-boats could be sent to GE and upgraded with Dash 8 mechanicals with a Dash 7 electronics. So, a U23B would become a B23-7SR, or a U30C would become a C30-7SR. Since there were still a few old MLWs floating around in Canada and Mexico, and they used GE electrical gear, GE also decided to expand the program to include Alco/MLW products. The engine would remain all Alco, but it would get upgraded modern GE electrical gear. They purchased a couple M630s from BCRail, rebuilt one of them into an M630-7 as a test unit, and ultimately did not move forward with the program. This sole unit actually ended up in the GE lease fleet, and someone claims that GE once sent it to BNSF when they needed some extra power, only for BNSF to send it back as soon as it arrived and they realized what it was. Delaware-Lackawanna eventually bought it, renumbering it to #3007, and it still wears the GE lease fleet paint colors. You can also see where the extra ditch lamps that BCRail was fond of were located, although they've been removed and the openings blocked off.

NKP #190 may be one of four surviving Alco PAs, but in terms of rarity, it's got nothing on D-L #3642 here. The #3642 is one of one, the sole surviving Alco C636. While there are quite a few M636s still kicking around, this is the last C636 in existence. There had been a few more, including two of the original demonstrator units, stored up on the Bath & Hammondport, that had been part of Morristown & Erie's leasing business that were scrapped a couple years back. The #3642 had been ordered by Pennsylvania Railroad, was delivered to Penn Central, made the transition to Conrail, and then was sold to Delta Bulk Terminal in Stockton, CA, where it switched their transload facility into the late '80s, before D-L brought it back to the east. Quite a lashup of power here, with the C636, an M636, an M630, and then the M630-7. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqAmm5WaZ-I   Steamtown #47

So, I did not stay in Orbisonia, PA last night, because Orbisonia basically has no lodging or anything. The nearest major settlement is Huntingdon, so I grabbed a room at the Comfort Inn. The Comfort Inn in Huntingdon is about, oh, 600 or so feet from the old PRR Middle Division, now operated by Norfolk Southern. Not as cool as it sounds because there's a grade crossing there, and so all night long I was woken up about literally every thirty minutes by NS trains blowing for the crossing. And, there was a tree line in between the tracks and the hotel, so you couldn't even look out the window and see the trains going by. I woke up very grumpy around 6am, threw in the towel on trying to sleep, and decided to walk down to the grade crossing and see if I could see anything neat, like maybe a heritage unit or some of the other weird paint schemes, like their DC-AC conversion units. I walked there, stood around freezing my ass off for a good hour or so, and only saw two trains. Guess all the traffic is at night. The first train was interesting in that there must have been 20 or so Reading & Northern hopper cars in the consist. The second had a UP pooled power unit in the trailing position (likely because it lacks PRR cab signals) but nothing too exciting.

Arriving in Orbisonia/Rockhill Furnace, this was kind of the moment where it clicked. I've seen so many photos of the famed Orbisonia depot and the six sets of tracks in front of it, but to actually be there was something entirely different.

Before long East Broad Top 3-foot gauge 2-8-2 #16 backed down behind the shops, then came trundling forward through the yard to hook to the front of it's train. All the shop complexes and buildings and yard tracks are original to the EBT, so it's like a time machine back to the 1930s. Unlike the odd outside-frame D&RGW narrow gauge engines, the inboard-framed EBT engines look rather conventional, and unless you are paying close attention to the gauge, you'd almost not notice that they are narrow-gauge. A very handsome engine, with the high-mounted headlamp and long pilot, and I like the orange lettering and numbering on the cab and tender.

To the extreme left, you can see a standard-gauge PRR boxcar. Up at the dual-gauge Mount Union yard, EBT used the old timber transfer to lift up standard-gauge cars, put narrow-gauge trucks under them, install unique cast-aluminum coupler adapters to mate the larger standard-gauge draft gear to the smaller narrow-gauge draft gear, and then cut them into the consist, rather than move the loads between cars. They would typically only put a single standard-gauge car in a consist at a time. EBT was donated this boxcar, and you can just see the aluminum coupler adapter, to eventually do demonstrations with.

Sitting in front of the depot with the train hooked up. They were using one of the old open-air converted flat cars, two of the new coaches, the new combine, another of the old open-air converted flat car with a roof, and then the original caboose. Its so nice to have a consist that is all painted one color, really makes things look homogenous, and the dark green paint with bright orange lettering is a good look. Very Western Pacific, or I guess Western Pacific copied East Broad Top. 

A side view of the running gear and the big cross-compound air compressor

And that unusual and rarely seen Southern valve gear. I have no clue why the later "big" Mikados were equipped with Southern valve gear, whether, East Broad Top's master mechanic ordered them that way or Baldwin just decided to spec them that way. Either way, it was a strange choice.

Right now, EBT is running a relatively small segment of the line north to Mount Union, turning at the wye at the picnic grove and heading back. Even with the relatively short length, it's a terrific ride. There's grades and curves, cuts and fills, a bridge over a road and a foot bridge over the tracks. It cuts through the middle of Orbisonia, runs through folks' backyards, and farmland and forests. It's a very dynamic ride. The eventual plan is to reopen the southwestern mainline, inactive since 1956, to Saltillo, Three Springs, and Pogue, which includes two tunnels and a high bride, which should be very exciting.

This old switch house with the huge tree grown into the corner of it was fascinating

Arriving back at Orbisonia, they wye the train on the dual-rail electrified trackage used by the adjoining Rockhill Trolley Museum. The trolley museum was running this J.G. Brill "curved-side" trolley from York Railways. Another trolley builder, the Cincinnati Car Co., had a patent on the curved-side car. Brill built five curved-side cars for York Railways and in doing so infringed on the patent. Cincinnati sued Brill and won, and so these five curved-side cars were the only ones built by Brill. York #163 is the only preserved and operable trolley from the York Railways system. York Railways stopped all streetcar operations on February 4, 1939, and car #163 was sold to be used as a summer home along Conewago creek north of York. The body of car #163 survived there until 1972, when Hurricane Agnes completely flooded the car, knocking it off its foundation. The owners no longer wanted the car and donated the body to the museum.

You can see the overhead catenary and the dual-gauge trackage as we back along the second leg of the wye.

Some of the old coal hoppers. You can see how the acidic coal dust, mixed with rain water and time, has made them look like steel moths were munching on them

Backing down past the old coal tipple. The lower section is being converted to their fire suppression system, and the hope is to eventually get the entire tipple functional one day, so that they can coal the engines there, instead of using a pile on the ground and a bucket tractor.

These old original cast Stop Look And Listen signs are everywhere along the right of way

The #16 at the Enyeart Road grade crossing. The #16 has one of the most mild, gentle whistles I've ever heard. 

Crossing the big fill and small bridge at Runk Road.

Happily chucking clouds of soft coal smoke skyward, the #16 erupts from the woods, heading south back to Orbisonia.