Hello

Working on a little write-up. Got a hold of some photographs both then and now of the defunct Carroll Park & Western RR near Bloomsburg PA, equpment history, disposition etc...

Just need to know when the railroad opened and closed. Late 60's to early 70's is the only vague time frame I can pin down for the operation.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Dave Crosby

bing@epix.net

Dave:
NJMT owns a majority of CP&W rolling stock at this point and their little Vulcan. Check our web site for some details if you like. We have their two Canadian National coaches, their two DL&W caboose based coaches, a third frame, two speeders, signals, rail, etc.

I have been in contact with the son of Mr Stahl who built the place. The history is fascinating covering how one guy could build such a place. I also have brochures as well.

If you provide some questions to me off line I can pass them onto his son for review.

I would be very interested in the pictures and history you may have generated. One mystery we would like to solve is who did the boiler work on the Vulcan.

J.R.
NJMT/Pine Creek RR

> Hello

> Working on a little write-up. Got a hold of
> some photographs both then and now of the
> defunct Carroll Park & Western RR near
> Bloomsburg PA, equpment history, disposition
> etc...

> Just need to know when the railroad opened
> and closed. Late 60's to early 70's is the
> only vague time frame I can pin down for the
> operation.

> Thanks in advance for the help.

> Dave Crosby


http://www.njmt.org
jrmay@njmt.org

Dave:

I collect Tourist Railroad post cards. There are several cards which show color views of that unusual 48" operation.

Glad to hear that the coaches still exist.


ted_miles@nps.gov

As I recall we discussed the history and fate of the CP&W quite extensively in the not too distant past on this very forum. You might want to search the archives of this forum; I think we were also discussing the nearby Magee Transportation Museum.

If a search proves fruitless, perhaps I can flush up the regulars on this board from that area to rehash their reports and anecdotes.

lner4472@bcpl.net

A bit of trivia: I've heard that the 4 foot
gauge of the CP&W was based on a mine railway
that was the source of some of the equipment. By
coincedence(?), it was the same as San Antonio,
Texas passenger trolleys. (San Antonio freight
trolleys are standard gauge.) Leeds, England had
4 foot gauge trams, and some had sliding wheels
for through service to standard gauge Bradford.
Did the builder of the mine railway come from
Leeds?

TyburnRR@cs.com

> I've heard that the 4 foot gauge of the CP&W was based on a mine railway that was the source of some of the equipment.

Yes, Carroll Stahl's first steam locomotive, Vulcan 0-4-0 117, was indeed a former coal mine lokie (ex-Jeddo Highland Coal; nee-Lehigh Valley Coal) and hence the CP&W's "weird" gauge of 48 inch (42 inch and 48 inch were common coal mine gauges).

Sorry, but I'm not sure of the EXACT first and last years of the CP&W operation. IIRC, Mr. Stahl started on the project around 1960 or perhaps even earlier. In any event, it was in operation by the early 1960's (perhaps '62??) first using 0-4-0 117 and later 2-Truck Climax 3 which he purchased in 1963 from the Georgia-Pacific Corporation's ex-Elk River Coal & Lumber operation in WV. BTW, Climax 3 was standard gauge and was converted to 48 inch gauge to run on the CP&W.

In addition to the equipment (now at Pine Creek) mentioned by J.R. May, the CP&W also had few other pieces of rolling stock including an ex-PRR business car (since scrapped) and an ex-LIRR (PRR?) wooden caboose, which after much recent debate apparently IS currently at the Red Caboose Motel at Strasburg, PA. There were other railroad items as well including--I think (memory fuzzy)--some kind of railroad (steam?) crane.

Mr. Stahl constructed not only the railroad, but a complete western style town attraction to go with his trains. IIRC, the CP&W passenger station was a replica of a C&NW station that--I believe (again memory fuzzy)--just happened to the prototype for the old Revell HO scale plastic "small town station" kit that was once wildly popular on model train layouts during the 1950's and 60's (at least that's story how I remember it). The CP&W also had a railroad water tower.

