Excursion to Raise Funds for PRR K-4s Restoration

A Pennsylvania short line railroad plans to run a steam excursion to raise money in support of preservation of a former Pennsylvania Railroad steam locomotive.

The Everett Railroad will run the hour-long trip on May 6 with its own 2-6-0 steam locomotive No. 11, which for the occasion will carry a PRR three-chime Blue Ribbon whistle.

The proceeds from the excursion will be devoted to efforts by the Railroaders Memorial Museum of Altoona, Pennsylvania, to restore PRR Class K4s steam locomotive No. 1361.

The 4-6-2 No. 1361 was built in the PRR Juniata Shops near Altoona in 1918. The restoration project is expected to cost $2.4 million.

Tickets for the Everett excursion will cost $20 for adults, $15 for seniors, $10 for children ages 3-12 and $5 for children under age 3.

The excursion will depart from Hollidaysburg at noon and run to Brookes Mills before returning.

Ed’s Pennsylvania Adventure: Part 2

The 2018 convention of the National Railway Historical Society was held recently in Cumberland, Maryland.

On Saturday morning, convention attendees boarded buses and made the trip to Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, to board a chartered Everett Railroad steam train.

I didn’t attend the convention, but was also present for the trip to chase it.

Even though I’ve done the Everett several times I faced a challenge because of the overcast skies. I opted for locations where the morning light would produce better images for locations I’ve gotten previously.

However, all morning the heavy overcast resulted in locations I previously had done ending up with similar results. I’m sending along locations not shown before.

In the top image the train passes a horse grazing in a field north of Kladder

In the top image below, the steamer turns east toward Martinsburg approaching Route 36. The following image shows the train heading back after turning at the Martinsburg passing dairy plant.

In the next image, the train arrives at Roaring Springs station for where the conventioneers had lunch.

After our Everett Railroad outing had ended the clouds disappeared and we had sunshine for the Altoona Curve doubleheader baseball game that was to begin at 4:30 p.m. at Peoples Natural Gas Field.

The exterior of the ballpark simulates a roundhouse. Everything, including the gift shop, mascots and food items, are railroad terms. The former Pennsy K4 is alive and well.

Overlooking the outfield is the Lakemont amusement park roller coaster, hopefully to reopen next season.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Chasing Steam, Amtrak, NS in Pennsylvania

Here are a few are a few highlights from this past weekend. Jeff [Troutman] and myself left about 2:30 p.m. on Friday. Since I drove I made reservations for a Microtel in Clarion, Pennsylvania. We got there about 5:15 p.m.

I wanted to be on the road by 7 a.m. Saturday so we would get to Summerhill to get Amtrak No. 42 since it would depart Johnstown at 9:03 a.m.

Breakfast started at 6:30 a.m., which was perfect. But ice and fogged up windows from overnight delayed our departure by 20 minutes.

Jeff kept checking Julie as we were heading on Pennsylvania Route 219. We were on the far bridge and guess who was about to go under us.

I knew it was P42DC engine No. 86 on head end. And exactly like Agent 86 Maxwell Smart we missed it by that much.

As you can see in photo No. 1 the lighting was perfect of the empty tracks.

Photo No. 2 is of the Everett steam train at Brook Mills on the line heading to Roaring Spring.

Photo No. 3 is at Roaring Spring. There are two photo lines including the road crossing where I shot last September with the station and the Pennsylvania Railroad caboose.

Where I am and looking down to my right I was amazed at what I saw that I never noticed twice last September and last May: A double semaphore turned with slight foliage somewhat hiding it.

Photo 5 shows Everett No. 11 on the return trip from Martinsburg at Route 36 just southeast of Roaring Spring.

After eating lunch we went to Tyrone, Pennsylvania, where we photographed the cabooses located on what used to be the east leg of the wye.

The beautiful stone memorial is in a park between the cabooses and the station.

Saturday afternoon found us in Fostoria, Pennsylvania, along the Pittsburgh Line of Norfolk Southern. This time Amtrak did not elude us.

On Sunday morning it was back to Fostoria to catch Amtrak No. 42 passing beneath the PRR position light signals.

We then spent a little over three hours at Horseshoe Curve before heading home. We saw eight trains and two helper movements.

