Ehh, shows what I know about Pennsylvania geography. I guess the better term is EBT is between Altoona and the WMSR. Either way, all of them are close enough regionally to make a single trip out of it.



Yeah, converting between the two fuels is not that rare of an occurrence from what I understand. It definitely happened on the major railroads, especially western ones like UP or SP that had some coal fired districts inland, and oil fired districts more coastal in California. To assign an engine long term to a district often meant swapping the fuel type to match the fuel used in that region.

Its certainly happened in preservation too... the replica 4-4-0's at Promontory Summit were both built as oil burners before swapping to the accurate fuels (wood and coal) later in life. The Ffestiniog Railway in the UK converted most of its coal burners to oil for several years, before swapping most of them back to coal. If the DSNG has to convert more coal burners to oil to mitigate fire risks, they certainly have the resources to convert them back to coal if the situation changes.

I can vouch for this. The volunteers we met there were unfailingly friendly and knowledgeable and the ride well worth the price of admission. I’m glad they’ve been able to hang on through what had to be some lean and scary years.

Now oil burning #493 is making her debut this weekend for the photographers special. She looks great!

EBT... I have been doing what I could to get their document archive scanned since the late 1980's, but I'm in Texas. Everyone needs to keep in mind that paper doesn't last forever, but digital will, so when you speak to someone from the management of that .org, please speak to them about the importance of getting all the paper documents scanned and copied and preserved into multiple archive locations. There are modelers, some still here, some long gone, who waited on this for life.

I know that the locomotive blueprints, about 200-350 per locomotive ( some 7' long), all the parts and overall blueprints for all the equipment built in the shops, and much more, still exists. Its imperative that it be digitally preserved.

If the current .org succeeds we will likely get to ride and enjoy the EBTRR again, but it will rust to noting one day, thats just reality. If we persevere the information it can always be used to recreate the equipment for our kids and grand kids, and their grand kids. If we loose it all to a fire (like the 1969 WP&Y wooden roundhouse fire that destroyed the blueprints to many of our 3' gauge national treasures) it will all be gone forever.

Those drawings were stored in the 1980's-2000's upstairs in Orbisonia depot, a wooden structure.

Not even..... That's on the order of saying Washington DC is "between" Philly and Pittsburgh.

It's a substantial detour, with somewhat unfriendly (by Interstate standards) roads. Altoona to Cumberland is 69 miles, a straight shot down divided-highway US 220, a little over an hour, an hour if the cops aren't looking.
Altoona-Orby is 55 miles down three-lane (passing places) US 22 and two-lane 522, but only 33 miles in a straight line you can't drive. Then 88 miles to Cumberland via 522, the Turnpike, and 220.

This assumes, mind you, that you don't get tempted to explore back beyond Orby to Three Springs, Saltillo, the tunnels, and Robertsdale, into country that even I as a native of the region had trouble navigating WITH good maps (and which would very likely leave many "city" drivers to pull up to strangers and beg "how do I get back to civilization?"........)

Now, if you are plotting to see lots of Pennsylvania on a multi-day trip, this is inconsequential. But doing justice to EBT/RTM takes a full day, doing justice to the Altoona/Cresson/Portgage attractions is another day, and Cumberland is a third day. Never mind other attractions, from state forests to State College to the PRRT&HS at Lewistown to the Johnstown Flood, Inclined Plane, etc.

All of those points are silly... East Broad Top is 2 hours (according to google maps) from Strasburg. I'm certain I will be visiting both in the same day at some point in life.

I've ridden Delaware River Train, Black River & Western, and Strasburg Railroad all in the same day.

If you have full days to devote to every operation, great. But whirlwind tours can be equally fun and it's pretty fun to count the number of steam locomotives you can ride in a couple days time.

Yeah that sounds really close to me, at least by the standards of what I am used to out west. The last major railfan trip my friends and I took was from Utah (near Salt Lake City), out west until we made it to Carson City, 531 miles away from where we started. Then up into Virginia City the next day and north to the Sumpter Valley Railroad in Oregon, a 518 mile trip. I think I would find a 69-88 mile drive to be short and pleasant in comparison.

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I made the drive from Lancaster to Rockhill Furnace yesterday in (101 miles) in two hours and five minutes. The return trip on the same route took two hours flat. It generally takes me between 25 and 30 minutes to drive from my home to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania at Strasburg, not via Route 30.

