ROCKHILL FURNACE, Pa. — The EBT Foundation, Inc. announced Monday, Dec. 11, that due to scheduling and maintenance demands for its lone operating steam locomotive, the East Broad Top Railroad will not hold its highly popular annual Winter Spectacular railfan event for 2024.
“The locomotive’s annual inspection falls during the period we have historically held the Winter Spectacular,” said Jonathan Smith, EBT’s director of sales and marketing, “so we chose not to have the event this year.”
EBT will run reactivated 2-8-2 Mikado No. 16 (Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1916) through December for “Christmas in Coal Country” trains; conduct an annual inspection on No. 16 in January; and prepare for a schedule of high-ridership Easter trains in March.
The engine will resume regularly scheduled tourist passenger service in May while the railroad starts work on restoring the next of five more Baldwin Mikados on its roster. It is just one of many projects EBT is pursuing as it continues to restore and improve its circa-1900 shop complex and chips away at reopening its 27-mile-long main line into the mountainous semi-bituminous coalfield that once supplied its reason for existence.
After being mothballed for 67 years, No. 16 returned to service at last year’s Winter Spectacular following a multi-year restoration under the direction of Master Mechanic Dave Domitrovich. Since resuming steam operations, EBT has operated 400 trains on 139 revenue days, carrying a record 32,000 passengers, according to Smith.
EBT famously held Spectaculars each Washington’s Birthday weekend from 1966 to 1981. With the promise of steam — as many as four of the six locomotives running at once — and the opportunity to photograph vintage equipment in snowy landscapes, the weekend became a signature East Coast railfan event. EBT later switched to a fall weekend and continued that schedule through 2011, its last year of operation under the ownership of the Kovalchick family.
When the Foundation bought the line in early 2020, General Manager Brad Esposito quickly reinstated the Winter Spectacular, modestly in December 2020, February 2021, and February 2022 with diesel and gas-electric trains. February 2023 was the breakout year with the debut of No. 16, idled since the 1956 shutdown of common-carrier operations.
EBT considered holding an alternative version of the Winter Spectacular without steam, Smith said, “but we felt it would be hard to top this year’s event.”
Friends announces new guidebook
The 2,085-member volunteer group this week released a new railroad guidebook in conjunction with Juniata College Press in nearby Huntingdon, Pa., largely researched and written by Juniata undergrads.
According to co-editor Lawrence Biemiller, a longtime tour guide at EBT, the 6×9-inch, 116-page publication was “inspired by Doris Osterwald’s Mile by Mile guides to Colorado excursion lines.” Its title, A Brief Guide to the EBT: Living Relic of the Industrial Age, describes its scope — a fresh look at the distinctive historic, geographic, and commercial features of the former common-carrier coal-hauler.
As its admirers well know, EBT was shut down twice and resurrected twice as a preservation railroad. This is the first such publication covering its story since 1979.
Rescued in 2020 by the non-profit Foundation, the railroad consists of 27 miles of main line, about 5 of which are open; the six Mikado locomotives; a fleet of passenger and freight cars, including four new-built coaches; a yard, roundhouse and turntable; and a circa-1900 machine-shop complex. After closing the first time, the property was revived as a seasonal tourist line 1960-2011. The Foundation has long-range plans to reopen the rest of its line.
The guidebook, Biemiller says, is “arranged into articles, most written by students in an upper-level Juniata history course created by Professor Jim Tuten a couple of years ago. The idea was that they could experience history not just through library books but up close and grimy. The students — normal liberal-arts-college students, not a railfan among them — visited the railroad several times (and) met and consulted with EBT historian, author, and former FEBT president Lee Rainey, who wrote the foreword.”
The students “even visited Joller (site of an abandoned mining town once served by an EBT branch line) and the Coles (water) tank and hiked through thick, scratchy underbrush to the beehive coke ovens behind the iron-furnace ruins. One of the students in the class was Sammy Bellin, who is now the EBT Archives technician.”
Bellin, who’d served as an EBT Archives intern while still a Juniata undergrad, “wrote more of the articles than anyone else,” Biemiller said.
Biemiller, Kough and Tuten share billing as co-editors. The book is designed to be updated as the joint Foundation and FEBT track crew reopen more of the line. Volunteers and paid staff together are now working south from Rockhill toward the villages of Pogue, Three Springs and Saltillo, an eight-mile segment that has not carried a revenue train since 1956. Beyond that, the line climbs another 11 miles up 2.6 percent grades through two tunnels and around a horseshoe curve to reach the former coal center of Robertsdale, where FEBT operates a museum and offers walking tours of mining ruins.
Biemiller noted the lengths to which the college went for this project: “The college’s provost, Lauren Bowen, agreed to revive the Juniata College Press to publish the book in partnership with FEBT, which paid for the printing and holds the copyright,” he said. The book is available for $23.95 from the FEBT Company Store.
Engine No. 15 project moves forward
In a recent interview with News Wire, Esposito said 2024 will see progress on getting engine No. 15 (built 1914) running again. This will start with shipping the engine’s deteriorated tender tank to Curry Rail Services of Hollidaysburg, Pa., to design and fabricate a replacement, a project being funded by a $15,000 grant from the Friends. Curry fabricated the new tank for No. 16.
It is just one of several projects the Friends are supporting through its perennially successful fund-raising campaign. The group set a 2024 goal of raising $220,000, and through October had already raised $135,000 of that, or 61 percent, before the target year even begins.
“After the annual on 16,” said Esposito, “we’ll start stripping down the 15 for its 1,472-day inspection and retubing.” Also in preparation for work on No. 15, EBT has on hand four new complete sets of 48-inch drivers, and components for four more, to enable the railroad to replace all of the drivers on No. 15 and its virtual twin No. 14 (built 1912).
— Updated at 9 a.m. CST with comment from Jonathan Smith, additional changes; updated at 10:50 a.m. to correct caption, add comment on decision not to hold event without steam.
I have said before, if only every Trains subscriber sent five dollars to the EBT, imagine what could happen.
Long may this revival continue!