To the left is the old stone farmhouse that dates from before the EBT was built in 1873. In its common carrier days the EBT used the building as a yard office. Directly behind the turntable is the brick paint shop, where today the Friends of the East Broad Top (FEBT) continues its restoration work. On the right a corner of the eight stall roundhouse is visible. If you look carefully, you will see an 1950's railfan snapping a photo of #14 with his brownie hawkeye camera.
Backing off the turntable, the locomotive passes over the ash pit and past the blacksmith shop as it moves to the standpipe where the fireman fills the tank.
In the above photo, the sand tower can be seen on the left, with the garage between the tower and the wooden storage sheds where pipe and rod stock were kept. With the tank filled, #14 continues in reverse past the sand house, the locomotive and machine shop and the car shop. A couple of shop workers are discussing repairs to one of the EBT's home built steel boxcars.
After filling up at the concrete coal dock at the south end of the yard (under construction), the engine picks up combine #14 for the crew and proceeds down the eastern spur to Blacklog . Train crews preferred the smoother riding combines to the EBT's two classic cabooses.
In the above photo, from the front left, are the power house, the coal shed, foundry, pattern shop, and part of the electrical shop. Behind the foundry is the ventilator and roof of the blacksmith shop. The scale can be seen just behind the roof of the engine cab. In the rear are the sand tower, storage sheds, farmhouse and paint shop.
It's a short run from Rockhill Furnace to the fictional town of Blacklog, where the EBT meets the free lanced Blacklog Valley Railroad, a standard gauge line extending from Port Royal, Pennsylvania to Hancock, Maryland. The dual gauge yard and the town to the rear are loosely based on the EBT's northern terminus at Mount Union.
As #14 and its combine head toward the Blacklog wye, they pass standard gauge yard goat #3 shunting loaded EBT hoppers to the dump track of the coal processing plant. Here Broad Top coal is washed and sorted, before being deposited in standard gauge hoppers.
As #14 and its combine head toward the Blacklog wye, they pass standard gauge yard goat #3 shunting loaded EBT hoppers to the dump track of the coal processing plant. Here Broad Top coal is washed and sorted, before being deposited in standard gauge hoppers.
The wye lies at the foot of a hill where ganister rock is extracted and moved by conveyor to the Blacklog Refractory (BREFCO) to be made into high temperature fire brick for the steel mills in Pittsburgh, Youngstown and beyond. The wye was originally dual gauged like the yard, but has recently been converted to narrow gauge, hence the piles of ties and discarded rail.
After turning on the wye, engine and combine retrace their tracks through the yard, passing a long line of empty narrow gauge hoppers. Engine #14 will pick up a string of empties and haul them to the mines on Broad Top Mountain.
After dropping the combine, #14 backs up and couples to a line of empty hoppers. A short reverse maneuver picks up the combine, and what is now Extra #14 heads out of Blacklog toward Broad Top Mountain and the company town of Robertsdale. (By 1950 most trains ran as extras. The exceptions were the daily mail train and the morning and evening miners' trains.) A wooden boxcar of LCL freight is at the head end.
As Extra #14 returns to the main line, it passes the Rockhill Shops again. Heading south past the car shop the engineer whistles a salute to the M-1 motorcar waiting "in the pocket" on its return from the morning mail run.
After a long but uneventful journey up the mountain, Extra #14 finally arrives at Robertsdale, where it will drop the combine at the station, pull the hoppers into the waiting empties track, turn on the Robertsdale wye, and pick up a string of loaded hoppers for the trip back down the mountain.
Blacklog, Rockhill and Robertsdale are now largely complete. What remains unfinished on my EBT layout are the rural meadows and woodlands that separated these mid-century coal towns. Look for more photos in future posts as the work continues. If you would like to learn more about my version of the East Broad Top Railroad, look for the article in the 2017 HOn3 Annual on sale from White River Productions.
Sir, I bought that issue based on the sole fact that you put the EBT on the front cover of a narrow gauge magazine !! How sad I was when i discovered the Colorado folks got all the front space and you were at the back of the book with minimal coverage.
ReplyDeleteHow sad is the plight of Rio fans that they think they will be the only angel's in heaven..............
Eric A.