SUNBURY, Pa. — After 27 years of running holiday passenger trains, fund-raising excursions, and shipper specials, owner Jeff Pontius of Penn Valley Railroad LLC has sold his fleet of seven passenger cars to the Reading & Northern Railroad.
R&N announced that it would receive the cars today (Jan. 14, 2025) and outlined the planned move that would bring the new equipment to its Nesequehoning, Pa., campus, where the cars will be briefly displayed before entering its car shop for overhauls and repainting.
“It was a tough decision, but I’m not getting any younger,” said Pontius, 70, a longtime farmer who still manages 3,000 acres of corn, soybeans and wheat. He acquired the cars over the years as a sideline to farming, and to his former role as an officer of the North Shore Railroad.
From the first excursion in 1997 to commemorate the 225th anniversary of the founding of Sunbury, Pa., to a series of community trips for the Downtown Bloomsburg, Pa., business group last fall, Pontius has served as a kind of an everyman, ranging from car knocker to playing Santa Claus. He did much of the maintenance himself, both indoors and outdoors as the circumstances dictated.
Although a lifelong railfan, he said the best part of the experience was something more universal: “At Christmastime, seeing the young kids and the spirit in their eyes.”
Pontius had offers from other purchasers, but chose R&N because he felt confident that with R&N owner Andy Muller, “I know the cars will be taken care of.” Also, he said, “I didn’t want to deal with it piece by piece by piece.”
In all, the seven cars offer a capacity of 350-400 people. The sale comprises a group of three former Lackawanna commuter cars, a former Great Northern Empire Builder streamlined coach, a heavyweight table/lounge car that was formerly a Jersey Central car, a heavyweight former New York Central baggage car, and a crew/generator car — previously a Conrail test and research car, the onetime NYC streamlined sleeper Chicopee Falls.
In addition, the deal includes former Pennsylvania Railroad cabin car (caboose) No. 478044, a class N8 type that was among the last group of cabooses built by PRR’s Altoona, Pa., shops in 1950-51. The sale also includes spare parts, extra seats, and seasonal costumes for characters, such as Santa Claus and the Dr. Seuss character, “the Grinch.”
The cars are painted Tuscan red, with most bearing Pennsylvania Railroad lettering and striping, though none is of PRR heritage. Despite being of mixed heritage and varying ages, all cars are roller-bearing equipped, and the Strasburg Rail Road shop converted all to modern ABDX airbrake systems.
R&N said the railroad would receive the equipment at Mount Carmel, Pa., from the Shamokin Valley Railroad, then take R&N’s Mahanoy & Shamokin Branch to East Mahanoy Junction before moving on the Main Line to the railroad’s Nesquehoning campus. The railroad invited the public to witness the move which includes some trackage that rarely sees passenger equipment.
For many years, the cars have appeared on Christmas and community-celebration trains in a four-way public-private partnership. Pontius supplied the cars, North Shore Railroad and its affiliates provided the locomotives and crews, SEDA-COG JRA (Joint Rail Authority of the 11-county Susquehanna Economic Development Association Council of Governments) owns the track, and local chambers of commerce or downtown business associations handle ticket sales. Pontius split the after-expense proceeds with those local groups.
These trains ran on most of the JRA-owned railroads, which are operated by the North Shore group – the original North Shore (ex-Erie Lackawanna, Northumberland to Berwick, Pa.), Shamokin Valley (ex-PRR and Reading, Sunbury to Mount Carmel Junction, Pa.), Lycoming Valley (former RDG, Northumberland to Newberry, Pa., including NS trackage rights) and Nittany & Bald Eagle (ex-PRR, Lock Haven to Tyrone, Pa., and branches).
In a Jan. 13 letter to sponsoring community agencies, JRA wrote that it “will be working with North Shore Railroad over the next few months to establish next steps for future passenger excursion service on the JRA rail system.” Although the letter noted that “our goal is to have a new service provider in place by mid-April,” JRA could not guarantee that it could sponsor passenger trips in 2025.
“I want to thank SEDA-COG and the North Shore Railroad for their support over the years,” Pontius said. He said he wants to now devote time to pursuing interests long set aside, including curating the immense collection of films and photographs left to him by the late Clarence Weaver, who documented the central Pennsylvania railroad scene from the 1930s on.
R&N’s announcement of the purchase came as tickets went on sale for the railroad’s regularly scheduled weekend excursions to Jim Thorpe, Pa., from its Reading Outer Station and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Regional Station [see “Reading & Northern marks record excursion ridership …,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 8, 2025]. Tickets are on sale at the railroad’s passenger website or by phone at 610-562-2102.
— Updated at 12:15 p.m. with new article to replace earlier version.
Pullman Chicopee Falls, later NYC 10597, was built by Pullman-Standard in 1940 as a 6 Double Bedroom-Buffet-Lounge. In 1958. Chicopee Falls became NYC 648 as a Parlor-Buffet-Lounge car with no interior modification.
We’ll have to wait for Jamie to do an in-depth video on the new stuff.