On a winter trip to Pennsylvania, Thomas Dyrek and a group of railfans visited the Reading & Northern Railroad where they were welcomed by the railroad and permitted to tour the operating facilities.

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Edd Fuller, Editor
The Trackside Photographer
http://thetracksidephotographer.com/

Good stuff. I'm hoping to do a photo excursion at Everett in the fall then get to R&N for 425's last run of the season.

I've always had excellent experiences with the R&N passenger department.

My very first trip, a Lehigh Gorge Scenic run with #425 that I took my father to, we rode in the open air car directly behind the locomotive. When we got to Penn Haven and when they got ready to run the engine around to the other end of the train, the conductor pulled me and my father aside and said "I have to go back to check something in the other car, I'm going to accidentally leave the door to the vestibule open. Why don't you two go out there and make sure no one falls off?" So we got to hang out in the vestibule and watch them uncouple the locomotive and run it around to the back of the train. A couple minutes later the conductor came up and winked at us and said "I can't believe I left that door open. Thanks for making sure things were safe up here."

I rode the RDC charter trip from Reading-Girardville last year, sponsored by the National Museum of Industrial History with a photo runby at Buck Mountain Tunnel. On the return trip, a bunch of went and rode in the rear cab of the rearmost RDC and watched the rails stretch out behind us as we hit an honest 55mph between Leesport and Reading. The conductor came back and shot the breeze with us for a while and then gave us R&N Passenger Department fridge magnets as a little souvenir.

On last year's Fall Foliage trip, an employee was selling backissues of The Bee Line covering Valley Forge Scenic. I gladly snapped one up for the photos and information on that rarely-covered subject.

All they ask is you behave, don't climb on equipment, and stay of the tracks. This is "old fashioned" railroading like most terminals were like. It's up to the rest of us to make certain those liberal policies remain in effect.
Behave!