Pennsylvania’s Northern Central Railway to mark 10th anniversary

NEW FREEDOM, Pa. — A 10th-anniversary “Ages of the Railroad” celebration is scheduled for this weekend, June 17-18, on the Northern Central Railway of York nonprofit tourist line in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Highlights will include two operating steam locomotives and a diesel, with a range of passenger trips available over varying stretches of the railroad’s 17.5 miles of the former Baltimore-York, Pa.-Harrisburg main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Included is one trip to and through the 370-foot-long Howard Tunnel. Completed in 1838, it’s reputed to be the oldest railroad tunnel in the United States still open for passenger traffic.

Powering trains will be Northern Central’s 4-4-0 engine No. 17 (Kloke Locomotive Works, 2013), named both York and William H. Simpson, an oil-fired replica of a 19th-century wood-burner; Gramling Locomotive Works’ traveling Jeddo Coal Co. 0-4-0T No. 85, named “Mack” (Vulcan Iron Works, 1928); and Northern Central’s GP9 road-switcher No. 6076 (1959), formerly PRR No. 7249. From its home base in Ashley, Ind., No. 85 has made previous appearances at other area tourist lines, including the Stewartstown (with which the Northern Central connects) and the Walkersville Southern in Maryland.

The event will include a mix of railfan-oriented and family-friendly fare. Activities will be based at Northern Central’s former PRR passenger station, 117 N. Front St., which the tourist line has occupied since last November after it was vacated by a café. Built about 1870, the structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The railway’s shop and former office, a repurposed feed-mill complex, is located two blocks away.

Schedule of events

— Saturday, June 17: Three trips to Glen Rock (5 miles), with 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. runs powered by Jeddo Coal No. 85, and a 3 p.m. trip pulled by Northern Central No. 17.  A 5 p.m. trip will run to Howard Tunnel (15 miles) behind GP9 No. 6076.

— Sunday, June 18: No. 17 will lead an 11 a.m. trip to Hanover Junction (10 miles), followed at 2 p.m. by a “locomotive parade” with all three engines and NCR’s rolling stock. The final trip of the weekend will be a steam doubleheader with No. 17 leading No. 85 to Glen Rock and return.

Rolling stock will consist of four passenger cars, all of them enclosed, repurposed freight cars; a wooden Delaware & Hudson open gondola; and a former Burlington Northern caboose. The gondola usually carries bicyclists, as a York County rail-trail parallels the single-track railroad on what was formerly a double-track right of way.

Events and displays scheduled for both days, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.:

— Tours of the enginehouse, with a history of the line and its predecessor, the Northern Central Railway, absorbed by PRR in 1914. Following the popularity of Nevada Northern’s “Dirt the Cat,” many preservation railroads now have shop cats, and NCR’s enginehouse cat is named Phineas Davis.

— STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) displays for kids 5-12 years old, at the New Freedom Greens (a park area near the NCR shop).

— Outlaws & Peacemakers, an Old West re-enactor troupe, at the New Freedom Greens.

— Book signings at the station with Robert L. Williams, author of the Arcadia “Images of Rail” book Northern Central Railway.

Living-history performances will take place Saturday at 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. at New Freedom, and Sunday at 11 a.m. at Hanover Junction.

Hanover Junction is the site of a widely circulated station photo showing trains and people, one of whom is often identified as President Abraham Lincoln en route to Gettysburg to deliver the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the battlefield cemetery on Nov. 19, 1863.

On display near the New Freedom station will be a current project, the restoration of a minuscule standard-gauge, Belgian-built, vertical-boiler steam locomotive, the 10-ton Prince de Liege. At one time, it was part of the Steamtown U.S.A. collection in Vermont. Built in 1877 by the Societe Anonyme de St. Leonard of Liege, Belgium, it is now owned by Mike Piersa.

In 2021, Daniel Trump, Northern Central director of operations, began talks with Piersa about relocating the engine to New Freedom, and it arrived in 2022. A new boiler is being fabricated in Canada, Trump said, and when restored, the engine will be both a curiosity and an attraction.

“It’ll be the smallest standard-gauge steam locomotive operating in America,” he said. “It weighs 10 tons with coal and water. It’s the size of a pickup truck [and] looks like a grasshopper.” He added that, while too light to power trains — rated at just 25 horsepower — “we’re hoping to do hands-on-the-throttle [experiences] with that next year,” possibly on the 1.5 miles of track between New Freedom and the Maryland state line that aren’t used by tourist trains.

In town this week to prepare his engine, Barney Gramling commented on the eclectic grouping of motive power: “With one of the newest engines in America (No. 17), and meanwhile there’s a 95-year-old engine (No. 85), it’s a unique juxtaposition of railroads of three ages, with the diesel.”