The EBT Locomotive and Machine Shops

On my last visit to the East Broad Top Railroad, I spent several hours exploring the locomotive and machine shops in Rockhill, Pennsylvania.  The shops were in daily use up to the abandonment of the railroad as a common carrier in 1956.  When the EBT was reborn as a tourist railroad in 1960, the shops were occasionally open for tour, and were used by the railroad for maintenance and repairs of their fleet of 2-8-2 Baldwins.

When I entered the shops, I found myself transfixed by the museum-like character of the place. Everything was just as it was when the shop crew went home 60 years ago and never came back.  A layer of dust covered tools and machines, while shafts of sunlight fell across the wooden floor boards.  

Among the most iconic images of the EBT shop complex are the towering twin smoke stacks that rise from the centrally located boiler shop.

The stacks are located directly over two massive boilers which provided power to the machine shops and other buildings in the complex.

Power was provided by several stationary steam engines located next to the boilers.  One engine, which had not operated for more than half a century, was recently restored by members of the Friends of the East Broad Top.  Since steam was no longer available, they modified the stationary engine to run on compressed air.  

The stationary engine was connected  to a system of shafts and pulleys that powered the various machines throughout the shop.  Shafts also ran to nearby buildings.  Steam from the boilers was used for heat and power in nearby buildings, such as the blacksmith shop, where steam was used to drive an enormous steam hammer.  The belts now hang limp and useless from the overhead shafts.

The visitor is struck by the sheer size of the machine tools used to service and repair the locomotives, which weighed as much as 80 tons!  The FEBT has placed lables on many of these devices, such as the locomotive wheel lathe shown here.  The EBT rotated their engines, so that one of them was in the shop at any given time.  The locomotives were parked over a service pit, allowing the 48 inch drivers to be dropped, then moved to the lathe for turning.

Servicing a steam locomotive required a lot of tools, many quite large.  Here is a rack of various wrenches, levers and other unexplained implements used by the railroad..

Here are some of the other shop machines found throughout the building.  Many a weekend handyman may have tools with similar names, but not in this size!  Here, for example, is a brake cylinder machine.

Nearby is an axle lathe.

And here is a more conventional lathe.  Notice the belt drive on the left, which took power from the overhead pulleys and shafts.  Working in a shop like this must have been incredibly noisy!

And here is an oversize drill press.

Workmen in the days of steam had to make make many of the things they used on the railroad.  On the EBT scrap metal was cast and forged into wheels for the rolling stock.  In order to mount the wheels on axles, a hole had to be bored in the casting.  Here is a horizontal boring machine.

And here is an enormous hole punch.

The shop machines, most of which have not been used for more than sixty years, are impressive.  But I was also fascinated by little scenes scattered throughout the shop, that gave a sense of what workers did in those days.  Here, for example, is a steam generator from a locomotive.  It has been sitting on a work bench for half a century, waiting for the worker to come back and finish whatever he was doing.

Walking through an open door, I came upon what seems like the main electrical panel for the shops. If this were today, I suspect OSHA would cite them for all those exposed knife switches.

On a nearby table was a pile of pick-ax blades.  What do you suppose they were going to do with all those pick-axes?

Everywhere you look there are bins filled with bolts, drill bits, and other small parts.  Here is a small sample of what I found, everything covered with a half century of dust.

As I turned to leave, I couldn't help but notice little signs of the people who made their living working on the railroad, so many years ago.  A couple of outsize wrenches, a brace and bit.  All reminders of a time when coal was king and the EBT was the lifeblood of southern Huntingdon County.  

I hope you enjoyed this brief tour of a world that time has forgotten, the locomotive and machine shops of the East Broad Top.  Special thanks to the Friends of the East Broad Top, whose efforts have maintained and protected this wonderful place for more than fifty years.