J. Moyer - Tourist Trains, Timetables, and More

06/10/2026

I really dislike using social media to complain and spread drama, but I feel that it is relevant to the purpose of this page to make known some troubling news out of Central PA. First off, full disclosure, I represent neither the EBT Foundation nor the Rockhill Trolley Museum. To make a long story short, the current management of the East Broad Top has decided to siphon revenue and ridership away from the trolley museum through the use of the Shade Gap branch for railbikes, seven days a week, on standard gauge track that the museum built and maintains. The museum is now only able to operate trolleys in the afternoons on weekends. This effectively means the elimination of two entire operating days per week, the abbreviation of the remaining two resulting in lost revenue, no ability to host large tour or school groups, and any work on the track would need to be completed during the same window that they still have to operate. I will omit the expletives that first came to mind when I read this announcement, but to say that this kind of behavior is disgusting coming from an organization that supposedly is in the business of preserving history is an understatement. It is blatant theft of labor from an all volunteer organization, and even more appalling is that they receive absolutely nothing in exchange for it. RTM leases their property from the EBTF, and therefore has little option but to bow to their demands, no matter how damaging. The disappointing part is that there is no need for it. The trolley museum is not competition to the railroad, but a complementary attraction that could make Rockhill Furnace a tourism destination in the league of Strasburg, and yet the foundation seems bent on making sure that they are the only rail-related game in town, ignoring decades of cooperation in the process. There's much, much more to this going on out of public view, and I won't go into speculation or sharing of second-hand information, but it seems like this is the result of several years of the EBTF operating with questionable motives towards the RTM finally starting to boil over. Anyway, back to our irregularly scheduled programming...

Pennsylvania's First Operating Trolley Museum

06/04/2026

The Wanamaker, Kempton, and Southern Railroad has rostered an eclectic variety of industrial locomotives in its time, but one that I have always found interesting is the "Lehigh and New England" 602. The engine was built by Whitcomb for the USATC in 1944, and was used in Europe during the later portion of WWII. In reality, the 602 was never owned by the LNE in its postwar service, instead spending its days moving cars around Gulf Oil facilities in Texas and Philadelphia. I'm not sure what the context was for this posed night shoot at Kempton. Perhaps a first appearance in the new livery? A shot taken from an identical vantage point was published as a postcard, and I seem to recall a similar print hanging in the waiting room of the "Kempton" station, itself an imposter imported from the Wilmington and Northern branch at Joanna, PA. Today the 602 is still hanging around the WK&S, though it hasn't run in fifteen years or more.

05/24/2026

I'm not sure that anyone's been keeping track, but Jim Thorpe may be a contender for being visited by the highest number of different steam locomotives in the preservation era. From the sixties to present day, the town has been a destination for High Iron Company excursions, Rail Tours Inc., Norfolk Southern's 21st Century steam program, and most recently the Reading and Northern. This shot taken by Walter Schopp in 1985 is from the Reading 2102's first visit to Jim Thorpe during a series of special trips originating from Reading, PA during September of that year. This was the infamous ramble during which the locomotive received a refill of bad water, requiring assistance from Conrail and resulting in the train not returning to Temple station until early the next morning. These days, the 4-8-4 still draws a comparable crowd to the old CNJ station in Jim Thorpe, but the trains typically arrive back in Reading on the same day they depart.

04/27/2026

How many railroaders does it take to turn an 0-6-0 on a manual turntable with a questionable maintenance record? Based on these pictures taken during a 1965 Rail Tours excursion on the Maryland and Pennsylvania, the correct answer is eight. Nine if you count the road foreman "supervising"...

04/19/2026

In what may be its maiden voyage at its new home, Strasburg Railroad 90, still in the livery of its original owner, is seen here at the east end of the yard in Strasburg. The exact date is not recorded on the slide, but I can deduce that it is sometime between the time it arrived on May 5th, 1967 and when it was repainted before the end of the month.

04/15/2026

Think industrial steam was a thing of the past by the 1960's? Think again! Despite mainly serving as backup motive power by the time of this photo, Pennsylvania Power and Light's coal fired plant at Shamokin Dam still harbored a pair of 1949 vintage H.K. Porter 0-6-0F's. Fully "charged," #2 is hooked up to a prehistoric hopper in captive service while filling in for ex-West Pittston and Exeter #6, though within a few months a new replacement would arrive to put the steam engines out to pasture for good.

04/08/2026

East Broad Top 2-8-2 number 14 navigates one of the stub switches at the south end of Rockhill Furnace yard, possibly en route to the roundhouse. There are no notes on the slide mount, but the processing date of February 1976 leads me to believe this might have been during that year's winter spectacular.

04/07/2026

Now that ex-Reading 1251, and its comically large auxiliary tender, have made it over to the turntable, the conductor is doing his best to center the weight. How easily the turntable spins relies heavily on his and the engineer's coordination.

03/26/2026

Knox and Kane 1658 saunters up to the water tower in Russell City along a stretch of PA Route 66/948. Despite the abandonment of the railroad, the water tank, at least as of the most recent update of Google maps, still stands.

03/25/2026

Staying on the topic of Colorado steam, this locomotive should be familiar to most. Nearly a decade before going to 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 railroad, Great Western 90 is sitting in the yard Loveland. The 2-10-0 is not a small engine, but it's dwarfed by the silos and stack of the sugar beet factory it is in the service of.