21-02-20 PHOTOS: East Broad Top Winter Fest

The East Broad Top railroad in Rockhill Furnace, PA is a narrow gauge steam tourist railroad that was preserved in 1956 by the scrap merchant that bought the entire railroad after's its closure. The railroad was then run by the Kovalchick family as a steam tourist operation until 2009 when the family decided that they wanted to focus on other things. At that point there was a real risk that the entire operation would be scrapped for real, but a "Friends Of" group managed to raise the money to purchase the property outright in 2020. In 2021, after a good deal of work to bring the physical plant up to a state of minimum repair, the EBT partly re-opened for its traditional Winter Festival offering rides on its Brill gas-electric motor car. Since I had nothing better to do that weekend I put on my coat and hit the road. The full set of photos can be found here ( mirror ).

The southern end of the EBT bars the name of Orbisonia, PA, despite the fact that it is across the river in Rockhill Furnace. I arrived to find the small inspection car, M-3, in front of the station while the larger gas electric Brill car, M-1, was still out on an excursion run.

The EBT shares some infrastructure with the adjacent Rockhill Trolley Museum, that has been operating since 1960. Although focused on Central PA cities like Johnstown, the trolley museum draws equipment from all over including former Newark City Subway PCC #6.

Rockhill has perhaps the most modern preserved streetcar in the United States with former San Diego Trolley Siemens–Duewag U2 #1019, seen here next to former York streetcar #163. #1019 was traded to the museum for a number of PCCs and PCC parts so that San Diego could run a historic streetcar service on a downtown loop.

Due to the crowds for the EBT event, Rockhill was running multiple cars that day including former Johnstown trolley #355.

EBT motor car M-1 was discharging at the trolley museum after each of its runs. Unlike most other examples of this type, I believe M-1 was still operating its its original gasoline engine, despite its age and risk of fire. The sound, smell and sight of steam from the cooling system were all indications of this.

Shortly thereafter #163 and Johnstown car #311 also came out to join the party.

The EBT was also doing shop tours and narrow gauge GE 44-ton M-7 was idling outside.

EBT M-1 was running with caboose #28 to accommodate as many riders as possible. Due to Covid and the truncated nature of the Brill car runs, I saw no reason to buy a ticket and ride that day as there would be plenty more and better EBT excursions in the future.

The EBT line parallels US 522 to the former PRR interchange in Mount Union, however since 1960 the line has only been operated to the Colagate Grove picnic area and wye about 3.5 miles north of Rockhill. Today the excursions were only going about 1.5 miles to the line's "summit", but there were ample locations along the route for photos. This location was across from the local hotel on Route 522.

A grade crossing over the driveway of the local water treatment plant allows one to avoid parking on the shoulder of US 522.

The parking lot of a local milk bar was popular with some of the many railfans that had turned up for the occasion. The slow speed of the M-1 trainset made it quite easy to catch at multiple points along its journey.

At the summit, M-1 would stop and reverse in a cut just before the EBT's only overhead bridge that serves a single farmhouse.

The engine isn't the only vintage element of M-1 as you can see the head end is fitted with all of the accouterments.

I compiled all of the video elements into a single 6 minute supercut of the Winter Fest action.



On the way back, after raising a glass to America's second worst and first gay president, I stopped by CP-50 on the former Conrail Lurgan Branch in Chambersburg, PA. CP-50 is the north end of a passing siding constricted shortly after the NS takeover as the route through Manassas, Front Royal, Hagerstown and Harrisburg became the new way that traffic would flow between the New York Metro Area and the former Southern Main Line to Atlanta.

The Approach indication on the westbound signal hinted that a meet was about to take place and sure enough after a southbound intermodal train passed by with AC44C6Ms #4235 and #4066, a northbound manifest train appeared on the siding with AC44C6M #4283 leading.

I figured the manifest would get moving after the passage of the first train, but then a intermodal section appeared with AC44C6M #4383 leading SD70ACe #1113.

After the second westbound pass, the eastbound, with NS AC44C6M #4283 and ES44AC #8140 leading and C44-9W #9578 and an almost brand new rebuild AC44C6M #4401 in the helper position. The 18000 combined horsepower quickly gets the train up to the 40mph turnout speed.

After the eastbound departed nothing else was lined up so I called it a day and departed for home. Next week I go a quite a bit of effort to get some canolis.