T1 Restoration Group Reports Building Cab

A group restoring a Pennsylvania Railroad steam locomotive recently announced that it has finished building the engine’s cab.

The rebuilding was done in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, in a former PRR shop how owned by Curry Rail Service.

The group, The T1 Trust, is seeking to restore PRR T1 4-4-4-4 No. 5550.

The group described finishing the cab as a major step forward. Earlier this year it said it had cast its first boxpok driver.

Curry Rail is a locomotive supplier and railcar maintenance company that is a corporate sponsor of the T1 Trust project.

The Pennsy had 52 Class T1 locomotives, including 25 built at its shops in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Another 27 were built by Baldwin Locomotive Works.

Most of them were built in 1945 and 1946 and used in high-speed passenger service.

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.

 

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.

Touch of the Southern Crescent in Pennsylvania

My friend Adam Barr and I had just finished chasing the first trip of the Everett Railroad’s steam-powered holiday train and were heading for lunch at a Sheetz in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania.

As we crossed the Pennsylvania Route 36 bridge over the tracks I spotted something green and suggested that we go check it out.

Imagine my surprise to see a Southern Railway passenger locomotive sitting on a siding still wearing its green and white livery.

So much for getting lunch.

We parked and got out to investigate. The locomotive had been dropped off earlier in the day by a Norfolk Southern local.

It was in clear view from South Juniata Street in a residential neighborhood.

E8A No. 6901 is owned by the Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth, Georgia.

The paint has faded and chipped, but otherwise it looks just as it did in the final days of service when it pulled the Southern Crescent between Washington, D.C., and New Orleans.

The Southern Crescent was one of the last non-Amtrak intercity trains in America.

The Southern elected not to join Amtrak in 1971 but on Feb. 1, 1979, conveyed the Southern Crescent to Amtrak, which today operates it between New York and New Orleans as the Crescent.

No. 6901 was built in September 1951 as Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific No. 2924.

The Georgia museum’s website says No. 6901 was still actively pulling the Southern Crescent just before the Amtrak takeover.

The museum said on its Facebook page that the original plan for the 6901 was to send it to the NS Shaffer’s Crossing shops in Roanoke, Virginia, for a mechanical evaluation with the goal of restoring the locomotive to operating condition.

It would be cosmetically restored in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Somewhere along the way the plans changed. The locomotive wound up being sent by NS to Pennsylvania and a local man we spoke with said it had sat for a few days in a yard in nearby Altoona before making it way to Hollidaysburg.

The man said he understood that the 6901 will have asbestos removed from it by a company in Hollidaysburg.

I’ve ridden Amtrak’s Crescent once, but never saw the train when it was being operated by the Southern.

Seeing No. 6901 was like taking a trip back in time to the 1970s when the Southern won high marks from passengers for its superb service.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders