Someone has emailed me asking about a report he remembers from the late 1980s about a hiker finding a lost roundhouse and locomotives in the woods near Indiana, Pennsylvania. I am reproducing his question to me below. If someone can enlighten me about the details (or the veracity) of this story, I promised to relay the information back to my respondent. Thanks.

"Somewhere about 1986-1989 I was watching the evening news (Tom Brokaw, I believe) and they ended with a story about a railroad archeological discovery. It seems that a hiker following rusted tracks came across an old engine house in the woods. It was a real time capsule. Not only did it contain a couple of old steam locomotives, but also a host of old machines: drill presses, lathes, etc. that were leather-belt driven from a stationary engine. All of this was covered in dust; frozen in time. I never heard anything more about it, though I have researched on the net. Did I dream this up? I don’t think so because the name of the nearby town stuck in my mind: Indiana, Pennsylvania. My research revealed that there is such a town. Maybe I got the name fouled up. Are you aware of such a railroad treasure-trove?"

Drill presses? Lathes? Roundhouse? Mid-west Pa? Must've stumbled on the East Broad Top on an off day...

That was my thought, but Orbisonia is about 100 miles from Indiana. So perhaps my respondent remembers the wrong town.

Might be a long shot but Im sure NBC news ( is that the channel Tom Brokencraw is on? ) has archives of all there stories going back to then. There are a lot of coal mining railroad operations in that area. Coincidentally I spent 6 weeks in Indiana Pa on a job at about this time

I think there is a possibility the "story" may have included mention of the Kovalchick family being from Indiana, Pa., and the inquirer may have confused Indiana with Orbisonia. That wouldn't be too hard to do after over 20 years, and Indiana would be a name easier to recall by sharing its name with a state (and also being the home town of actor James Stewart).

Researching the story through NBC might be the way to go; hopefully they'll respond on something that old.

If it is indeed intact structures, the best option for finding it might be to look over the area on google/bing maps. Follow the old lines that went through the area and see what we can find.

Could it have been 126 in the D&H Carbondale RH?

http://gramlinglocomotiveworks.com/126History.html

My respondent mentioned at least two locomotives in the dusty roundhouse, plus all the shop equipment. Was there a time in the late 1980s when the EBT was dormant?

Casting aside the possibilities that the "belt drive" stuff is made up out of thin air, the closest possibilities to Indiana, Pa. are/were Blairsville, the former home of the Penn View Railroad (long gone by that time), and the Knox & Kane many miles to the north, both of which had two steamers at one point. A third possibility is the old Earl Leap stash of two West Va. Northern 2-8-0's in a gravel pit at Madley, Pa., between Cumberland, Md. and Bedford, which fits the description partially.

But if we're going to abide by leather-belt-drive shop abandoned, really, there are only about 3-4 possibilities in the United States, including the EBT, Nevada Northern, etc. EBT could certainly fit this description in the "off" season, especially if they say locos 16 and 18, which hadn't been used for 30 years at this point....

I am wondering, too, whether my respondent is remembering not Tom Brokaw on NBC, but Charles Kuralt's "On the Road" segment in the CBS Evening News, where he explored some largely unremarked aspects of Americana. I have jogged his memory with that thought, and also with the EBT-Orbisonia possibility. We will see whether that clarifies things for him.