East Broad Top Railroad announces 2022 season

ROCKHILL FURNACE, Pa. – The historic East Broad Top narrow gauge railroad will hold its Winter Spectacular on Feb. 19, and has released dates of other special events and a schedule of regular operation for the 2022 season.

EBT Foundation, Inc., the nonprofit organization that bought the railroad in 2020, has laid out its calendar for a year significant for two reasons: 2022 marks the 150th anniversary of the 1872 start of construction on the 33-mile coal-hauling short line, and the Foundation plans to resume steam-locomotive operation for the first time since the tourist railroad closed in 2011. EBT is a designated National Historic Landmark.

The Spectacular, a popular railfan photographers’ event, was held annually over Presidents’ Day weekend from 1966 to 1981. During that time, EBT operated as many as four of its six Baldwin 2-8-2 Mikado steam locomotives at a time, as well as its 1927 Brill Co. gas-electric car, the M-1. Currently, EBT is working to restore two of the Baldwins (Nos. 14, built 1912, and 16, built 1916) to operating condition, and hopes to roll out No. 16 for the start of regular seasonal operations. The adjacent Rockhill Trolley Museum, which sponsored the earliest Spectaculars, also ran streetcars and interurbans for those events, which usually featured plenty of snowy weather.

In 1982, EBT switched to a spring event, but it attracted little attention, so the following year the railroad changed to a fall weekend, which continued through the end of tourist-era operations in 2011. At the end of that year, the Kovalchick family closed the railroad, which remained dormant until February 2020, when the family sold the majority of the property, 27 miles of main line plus shops, yards, and rolling stock, to the foundation. Foundation staff put on a one-day impromptu winter event in December 2020 and followed it up with a scheduled Spectacular in February 2021.

On June 11, 2021, EBT resumed scheduled passenger service over a limited amount of restored track, using a GE center-cab diesel switcher, and extended operations to the tourist-era (1961-2011) limits at Colgate Grove picnic area and wye in October. During 42 operating days last year, EBT carried 11,000 passengers and opened up its shop tours to more visitors than ever before.

The receipt of a $1.1 million state grant last month prompted the Foundation to announce that it would begin to restore its main line south into the mountainous area that once provided the bulk of coal traffic in the common-carrier era, 1873-1956. [See “East Broad Top gets $1.1 million …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 9, 2021.

For 2022, EBT will operate scheduled trains five days a week, Wednesdays through Sundays, from May 6 through Aug. 28, and Fridays through Sundays in September and October. This is the most robust schedule – and the earliest season opening ever – attempted since about the 1990s, when the railroad dropped back from its previous pattern of daily service in July and August, weekends in June, September, and October, and scaled back to weekends only. Schedule times, fares, and arrangements for reservations will be announced as they become available on social media and the railroad’s website, https://eastbroadtop.com/.

Besides the Winter Spectacular, EBT plans the following special events for 2022:

— April 9-10, Easter on the Rails;

— May 21-22, EBT Goes to War, with military encampment re-enactments;

— Aug. 17-20, Rockhill Furnace/Orbisonia Homecoming;

— September 9-11, Orbisonia Antique Power Show;

— Sept. 17, First Responders Day;

— Oct. 7-9, Friends of the East Broad Top Reunion;

— Oct. 15-16, 22-23, Train & Trolley Pumpkin Festival;

— Nov. 25-27, Dec. 2-4, 9-11, 16-18, Christmas in Coal Country.

News from Friends of East Broad Top

In a related development, EBT’s auxiliary volunteer group, the Friends of the East Broad Top Railroad, has exceeded its 2022 fund-raising goal of $100,000 in just three months. The Friends group announced this month that, since the kickoff in October, it has received 595 donations totaling $163,777.19, or 163% of its target. This mirrors the same kind of pent-up enthusiasm for the railroad’s preservation and restoration that manifested itself in the 2021 campaign, in which it raised $157,000 on an original goal of $78,000, or 201% of the target. Since the Foundation took over to restore and revive the railroad, Friends membership has risen from 750 to 1,637.

Friends of the East Broad Top provides volunteer labor to restore buildings, rolling stock, and track on a scheduled basis. For a list of work sessions (participants must be Friends members), see https://febt.org/events/. To join the group, see https://febt.org/join/

The abundance of funding means the group can move ahead immediately with several projects, including:

— Assisting the Foundation in restoring the Rockhill Furnace Yard coal tipple, including installation of a concealed water supply and pumps for a fire-suppression system being installed in the historic circa-1900 machine shops and eight-stall roundhouse.

— Starting planning for reconstruction of a station and water tank at Saltillo, Pa., 7.8 miles south of Rockhill Furnace on the part of the main line that has lain disused since 1956.

— Matching the Foundation’s funding of an archivist position to continue cataloging the records of EBT and its associated mining company, and securing long-term conservation, storage, and public access to those files.