Saw this yesterday at the train expo in Oaks, Pa. They are sitting in a parking lot and looks like they are landed locked. Steamlocomotive.com says the little steamer was sold at the auction in Steamtown.



Another engine

I was there and saw them as well. Did you notice the streamlined 0-4-0 at the old station? I was wondering what the story is on all of those.

This should explain a bit more.

http://hickscarworks.blogspot.com/2008/ ... ks-pa.html

I have heard that the station there is a replica, and not the original. Can anyone confirm?

Joshua

According to the Penna. station database, it's a real Phila. & Reading depot dating to 1918:

http://www.west2k.com/pastations/montgomerypa.htm

It looked to authentic to be a replica.

I was also at the model train show on Saturday and poked my head around this locomotive. It appears to be in relatively intact. It looks cosmetically a mess but really isn't in too bad of shape. Does anybody know if there are any plans for these engines?

Those's locomotives have been sitting there for at least 20 years.
The speeder is an UMP and the rest I don't know to much about. The Oaks station is the real P&R station and across the street it the railroad single too . this line was part of the Perk branch. where the locomotives are sitting that's on part of whats left of the PRR Schuylkill Branch.
I was to the show on Sunday.

Len.
I only live 25 mins. from there.

The site where this equipment is located is the former BF Goodrich tire plant. Two branches of the PRR and the RDG used to cross on a diamond at the northwest corner of the plant site. The interlocking was later remoted and called Creek. There was a PRR concrete signal house that stood there with a keystone cast in the concrete. After 4/1/76, the trackage in the plant was used as the connection between the 2 branches to continue service. It was several years later that the diamond was finally removed and the track re-aligned.

The 0-4-0T is indeed a Steamtown auction sale. She is somewhat unique in that her steam dome is in the cab. She also appeared to be set up for single man operation.

The small Whitcomb is a gas mechanical locomotive and is also a Steamtown auction sale. According to "rumor control" she had her multi-piece cork clutch replaced while in Vermont.

The GE 45-ton locomotive is former Alan Wood Steel from Conshohocken, PA, south of Oaks. She is a "low-profile" locomotive and had remote control. The last time I saw her, she was complete, with the romote appuratus still in place. She also had replacement HRBI engines installed with relatively new dates IIRC. It appears from the photos that the windows have been removed(?).

There used to be several Budd RDC cars at this site as well. The equipment was supposedly purchased to operate a tourist railroad in the immediate area, where exactly I have no clue. An interesting note is that in 1982, the Buckingham Valley Trolley Museum had looked at this area as a possible relocation site, operating either on the RDG Perkiomen Branch to Collegeville or the PRR Schuylkill Valley Branch to Norristown. Both options relied on Penndot cooperation with the US 422 highway construction. Both options died with the move to Penn's Landing and eventually to Scranton.

Rob

The tourist railroad would had used the former PRR line from Oaks to Spring City, the reason it fell through was the fairview tunnel on the line was in bad shape.

The buds are at Belfont,Pa. and there was a red coach there to that went to R&N. it's an ex GM&N .

Len.

It amazing how much rail equipment is sitting here and there in storage with no apparent future plans. It seems that nobody really knows who owns this stuff.

I would talk to the owners of the business advertised on the locomotives to see who owns them.

Sorry, but the information on the proposed tourist operation is wrong. The tourist operation was to have operated from Oaks, through Phoenixville, and up toward the PA Turnpike.

I was involved over there briefly in the early '90s. Unfortunately, because of Conrail backing out of a deal they had made previously, the operation never got off the ground.

As far as the GE 45T goes, it was Alan Wood Steel 60. I believe it was converted to low profile by Alan Wood, just from looking at some welding in the cab. It HAD remote until I carefully removed it, in anticipation of the tourist operation; we just didn't need it. I had wanted to put a big airhorn up on the roof, as well as the bell, just to make it look bigger.

One proposed plan were to use an Alco RS-1 up the hill out of Phoenixville, and bring the train back down with the 45T in a push-pull fashion. That would have saved adding run-arounds at each end.

My big question is this: What happened to the stack from the steamer? It used to be over by the water tank on the other side of the complex, when the equipment was stored over there. At one point, the track almost ran full circle around that plant, which had 1.2 million square feet under it's roof.

EDM

EMD, I have a friend who was involved in the proposed tourist line. I also have a copied of the inspection ride (video) up the line from Perk Jct. to Spring City, Station. They used the UMP Speeder for this trip. I think the date was 1982?
My friends name is David W.Trexler maybe you know him.

Len.

I think we're talking about apples and oranges here. The particular evolution of this line that I was involved in was in the early '90s, not 1982. There was no tunnel involved.

The scenic highlight of the trip would have been over the steel bridge along (or perhaps over) Charlestown Road. It was a few years and proposals ago. Sorry, but I don't know your friend Trexler.

There are a pair of RDC-9s on CMSL that I was told were at Oaks awhile ago. Perhaps there is some confusion with the Budd(s) over at Bellfonte?

And although I own an EMD, my initials are EDM.

Seems there were 2 routings proposed from Oaks to beyond Phoenixville. One would continue on the PRR's Schuylkill Valley Branch through the tummel to Spring City, another would divert on the PRR's Frazier-Phoenixville Branch over the trestle towards the present end of track just beyond the Pa. Tpk. bridge at Devault. Was there another that would preserve part of the Reading's Perkiomen Branch North from Oaks?