The late Mike Ondecker and I were chasing this train and this is a grab shot. Wellsville Addison & Galeton F7A 2300 and 2200 are on a short freight in Westfield, Pennsylvania on July 26, 1973. The railroad was known as “the sole leather line” due to its serving many tanneries.
The WAG operated on former Baltimore & Ohio branch line trackage in Pennsylvania and New York state. Its covered wagons were colorful and provded to be its largest motive power. It ceased operations in the late 1970s.
Frontier Railroad Services has been given a $2.4 million contract to replace more than four miles of rail used by the Southwest Pennsylvania Railroad.
The Pennsylvania Rail Transportation Assistance Program is providing 70 percent of the funding for the project.
Te Westmoreland County Industrial Development Corporation owns the 33-mile railroad, which is operated by Carload Express. Carload Express is providing $709,275 toward the project.
The work involves improving the Radebaugh Rail Relay section of the route between Greengate Centre shopping plaza in Hempfield and Youngwood by laying welded rail.
The project is expected to be completed by September and is the fourth rail relay grant the WCIDC has received.
Previous work involved laying 8.76 miles of new rail.
A crowd of 250 gathered on Friday to hear of the plans by a non-profit group to buy and revive the moribund East Broad Top Railroad.
The East Broad Top Foundation acquired most of the 33-mile mile EBT as well as its six Baldwin steam locomotives, rolling stock, and shops.
The sale closed on Feb. 8 and regular operations are expected to begin in 2021.
Officials at the event said their goal is to rebuild five miles of track from Rockhill Furnace to the wye at Colgate Grove, and to have the steam locomotives in operation next year.
A “soft opening” is being eyed this August to mark the the 60th anniversary of the Aug. 13, 1960, start-up of the railroad’s tourist operation.
Governing the foundation will be a 10-member board with three members representing the group’s founders, three representing the railroad and presentation industry, three representing outside or community interests, and one member from the Kovalchick family, which has owned the EBT since the 1950s.
The EBT was largely a coal-hauling narrow gauge railroad that interchanged with the Pennsylvania Railroad until the mines closed in 1956.
The tourist train operations ended at the conclusion of the 2011 season.
Built in the 1870s, the EBT is the last remaining narrow-gauge common-carrier railroad in the Eastern United States.
During Friday’s ceremonies, Joe Kovalchick said his farther, Nick, approached without success 13 banks for a loan before finding one that would agree to lend him the funds used as a down payment on the property.
Joe Kovalchick said his father, although a scrap dealer, wanted to see the EBT run again.
The EBT is a National Historic Landmark that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places but in recent years it has been the subject of much speculation that it was at risk of never operating again.
The key members of the EBT Foundation are Lawrence Biemiller, an EBT historian and guide for shop and roundhouse tours; David Brightbill, EBT’s office manager; Brad Esposito, 20-year employee of the Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad and new general manager of the EBT; and Stephen Lane, an Amtrak employee who volunteers at the Everett Railroad.
Among the supporters of the foundation are three well-known names in the railroad industry.
They include Bennett Levin, head of the Juniata Terminal Company; Charles “Wick” Moorman, retired CEO of Norfolk Southern and Amtrak; and Henry Posner III, chairman of Railroad Development Corporation of Pittsburgh.
Speaking to Trains magazine on Friday, Esposito said the EBT is seeking to create “an image of renewal, a fresh start.”
He said those efforts will involve several initiatives, including rebuilding track, overhauling locomotives and rolling stock, installing a fire-suppression system in the machine shops and roundhouse, and stabilizing structures at the Rockhill Furnace complex.
“If it wasn’t for the cooperation with the Kovalchicks over the last 20 years, the EBT wouldn’t be in the [stable] shape it’s in now,” Esposito said. “The Kovalchicks have been very good to work with.”
Looking toward the shops in Rockhill Furnace, Pennsylvania, in August 1962. You can see freight and passenger cars, EBT M-1 gas-electric car, two steamers (I believe 12 and 14), and Johnstown Traction 311. (Photograph courtesy of Robert Farkas collection)
The East Broad Top Railroad has been sold to a non-profit group whose backers include Charles “Wick” Moorman, Bennett Levin and Henry Posner III.
The sale was announced on Friday by the EBT Foundation, which will own 27 miles of the EBT from the south end of the concrete-arch bridge over the Aughwick River below Mount Union to the road crossing in Wood Township.
The foundation said it also acquired the narrow-gauge railroad’s shops, rolling stock, and equipment from the Kovalchick family.
In a news release, the parties noted that the EBT is a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Although events will be held this year, regular operations are not expected to get underway until 2021.
“This is the best possible outcome for the railroad, which has been in my family for two generations,” says Joseph Kovalchick, whose father, Nick Kovalchick, purchased the EBT after its coal mines closed in 1956.
