A project to document planning and discussion on the future of the East Broad Top Railroad, as well as the EBT's status and significance, has been launched by EBT-sun.org by posting on the web of an initial set of six public domain documents.

Since the 1980's, six serious proposals for full or partial restoration of the EBT have been put forward. Many other public domain documents on the EBT's significance, status, and future also have been created by various parties for various purposes.

Currently, however, this rich record of a critical part of the modern history of the EBT is scattered and, therefore, very difficult to research. The goal of the project is to assemble in one place on the web as much of this documentation as possible for the benefit of preservationists, historians, and the public.

The first six documents include two of the six restoration proposals; the November 1998 EBT Kovalchick Trust application for TEA-21 funding and the October 2001 follow-up application by Allegheny Ridge Corporation (ARCorp). The other documents in the set are letters from PennDOT and Congressman Bill Shuster related to the ARCorp application, ARCorp's April 2002 letter withdrawing its proposal, and a July 2002 Federal Railroad Administration response to a Congressional inquiry about the condition of the EBT.

The documents are posted chronologically with an inroductory synopsis and a link. EBT-sun anticipates that future postings will reach back in time and also fill in gaps in the already-posted chronology. As the project grows, the posted documents will be regrouped into topical areas for easier search of the database by interest.

Scanning of many of these initial documents was made very difficult by their poor image quality. Better quality copies are being obtained and will be substituted as they become available. The EBT-sun site can be reached at the link provided.

Phil Padgett

http://www.ebt-sun.org/
ebt4evr@aol.com