I have always liked East Broad Top from the very first year of tourist operation. I met with Nick Kovalchick in private one-on-one. What he did preserving this great historical site is nothing but amazing as is Joe's effort to carry on the effort to honour his father. Special praise also to the many volunteers who standby during its sleep working to preserve.

Over many years 1960's on, I visited every tourist RR in Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the East and ALWAYS liked EBT best for its authenticity. I NEVER liked Strasburg! A tourist trap. I know, you can't argue with success, if only ridership and money count, but that isn't everything. I hope and trust EBT will stay as authentic as it can.

Cass and Nevada Northern are also close comparisons.

I couldn't agree with you more... However, unless there is a multi-million dollar endowment, the EBT will face the problem of earning it's keep. Which means hauling passengers, in numbers way beyond what it did historically. That in itself will change the complexion of the railroad. Each steam trip is going to come with it's attendant fixed costs. Unless there are sufficient 'butts in seats' to cover those costs, they are not going to be successful. Others have commented on where they might go to find the butts; my comments were directed at where they might find the seats.

A somewhat close parallel would be the Cumbres & Toltec, an intact stretch of railroad complete with locomotives and light running maintenance shops that had absolutely NO passenger equipment. Phase one of the solution was to rebuild some of the plentiful freight cars for passenger service. These got the job done, but were ugly. Phase two was to build new cars on existing frames, which are ex standard gauge cars, I believe. Unfortunately, they are still ugly. Hopefully, at some point there will be a phase three where they build actual replicas of historically correct equipment.

How does this equate to the EBT? As we discussed before, there does not seem to be a lot of suitable freight equipment to convert, and every conversion destroys an artifact that should be preserved to tell the story of the EBT. That leaves building replica cars, initially to increase the passenger car fleet to accommodate a hopefully growing ridership, eventually to replace the historic cars in daily service, so that they are not completely consumed and can be preserved for occasional special events.

I simply pointed to the new White Pass cars to show that it can be done. It would be ideal if the design could be modified to more closely resemble the EBT's traditional equipment, but if the economies of an add-on order allow more seats to be acquired with less cost, perhaps that is the way to go, initially.

Unless a major attraction company can be convinced that the EBT represents a significant enough historical story to make it worthy for them to agree to build a Wolfs Lodge type water park or a small version of Cedar Point amusement park within 2/3 miles of Rockhill and thus make it a family entertainment destination the EBT will never generate sufficient ridership to be self sustaining.

Therefore it must have a sufficiently large endowment to fund both its rebirth ( track, locomotives, structures etc.) AND fund its long term upkeep with funds generated by attendance revenues helping to reduce the draw down of the endowment.

With very rare exceptions nearly all successful tourist railroads are parasites on nearby hosts ( Strasburg-Amish Country, NH&I- New Hope/Lambertville tourism, GCRR- transportation to the Grand Canyon, Durango & Silverton- Durango Tourism/Rock Mountains) and are adjacent to a tourism DESTINATION.

EBT is literally in the middle of nowhere. It's a lot like Cass. You've got to want to go there. Unless by some miracle a major investment is made to create a nearby attraction of significant enough magnitude to make it become part of a tourism DESTINATION the EBT will be dependent on its endowment and whatever fund raising can be done on an ongoing basis.

I'm confident that the 3 industry leaders who have funded this whole rebirth are plenty smart enough to know this and to have provided sufficient funding to insure its long term viability.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

I don’t think the East Broad Top is going to attempt to be a Strasburg or a Grand Canyon. More along the lines of Cass WV, Hesston IN, Durbin WV, Ely NV, Jamestown CA, etc.

All of them have proven to be sustainable correct? (Jamestown is associated with California State so maybe they have some State funding?).

I think that's a very apt comparison in many ways. The reborn EBT is in almost exactly the same situation as the C&TS was 50 years ago, in 1970.

As Ross says, it seems unlikely given its commercially undesirable location that the EBT will be able to generate enough ridership to support itself, so a large endowment will be necessary. (I know, it makes no sense to claim Orbisonia/Rockhill is remote in absolute terms when it's less than 30 minutes from I-76, but it's certainly remote in relative terms of where people with money want to go on vacation.) Plus, the capital costs are going to be huge.

Looking forward, my hope is that the EBT Foundation will be able to develop financially to the point that it can support the capital side of the budget while the railroad builds business and moves toward becoming less negative in operating terms, much like the States of Colorado and New Mexico support the C&TS.

-Philip Marshall

I must respectfully disagree. The EBT is NOT remote as are the D&S, the C&T, Cass or any number of rail tourist operations that are off the beaten path. The Nevada Northern!! There are millions of people within a few hours drive from Orbisonia. With all the latent interest in the EBT I hope and trust that things will go well with these experienced railroaders in charge! I met you Mister Rowland at the W&LE about the time the Reading 2100 was put into the Brewster shop. I placed it there with a Gallion crane that had a coupler. I railroaded for a long time. If you have a realistic business plan and most importantly the capital and the right people you have a chance in the railroad industry be it large operation or small. And I intend to be at the next work week at the EBT and contribute. I hope others will be motivated as well!