The Kovalchick family will continue to own coal-company property that had been jointly owned with the railroad.
Kovalchick said in a statement that his father never intended to scrap the railroad after buying it.
“But it is clear that a for-profit business model is not sustainable. Our faith in the new model is reflected in both the sale and the Kovalchick family’s ongoing role on the board of the new non-profit,” he said.
Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
Brad Esposito, a 20-year veteran of the Buffalo & Pittsburgh led the effort to purchase the EBT.
He was joined by EBT enthusiasts David Brightbill, Lawrence Biemiller, and Stephen Lane.
Esposito will become the general manager of the railroad.
He said the EBT Foundation is committed to preserving and operating the EBT as a steam railroad that will provide education about the role of railroads in local and national history as well as help to promote local and regional tourism and economic growth.
The EBT closed in 2011 and work needs to be done to rehabilitate its tracks, locomotives and passenger cars.
This work will also include installation of a fire-suppression system in the shops and roundhouse, and stabilization of structures in the Rockhill Furnace complex.
The foundation plans to work with the volunteer group Friends of the East Broad Top, which has sought to preserve the property since 1983.
It will also work with the Rockhill Trolley Museum, a volunteer organization that since 1960 has operated over the former EBT’s Shade Gap Branch.
Also involved in advising the foundation are Linn Moedinger, former president of the Strasburg Rail Road, and Rod Case, a partner at the consulting firm Oliver Wyman who leads its railway practice.
The Allegheny Ridge Corporation, which manages the region’s state-designated Heritage Area, was also listed in a news release as a supporter of the foundation.
The EBT was built between 1872 to 1874 to haul coal to a new iron furnace in the center of the state. At one time it also interchanged coal with the Pennsylvania Railroad.
The 33-mile EBT survived the collapse of the local iron industry at the turn of the 20th century and was purchased in 1956 by the Kovalchick Salvage Company of Indiana, Pennsylvania.
The railroad has a gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches and is the the only original narrow-gauge railroad surviving east of the Rocky Mountains.
Its shops complex dates to the 1880s and was expanded between 1905 and 1907.
Housed in the roundhouse in Rockhill Furnace are six narrow-gauge steam locomotives built for the EBT by Philadelphia’s Baldwin Locomotive Works between 1911 and 1920.
The roundhouse also contains an M-1 gas-electric car built in 1927 with plans and parts from Philadelphia’s J.G. Brill Companyand Westinghouse Electric.
The EBT passenger car fleet is believed to date to the 1890s.
Track remains in place over nearly the entire 33-mile main line between Robertsdale and the former PRR connection in Mount Union.
Norfolk Southern now operates the former PRR mainline between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh.
The railroad’s new website is eastbroadtop.com
The Reading & Northern has sued the Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Railroad Authority arguing that it violated the state’s open meetings act when it extended the contract of rail operator Delaware-Lackawanna for five years.
The suit argues that the Authority discussed the extension in an executive session at which the public was excluded and without public notice.
The suit contends that the Authority should have acted in public. It is seeking a reversal of the decision.
R&N said it would drop the lawsuit if the Authority “would embark on a good faith bid process,”
The Authority acted to extend the least last month. That action also drew criticism from another railroad operator, the Myles Group.
Both the Myles Group and R&N contend that the Authority did not give them the opportunity to offer competing proposals.
The Myles Group operates an excursion service, the Stourbridge Line, in Wayne and Pike counties.
The Authority contracted with the Delaware-Lackawanna almost three decades ago and has never sought proposals from other railroads.
Lawrence Malski, president of the Authority, said the board did discuss the lease in private, but said that is allowed by law to discuss a real estate matter.
He said the board also talked in private about another lawsuit filed by the R&N in 2013 against the Authority that challenged its right to own and operate a railroad.
That lawsuit resulted in a court ruling in December that the authority doesn’t have to seek proposals and can continue to operate a railroad.
The Authority owns about 100 miles of tracks serving 17 customers
Malski said the board feared that the possibility of being forced out of the railroad business discouraged it from seeking proposals.
However, he said seeking proposals would “probably” be a good idea in the future.
The extension was of the lease had been sought by the Delaware-Lackawanna a year ago.
Malski said the board took into account the railroad’s ability to land state grants for infrastructure improvements and shipper satisfaction with its service when agreeing to grant the extension.
Although the Myles Group appeared before the board in December, Malski said it could not adequately explain how it would attract new shippers.
John Titterton, Myles Group’s vice president, retorted that his company never got a chance to make a presentation to the board.
The thing is, why not? Whose interest are you protecting by not hearing proposals. What is the downside to this?” he said.
Titteron said seeking proposals should be standard operating procedure and there is something very odd about the rail authority, including the closed and secret way it works, and its relationship with D-L.