I'm not sure of the exact year, but I think it was in 1972 that Mr. Stahl passed away. I'm not sure if the CP&W operated after that--I didn't visit there during '73 or '74. My last visit was during August of 1975. At that time the western town attraction (basically a group of shops) was still open, but the CP&W was no longer being operated. Climax 3 was intact, but looked to have been in the middle of some aborted repairs. The 117 was in pieces.

I believe about this time everything was sold to local (Bloomsburg, PA) businessman, who soon thereafter (around 1976-77) sold off the remaining rail equipment. The Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge RR in Felton, CA bought the Climax. Until recent times it was stored, but now I hear it is the subject of restoration (including another change in gauge--to 3 foot). Vulcan 0-4-0 117 along with the combine, coach, etc. went first to a private party in PA, then to the Tuttle & Spice General Store alongside I-81 in New Market, VA, then to a private party in Bayviile, NJ, who finally donated the equipment to it current home, the NJMT/Pine Creek RR at Allaire State Park in NJ.

Regards,
Jim Robinson

Hello All

Thanks

Few details here I hadn't gotten before. I've got some very recent pictures of the station, town and water tank. Hopefully I'll get it all put together before too long.

Dave Crosby

bing@epix.net

I first visited the CP&W in 1964, at which time I was treated to a ride in the cab of the Climax. At that time, the track was an out and back arrangement with a loop at the end. Later it was extended and a second loop was added. I am told that Carroll Stahl, a successful builder and factory owner, was a friend of Walt Disney and wanted to have a railroad at his place like WD did. He found 117 in a scrapyard around Hazelton and measured its gauge with a stick. He bought the engine and moved it to Bloomsburg and built some track. Some time later he purchased several items from the PRR's dead line at nearby Northumberland, and he was said to have been very surprised to discover that those cars didn't fit his track. He also built two "Civil War" coaches out of ex-DL&W wooden cabooses. He bought Vulcan trucks from the EBT and regauged them by welding sections of pipe into the axles. He also gathered in a number of interesting cars including a wooden ATSF end-cupola caboose, three ex-RDG cocoa bean hopper cars, some PRR and DL&W camp cars, a steam crane, etc. He also had two open-platform wooden coaches from Newfoundland. After his death on June 22, 1972, and the sale a year or so later of the whole operation, the new owner scrapped most of the goodies. I tried to save the PRR business car "Cape Charles," but had no place to go with it.

Stahl was one of the first state troopers in Pennsylvania as a young man, and also worked for the PRR as a messenger in his teens. He told me once that he would often carry messages from the station at Harrisburg to the enginehouse at Maclay Street by hitching a ride on the rear steps of light engines going to the roundhouse. One day he hopped on as he usually did, and was very surprised when the engine accelerated to track speed and headed west across the Rockville Bridge. The block operator at Rockville spotted him and dropped the signal in front of the light engine at the west end of the bridge. He recalled being cursed roundly by the engineer and the long walk back to Harrisburg as the end of his railroad employment!

K4s1361@hotmail.com

If one went to the old site of the railroad would you be able to tell if anything was once there?

How about the trolley museum? I have an old b&w photo of me as a toddler in front of a trolley at the museum.

-Alan Levy

alanl759@aol.com

> If one went to the old site of the railroad
> would you be able to tell if anything was
> once there?

*IF my recollection is correct (Help, Wayne) a couple of the old "Wild West" motif buildings might still be present, but I've never been able to find right-of-way or whatever.

> How about the trolley museum? I have an old
> b&w photo of me as a toddler in front of
> a trolley at the museum.

*Magee? IF you knew there had been a trolley museum at the site, and IF you have some idea what things looked like, you might be able to identify a recognizable landmark or two like an old trolley barn-cum-warehouse or a couple trolley poles as you pass by the place in Interstate 80, but for the most part, no.

lner4472@bcpl.net

About 1990: bit of track in an asphalt driveway;
torched off pipe in concrete base that used to be
the elevated one-legged crossing watcher's shanty.
Since I was never there before, I didn't know what
the buildings used to be, and there was no rail
look to the doorways.

104577.651@compuserve.com