Yes, and $18-26 in Pa. Turnpike tolls as well (EZ Pass or cash--heck, at least they still take cash instead of sending a bill and service fee to your address by mail....)

Yes, "whirlwind" or "If it's Tuesday this must be Pennsylvania" tours can be fun. But there are several reasons I strongly discourage such an approach to this specific part of Pennsylvania. Not the least of which is the Horse Shoe Curve and Gallitzen Tunnel(s) are NOT on the Santa Fe Transcon, and you might wait anywhere from 5 minutes to three hours to see a train go by..... which is kind of a point of the whole exercise.

Further, some attractions are "always open" and some only on weekends. This resulted in my partaking in a N&W 611 run from Erie to Rocky River, Ohio and return in August 1992--the closest NS steam trip possible for my friends from the UK--and then driving through the night southeast on two-lane roads the entire way to an Altoona motel in monsoon-like conditions moving southeast along with us to ride the EBT and trolleys the next day........... Of course, now the Internet tells us that as much mileage as the Interstates add to the run, it's faster by a few minutes.....

I am just as excited by the news of the EBT news. I do have 1 question that nobody else has answered. Mt Union. That part of the railroad along with the interchange was bought several years ago. That is a critical part of the EBT railroad and is necessary if they were to ever consider hauling freight or expanding their revenue sources. Can anyone speculate if there are any plans on acquiring the Mt Union Connecting Railroad? That would be like the Strasburg only owning their line to a mile or 2 from the interchange!

Not sure I see any need for the EBT to interchange with any regular railroads. If there was a potential freight business there, it would have likely been exploited by the previous owners or operators years ago. As Joe Kovalchick stated in the press release, "It is clear that a for-profit business model is not sustainable." No, what Mt. Union offers is a potential destination for public passenger trips. Unlike a picnic grove in the woods, it offers a bit more for folks to explore on a layover, especially railroad history buffs. To me, that's the handicap the railroad would have without access to Mt. Union.

/Kevin Madore

It’s best to just let things happen now. As ADM4 said on another thread (if he doesn’t mind me calling him that here) the land between Mount Union and the concrete Aughwick bridge is owned by the East Broad Top Preservation Association, the same group that operated the EBT on a lease basis between 2009 and 2011. The purchase, completed in 2013, only included the land, and not any of the general rolling stock, #3, the track, or any of the structures.

This most recent purchase includes the majority of track (about 81% or so) between the concrete bridge at Aughwick and the road crossing at Woodvale (about a mile past Robertsdale for reference). It also includes all rolling stock (even in mount union) as well, except for #3.

Because there are two different groups involved here, let’s just let things play out for now until an answer is given by someone with more information. It’s probably best just not to ask questions at this time about that.

Good point. I am a little disconnected on ow much of the EBT wasn’t in the sale. I know about the coal mine rights, but what about the branch lines. From the 60+/- miles in the 50s half of it was branch lines.

The press release says 27 miles, so presumably, only the main line. The branches were all abandoned/scrapped during the common carrier era (or shortly thereafter) as follows:

Booher Branch: 1912
Coles Valley Branch (to Joller): 1955
NARCo Branch (at Saltillo): 1956
Rocky Ridge Branch: Damaged by 1936 Flood and shut down, removed c.1948

The Shade Gap Branch has a slightly more complicated history in its abandonment/removal:
Shade Gap to Neelyton: abandoned 1943
Black Log to Shade Gap: abandoned 1948
Rockhill to Black Log: removed by Kolvalchick Salvage 1956
ROW to Shade Gape retained by East Broad Top RR & Coal Co. (possibly included in sale? RTY/Rockhill Trolley Museum originally leased this, not sure if they purchased it later or not)

It's not clear whether to rights of way for any of these branches was included in the sale. Most of them existed to serve mines and/or mining communities that are no long even on a map. For example, Joller is now a mine reclaimation site, and the last residents left in 1979. USPS employee/nerd moment: I believe the zip code was/would have been 16658--there's a few holes in the 166 scheme that once belonged to ghost towns and closed Post Offices. The codes are generally alphabetical, and that's the one between James Creek (16657) and Loysburg (16659). You can still address mail to Joller, but it routes to Robertsdale.