Both Cass and CATS are economic development projects disguised as steam railroads and subsidized by the states in which they are located. EBT could be an economic development project but at the probable cost of the development of its contextual area, not to mention the need for substantial subsidization at least in the early stages of reconstruction. A public / private partnership could possibly work, but the new owners are private and may not be willing to compromise to that extent assuming it would ever be offered. I know I'd certainly think very carefully about the level of interference and bureaucratic nonsense involved.......

When the Commonwealth was considering a location for the RR Museum of PA, they considered Altoona and Mt. Union-Orbisonia before they selected East Strasburg.

There is not a lot of lodging or restaurants in Orbisonia or at the two Turnpike (I-76) exits (Fort Littleton and Willow Hill) closest. When we went to EBT/RTM's Spectaculars, we stayed in Huntingdon, about 30 miles from Orbisonia. US 22 has a number of places between Mount Union and Huntingdon.

Phil Mulligan

Anyone who's read through the NPS and Commonwealth studies on the EBT will understand that "economic development" is part and parcel of the political dealings involved in coercing political financial support for those proposals. For better or worse, we also have Steamtown as a model, as well as a few other partial NPS examples (Lowell, Grand Canyon, etc.). This has also been a factor in the nearby promotion of the Allegheny Industrial Heritage Project, with somewhat mixed results.

As I've suggested already, if the entire line is preserved intact(ish) as an asset that COULD be turned over to a government entity, with operational rights maintained by the FEBT or the Foundation, this eliminates one major obstacle to this path for long-term preservation. (This, mind you, assumes that there wasn't some--probably unenforceable--clause in the sales agreement preventing it from ever being sold or donated to a government body.)

The biggest dilemma facing preservation and operation of the EBT in such a context is that whereas most such preservation projects involve mostly capital costs to acquire and preserve plus limited personnel and ongoing maintenance, most of the visions for the EBT involve far steeper operational costs, including insurance, as well. (There was presented the option of making much/all of the ROW a bike trail.) You don't just put in a trail, parking lots, and picnic tables.

It's in 'the middle of nowhere' in East Coast terms, as others have commented. But, it's definitely in the day-trip range for Harrisburg and Pittsburgh and the northern sections of MD. They *Won't* pay all the bills, as Ross stated, but would help get butts in the seats with the attendant revenue.
Day tours would be the first group market to pursue, as already mentioned in this thread. School field trips, if they are still a "thing", could be the second.

Given that the Foundation doesn't plan to start operations until next year, I suspect they are going to do a thorough rebuilding of the yard trackage and the section to Colgate Grove. If *I* were putting up seven figure's worth of my own money, I'd make damn sure that the trackage is the best possible condition before hauling paying passenger #1. Even going so far as to buy ultrasonic test gear and make my own rail testing vehicle.
The FEBT has had new passenger trucks made for some of their projects, so that's a good base for producing a batch of new passenger equipment in the future. Freight trucks don't adapt well for a comfortable passenger experience.

Steel underframe wooden coach replicas would definitely be nice to see.

I'm looking forward to what the EBTF has in store for the Ol' Easty….

You are all leaving out the Flight 93 Memorial which is about 90 minutes west of Orbisonia. Per the 2019 report, 381,000 park visitors spent an estimated $22.5 million in local gateway regions while visiting Flight 93 National Memorial in 2018. These expenditures supported a total of 355 jobs, $11.2 million in labor income, $18.2 million in value added, and $31.6 million in economic output in local gateway economies surrounding Flight 93 National Memoria.

Altoona is about 1 hour from the Memorial. Johnstown is about 30 minutes from the Memorial. There are numerous smaller theme parks and family friendly activities within the triangle of the Memorial, Altoona, and Orbisonia.

My hunch is that the people now involved in EBT see the potential of being not far from the Memorial. If you can get 10% of the Memorial visitors to Orbisonia, I would call that a success.

J.R. May

With all due respect JR 90 minutes is a LONG ways away. When we started the Pacific Wilderness tourist line in Victoria BC we were "only" 3 blocks off the main tourist streets around the fabled waterfront near the Empress Hotel and we tried everything to get the tourists to come our way with limited success.

EBT is like Cass..........you gotta REALLY want to go there.

Ridership revenues will never be sufficient to support a robustly restored and maintained property on their own. A substantial endowment is the only answer and again between Wick Moorman Bennett Levin and Henry Posner I'm confident that they've thought all this through and it will be well handled.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

The best thing East Broad Top can do is, be itself! Don't try to copy any other tourist RR. Change as little as possible. No need to try and be the biggest or the best. Remember what the roast chestnut street vendor said when asked what he hoped to be. "I don't want to set the world on fire. I just want to keep my nuts warm'!

Cass is an hour and 14 minutes from the interstate. EBT is 21 minutes.