What was unusual was that the first three trains were two eastbound loaded coal hoppers and one empty hopper train.

Again, the weather was perfect and it was tough to leave.

Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

 

 

Roaring Into Roaring Springs

Akron Railroad Club members Ed Ribinskas and Jeff Troutman traveled to central Pennsylvania to chase the Everett Railroad’s steam locomotive. It is shown above coming into Roaring Springs.

Photographs by Jeff Troutman

Ed’s Trip to Pennsylvania (Part 2)

Everett Railroad No. 11 crossing the Little Juniata after departing Hollidaysburg.

After spending some time catching Amtrak and Norfolk Southern trains in downtown Altoona, we motored out to the Everett Railroad where we rode and chased.

After the train arrived at Roaring Springs, I drove back to Duncansville to an antique mall to check out the Alto Model Railroad, which is open on Saturday and Sunday. It was worth it with all scales represented with fabulous operating layouts.

Afterwards it was back to the Everett where the train returned and we got No. 11 heading to the wye to be turned.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Passing through Roaring Spring.

At Roaring Spring.

Nearing Martinsburg in the first of a two photo sequence. I talked with Jerry Jordak at this spot. He was chasing, also, then working his way to the Penn Central Historical Society Convention in Harrisburg.

Turning the locomotive on the wye.

Just west of Martinsburg on the return.

Arriving at Roaring Spring for water and ice cream stop.

Heading to the wye on the old Pennsy main, which used to head toward old Muleshoe Curve.

Heading into the wye. This track goes north to Altoona to connect at Alto tower.

Ed Journeys to the Everett Railroad Again

Owen (left) and Karl pose with Everett No. 11 in Holidaysburg, Pennsylvania.

On May 20, Akron Railroad Club member Ed Ribinskas along with his brother-in-law Karl and his son Owen (Ed’s nephew) did an all-day trip to railfan in Pennsylvania. Today’s installment focuses on their visit to the Everett Railroad where they chased and photographed two trips.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

The first of three images made of the train in Hollidaysburg.

 

Switching at Brooks Mills

At West Loop Road

Nearing Monastery Road.

Crossing Pennsylvania Route 36 north of Roaring Spring.

At Roaring Spring.

 

In Search of Keystone State Steam: 3

Everett Railroad No. 11 passes Loop Road.

Last in a series

No sooner did Ed Ribinskas return from a four-day weekend in search of steam in eastern Pennsylvania, but he was on the road again to capture steam on the Everett Railroad in central Pennsylvania.

Based in Hollidaysburg near Altoona, the Everett like the Reading Blue Mountain & Northern that Ed had chased a week earlier, is a short-line freight railroad that also operates steam locomotives.

Ed and fellow Akron Railroad Club member Jeff Troutman spent the weekend of Oct. 15-16 chasing Everett’s 2-6-0 Mogul-type steamer while also spending time on Horseshoe Curve.

He was able to get No. 11 in Holidaysburg and at such intermediate points as along Loop Road, at Kladder and crossing the Little Juniata River.

Everett No. 11 was built in 1920 by Alco’s Cooke Works in Patterson, New Jersey.

Built by Alco with an eye toward export to Cuba, No. 11 never made it to the island nation and instead worked for the Narragansett Pier Railroad in Rhode Island.

It later worked in New York state before being retired in 1949. It had a series of owners before winding up on the Everett Railroad in 2006.

It was stored for a time on the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad before being restored to operating condition.

It returned to operation in October 2015.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

 

Working on a Steam Train

Getting a brief glimpse inside the cab of Everett Railroad No. 11.

I make it a point when I’m chasing a steam train to try to photograph the crew at work. It isn’t always easy when the train is moving, so your best opportunities are during service stops or switching maneuvers.

Here is a selection of images I made last month while chasing Everett Railroad No. 11 during a holiday-themed excursion out of Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania.

The theme of this series is railroaders at work.

Photographs by Craig Sanders

A firm grip on the throttle from the engineer’s seat.

Keeping track of the pressure on the fireman’s side.

Backing out over a switch before moving forward to join the rest of the train.

Locomotive and passenger car are almost coupled together as a crew member gives hand signals.

Keeping a watchful eye on the moving parts.

When backing up, the visibility is better if you sit on the window ledge on the fireman’s side.

