Looks like it is used for salt storage, and is only partly complete.

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?20060 ... e&BOOL=ANY

I was there a few weeks ago and it was a sad site indeed. Just a couple of years ago it was a nearly complete facility only lacking trains.

I have some Photo's taken in 1989 or 1990 I will scan and Post later.

big change for the area

Very cool, do you know when the facility was last in real railroad use?

We used that facility to prepare the 2101 and some of the cars for the Chessie Steam Special over the winter of 1976-77. To my knowledge that was the last use the place got, certainly the last steam loco. work. At that time it was still in half way decent shape and included a 100 ft. working turntable. Sure looks like the years have taken a toll!!
Ross Rowland....no s please.......

The big change in the area is that in 1988 the missing piece of Interstate 78 was opened just to the south of the roundhouse property. Before then this was pretty much open country just to the south of the huge Bethlehem Steel plant and slag piles. I assume the salt stored there is used for I-78. A few years the turntable was sitting off to the side of the roundhouse - is it still there?

I assume the last real RR use it got would have been in the early Conrail years.

Chris.

As the resident Reading Bethlehem Branch junkie, I suppose that I should reply to this thread...

It's not used for salt storage, although there is a PennDOT facility really close by. The roundhouse was bought by a concrete company. The company actually did some work to stabilize the roundhouse itself, but the outbuilding was torn down in 2002. The turntable was removed from the pit by the Reading Technical Historical Society for the eventual use at their museum site. Here's a link to them removing the table:

http://www.readingrailroad.org/news/info_news_98.html

Although I didn't move to Eastern PA until the late 1990's, I've taken some pictures of the facility as I've seen it. The pictures can be found on two of my webapages:

http://jrevans.fbody.com/beth_branch_1/
and
http://jrevans.fbody.com/beth_10052002/

I have some pictures from inside the roundhouse back in 2002, but I never got around to adding them to my site.

Ross, there's a great picture somewhere of the 2101 heading South through Souderton on your break-in run. Since the Bethlehem Branch is my new favorite line and the Chessie Steam Special is what hooked me on trains as a 8 year old child (in Washington, PA on the B&O's W&P), it's the perfect tie together for me. [Sure would like to find a video of the CSS on the W&P.]

Received this report from Robert John Davis' "Ahead of the Torch" Facebook account this morning:

I can verfiy that the coaling tower has been demolished. I passed it this morning on my way to work. The roundhouse is not looking so good and wouldn't be surprised if that follows in the near future.

Sad. I drove past it the other week and figured that the coaling tower would remain for a long time.

I'm still disappointed that the RCT&HS couldn't have located there. They got the turntable, but that would have been a cool place for the museum, inside of a real Reading facility, with the unused Bethlehem Branch out their doors.

Also, after SEPTA had the still good, double track rail removed, they let the trailies take over the ROW from around the Saucon Creek facility back towards Coopersburg, so it's good night for my dreams to seeing trains on that part of the Bethlehem Branch again.

As a side note, I just read the "history" page from the rail trail people:

http://sauconrailtrail.org/?page_id=9249

I never knew that the Reading and Penn Central merged in 1968. I also never knew that in 1976, ConRail was transferred to SEPTA. Wow! ;)

Such a shame about Saucon. I spent some pleasant nights there in the late 60's hostling Quakertown & Eastern No. 4 (BC&G No 4, now owned by Spencer Shops) . It was a compact little engine terminal, still mostly complete in those days, and it had plenty of atmosphere. It would have been a great place for a mainline steam headquarters.

Bethlehem Engine Terminal would have also made a great steam facility. When I was a hostler there forty years ago, there was still a Niles wheel lathe in the shop and the shop air was fed by a Westinghouse cross compound air compressor. Steam was supplied by a Vapor steam generator.
Keith

Last and final addition to this long-dormant thread:

Report via Facebook that the shell of this roundhouse was finally demolished today.

Thanks for the update Sandy.

Sad, but not unexpected. First the turntable came out, then the powerhouse was torn down, then the coaling tower dropped, and now the roundhouse removed. Sad.

Hopefully the turntable will see use again someday.