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East Broad Top to the Mines and Back by Ross Grenard & Frederick A Kramer SC
East Broad Top to the Mines and Back by Ross Grenard & Frederick A Kramer.
Soft Cover stapled
Copyright 1980.
80 pages.
Orbisonia visit, at the roundhouse, shops and yards, Orbisonia to Mt Union, near the water tank, South of Orbusonia, Narco Branch, Saltillo, Sideling Hill, Kimmel, Rocky Ridgte, the Broad Top Coal Fields, Robertsdale, Woodvale, EBT men at work, motor car M-1, the last run, second career, more.
The history of narrow gauge railroading in America is replete with countless tales of frustrated ambitions, corporate mutations, and mistaken missions. From the two-foot gauge territory in Maine's backwoods to the lonely desert in California's Owens Valley, narrow gauge lines were conceived and constructed in pursuit of elusive goals and euphoric traffic projections. The East Broad Top Railroad was a notable exception to this pattern. For the most part, it operated profitably under its original charter through eight decades as a common carrier, never reached for that which it could not grasp, and operated its last train on April 6, 1956 for much the same purpose that occasioned its first on November 4, 1874.
The EBT was chartered to connect the isolated Broad Top coal field in southern Huntingdon County with the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad at the Juniata River and to serve the iron furnaces then existing at Rock hill Furnace. Over the years, the iron industry faded, but the fine low-volatile bituminous coal continued to move in a volume sufficient to support the railroad. The EBT overcame the problems inherent in handling through traffic that originated or terminated on standard gauge lines. This was the nub of the problem for narrow gauge railroads everywhere. By the 1930s, EBT had two workable solutions-one for coal, the other for general ladings-and it was through these measures that the railroad's longevity was assured.
In later years, EBT accomplished its mission by using heavy 2-8-2's and steel hopper cars, a well-maintained physical plant and a positive attitude. The EBT probably had as much in common with the prosperous, tonnage-hauling Bessemer & Lake Erie standard gauge as it did with the luckless, mountain-climbing Rio Grande Southern narrow
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