Chasing the Everett Railroad No. 11

Passengers mill about the depot in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, as Everett No. 11 waits for its departure time. Both trips on this day were sold out.

During the past year I’ve written a handful of posting for the Akron Railroad Club blog about the restoration of Everett Railroad steam locomotive No.11.

But at the time it was just another story about a faraway piece of equipment.

Then my friend Adam Barr called and suggested we travel to Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, and chase No. 11 as it pulled one of the holiday season trains.

The only date that worked for both of us was a Sunday in mid December. No. 11 would pull two trips that day and we wanted to get both of them.

Adam had some familiarity with the Everett because he had operated a speeder over the line several years ago.

The locomotive and its train were sitting in the station when we arrived.

Our first series of photographs would be made from the nearby Pennsylvania Route 36 bridge over the tracks.

When we planned this trip, we thought we might get the locomotive operating with snow on the ground.

How nice it would have been to have made an image with a waiting steam locomotive sitting at a depot with the word “holiday” in its name.

But the unseasonably warm temperatures this month put the kibosh on that. Maybe next year.

If you’ve followed the No. 11 story, you know that it is a 2-6-0 built by American Locomotive Company in 1923.

It was expected to be sold for use in the sugar cane fields of Cuba, but that didn’t pan out.

Instead, No. 11 was sold to the Narragansett Pier Railroad in Rhode Island where it worked until 1938 when it was acquired by the Bath & Hammondsport in New York state.

Then it moved on to the Middletown & New Jersey in 1982. That company in turn sold No. 11 to the Everett in 2006.

It would be a nearly a decade before No. 11 was restored to operating condition and returned to revenue service.

The train had a combine and two coaches. It was an impressive-looking consist and you could easily believe that you’d been transported back to the 1930s when branch line passenger trains looked like this.

Chasing No. 11 was not overly difficult. The train didn’t travel all that fast and much of the time the tracks ran parallel with Reservoir Road.

The train ran as far as East Freedom, which is just beyond where the junction at Brookes Mill where the Everett separates into branches for Sproul and Curry. It is, of course, all former Pennsylvania Railroad territory.

At East Freedom, No. 11 ran around its train and ran tender forward back to Hollidaysburg.

We chased the second trip as far as East Freedom and decided to call it a day.

We drove to Altoona and had dinner at The Knickerbocker Tavern to which we were attracted because of it large selection of beers.

I was mildly amused that a tavern in Altoona in the heart of PRR country would have the same name as a former New York Central passenger train.

But the beer and atmosphere were great. The tavern is housed in a Philadelphia-style row house built in 1903 to provide housing for workers at the PRR’s nearby South Altoona shops.

The name came from the construction company that built the structure, not the NYC passenger train.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

No. 11 had a nice looking train. Ignore the modern vehicles in the foreground and the building in the background and you might think it was the 1930s.

Getting up a head of steam after the conductor gave the highball command.

Getting underway with the first trip of the day out of Hollidaysburg. That’s the Blair County Courthouse in the background.

Putting on a steam and smoke show, the best we would see all day.

We found enough of an opening in the trees to get a decent shot from along Reservoir Road.

Rounding the curve as the train comes into Kladder and a crossing with Monastery Road.

Passing a Christmas tree farm, which was doing a brisk business today.

Passing through Kladder, which is the home of a monastery run by the Franciscan Friars.

The second run has just gotten underway and is about a mile from the Holidaysburg depot as it crosses Beaverdam Branch just before River Road.

Look what we found in the woods today.

 

The horses were in the barn lot rather than the field during the second run of Everett No. 11 and its holiday train.

Striking a profile pose while passing a pond alongside Reservoir Road.

Approaching the crossing Brooks Boulevard, which is nearly the end of the journey from Holidaysburg.

A Long Time Ago on the Everett Railroad

We have had some beautiful Everett Railroad images posted lately on the Akron Railroad Club blog, so I thought some pictures of the Everett’s first tourist railroad might interest some.

A few years ago a widow donated her husband’s slide collection to the ARRC and members were allowed to add some of those photographs to their own collections. Image one was in the collection and shows Everett No. 11 from the 1960s.

Images two through four were taken by me around 1969 or the early 1970s. All three were taken in Everett.

Photographs by Robert Farkas