MINERSVILLE, Pa. — Central Railroad of New Jersey No. 113 is scheduled to operate during the fall and holiday seasons. The heavy 0-6-0 switcher is in its centennial year, having been built in June 1923 by the American Locomotive Company in Schenectady, N.Y.
Railway Restoration Project 113 — the nonprofit organization that owns the locomotive — recently announced on Facebook their plans to host a night photo session with No. 113 under steam. Scheduled for Oct. 14 at 7 p.m., the session will take place at the former Philadelphia & Reading Railroad station in Minersville, Pa., now serving as the locomotive’s home base. Re-enactments will take place throughout the evening with professional lighting provided by Steve Barry Photography. Ticket sales are expected within the coming weeks at $30 per person and will be limited to 30 participants.
Announced a week prior is the return of the organization’s annual Santa Train excursions out of the Minersville station. While details on departure times and ticket prices are yet to be released, No. 113 is scheduled for Dec. 9 and 10 to operate 1-hour round trips on the Reading & Northern Railroad. According to the Facebook post, tickets are expected to go on sale later in September.
More information and future ticket sales can be found on the Railway Restoration Project 113’s website.
CNJ kept is bituminous firebox USRA 0-6-0’s after its heavy 111-115 engines were retired. They handled shifting and road drills in North Jersey. Fuel was never a problem since CNJ fuelled B&O engines at Communipaw.
Circa 1953, CNJ sold the 113 to Philadelphia and Reading Coal & Iron (which itself had been sold to investors by Reading Company in 1924) to be the steam shifter at Coal & Iron’s big consolidated breaker at Locust Summit. 113 last ran in 1960, but as far as I know, never saluted a passing Iron Hore Ramble.
C&I donated 113 into preservation and it found its way back to Anthracite Country in Minersville. It now runs on RBMN and possibly swaps Communipaw stories with 2102 since they could both have been there in daily service.
Central Railroad of New Jersey No. 113, also known as CNJ No. 113, was one of five B-7 type switchers built for the Central Railroad of New Jersey, numbers 111–115. These locomotives were designed to operate on the Anthracite Roads of Pennsylvania, so instead of having regular fireboxes, they had Wootten fireboxes which allowed them to burn anthracite coal. Since these locomotives were designed with a 0-6-0 wheel arrangement, their only effective use was to be operated as switchers since they did not ride smoothly and rarely got past 15 miles per hour. No. 113 along with its counterparts operated in the CNJ’s freight yards for almost three decades. In 1945, the railroad had changed their class to 6S46 (6-wheeled Switcher, 46,000 pounds tractive effort). By 1951, locomotives 111-115 were placed out of service in favor of the new diesel locomotives.
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