As for the R&N, Malski said it didn’t give it an opportunity to make a proposal in part because of the lawsuit but also because R&N wants to buy the authority’s system, a prospect the Authority opposes.
The fight over a Pennsylvania short-line railroad took another turn last week when a Pennsylvania state appeals court reversed its earlier order and instructed a lower court in Clinton County to reconsider a short line service contract approved by the SEDA-COG Joint Rail Authority Board of Directors.
The legal action stemmed from the Susquehanna Union Railroad, also known as the North Shore Railroad, being turned down by SEDA-COG for a seven-year operating contract. Instead, the contract went to Carload Express of Oakmont, Pennsylvania.
Susquehanna Union has operated the lines in question since they were purchased by the state from Conrail in 1984.
In awarding the operating contract to Carload Express, SEDA-COG said it used a scoring system that showed Carload Express scored one point higher than Susquehanna Union.
The line is made up of five branches and 200 miles of track in central Pennsylvania.
The 2015 decision has displeased both railroads with each filing lawsuits.
One issue is that state law requires nine of the board’s 16 members to approve the contract, but six members abstained during the voting.
In sending the case back the appeals court said the lower court “failed to resolve all issues” and additional pertinent information has since been disclosed.
The latter includes a news report saying that in a sworn deposition, a SEDA-COG board member said he had given no points to the North Shore when submitting his tally in 2015, but had planned to give the railroad 60 out of a possible 100 points.
That would have been enough to put Susquehanna Union into a tie with Carload Express.
I also caught last weekend during my trip to Pennsylvania a Union Railroad train climbing Dravosburg grade on Sunday morning. Notice it’s a mainline but both tracks are jointed rail. Also the tracks are weathered from heavy sand use. Finally, a caboose brings up the rear. All Union trains still use cabooses. It’s a throwback to old school railroading in this modern era.
Article and Photographs by Todd Dillon
The Pennsylvania-based Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad reported this week hauling a record 8,572 revenue carloads in 2017.
The broke the previous record of 8,048 cars handled in 2015. Larry Malski, president of the Pennsylvania Northeast Railroad Authority, said in a statement that last year’s traffic figure is indicative of economic growth among the 20-plus industries served by the DL.
Malski said the 2017 carload figures represented a 31 percent increase over 2016.
Helping fuel the carload traffic growth was the addition of two new customers, Scranton Transload and Northwoods Paper.
The DL also handled more than 100 special high-and-wide carloads of components for the new Invenergy Jessup Power Plant.
Major commodities handled by the DL include wheat and flour, sand, plastic, lumber, propane and consumer products.
DL is seeking a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation grant to fund double-tracking its Carbondale Line because of “rapidly increasing” carloads on that line, Malski said.
“Since 1982 when the authority was formed to save the approximately 100 miles of rail lines that the private sector railroad were abandoning and liquidating, a true rail renaissance has transpired in northeastern Pennsylvania with thousands of jobs saved and created by the many industries that need freight-rail service to stay competitive,” Malski said.
A Pennsylvania short line railroad will be offering rare mileage excursions on June 10 over former Reading Company track.
The Union County Industrial Railroad is offering the excursions as part of a bicentennial celebration in Milton, Pennsylvania.
The trips will depart from the ConAgra Brands facility in Milton and travel toward New Columbia, crossing the Susquehanna River en route. It will be the first public passenger service over the route since 1964.
Tickets are $10 and available only at the Milton Borough Hall at 2 Filbert Street. Sales begin April 10 and end on April 28 being sold on a first come, first served basis.
The Union County line is an affiliate of the North Shore Railroad.
Three organizations are teaming up to offer a rare mileage excursion over the Pennsylvania Railroad and Reading Railroad’s Shamokin Valley Branch.
The May 18 trip will cover a 27-mile branch that is the third oldest railroad in the United States, having been chartered as the Danville & Pottsville Railroad in 1826.
The train will include a Pullman car, baggage car, three restored coaches and a PRR N8 cabin car.
The tracks are now used by the North Shore Railroad, which is operated by the SEDA-COG Joint Rail Authority.
The train will depart from Sunbury, Pennsylvania, with bus transportation provided to the boarding site from Camp Hill, Wyomissing and Lancaster.
Tickets are $89 per person for those departing from one of the bus locations and $45 for those driving to Sunbury on their own.
The fare includes a bag lunch. Other sandwiches and drinks will be available for purchase on the train.
This trip is subject to cancellation due to insufficient and/or late registration.
Tickets can be purchased by sending a check made payable to the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society.
Send payments to Iron Ore Special, 1624 Suzanne Drive, West Chester, PA 19380-1573. Registration and payment are due by April 10,
For further information send a email query to ironorespecial@gmail.com.
Trip sponsors are the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society, the Reading Company Technical & Historical Society, and the Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.
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