PORT CLINTON, Pa. – A rare-mileage Rail Diesel Car excursion to Mount Carmel, Pa., the northwestern extent of Reading & Northern’s 400-mile system, is scheduled to run on April 20.
Sponsored by the affiliated Lehigh Valley Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and the Railroad Historians of the Lehigh Valley, the all-day, 104-mile trip will cover part of the former Reading Co.’s Philadelphia-Williamsport, Pa., main line, onetime route of the King Coal and Williamsporter passenger trains.
Made up of Budd Co. RDC-3 No. 9166 and RDC-1s Nos. 9167-9168, the train will follow R&N’s main line from the road’s headquarters town of Port Clinton, Pa., via Tamaqua, Pa., to East Mahanoy Junction. There, it will divert onto the Mahanoy & Shamokin Branch through Mahanoy City, Ashland, and Mount Carmel to a railroad operating point known as NORA, the end of R&N ownership. There, the trackage meets that of the Shamokin Valley Railroad, one of the North Shore family of short lines.
Traversing Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal-mining region, the train will pass through the 926-foot-long Tamaqua Tunnel and the 3,411-foot-long Buck Mountain Tunnel. Photo stops are planned at many locations, according to trip chairman Kermit Geary. Departure from Port Clinton is scheduled for 9 a.m., with a return estimated at 6 p.m.
More than a dozen steam-powered Reading Co. Iron Horse Rambles excursions operated on the line between 1959 and 1964, using T-1-class 4-8-4 engines. Among them was No. 2102, which R&N has restored and, since 2022, operated periodically each summer and fall between Reading, Pa., Port Clinton, and Jim Thorpe, Pa.
Regularly scheduled Reading passenger service over the excursion route ended with discontinuance of the remnants of the Shamokin-Philadelphia King Coal on June 28, 1963.
In 2021, an RDC trip chartered by a different sponsor operated as far west as Girardville, Pa., but this reportedly will be the first public passenger train via R&N to reach Mount Carmel in decades.
Dubbed “Railroad Explorer 4,” this is the fourth in a series of excursions over or along R&N freight-only branches sponsored by the Lehigh Valley Chapter and the Historians. In 2022, the first one ran from Port Clinton to Packerton Junction on the Jim Thorpe Branch, Nesquehoning Junction to Lehighton, Pa., on the Lehighton Branch, and Tamaqua to Arlington, Pa., on the (former Lehigh & New England) Greenwood Branch.
The second, in April 2023, ran from Port Clinton to Mill Creek Junction, Mine Hill Junction to Minersville, Pa., and West Junction to Tremont, Pa. The third was a bus trip that traced the former LNE’s Tamaqua Extension from Danielsville to Arlington, then to Lansford, Pa., for tours of the preserved 1925 LNE depot and the Number 9 Coal Mine & Museum.
Tickets for the April 20 event cost $119 and include a choice of ham, turkey, or Italian hoagie sandwich. Checks should be made out to Lehigh Valley Chapter NRHS and mailed to Kermit Geary Jr., 1266 Riverview Drive, Walnutport, PA 18088, or see www.lehighlines.org.
