A few posts down someone invited news of the EBT on the list--ask and ye shall receive.
I just returned from spending Saturday in Orbisonia/Rockhill Furnace helping the Friends of the East Broad Top and the East Broad Top Railroad celebrate the beginning of the 2001 operating season.
For the first time in many years, a portion of the Rockhill Furnace shops were opened for self-paced tours during the opening weekend. In recent years EBT General Manager Stanley Hall has offered guided shop tours during the annual Fall Spectaculars, but this was the first time in quite a while that the shops had been opened for individual, "stay as long as you like" viewing.
Buildings opened for viewing included the belt-driven Machine Shop, the foundry with its cupola furnace, the Blacksmith's Shop with its multiple forges, anvils, and belt- and steam-driven hammers, and the Roundhouse.
The Open Shops Days were made possible by Stanley Hall and the EBT staff with the assistance of the Friends of the East Broad Top, a nonprofit group which studies and researches the EBT, and maintains a museum and does restoration work on the former company coal town of Robertsdale on the southern portion of the railroad. The FEBT provided docents/building monitors for all the open buildings on both days of the weekend. The volunteers were happy to answer questions and give mini-tours of the various buildings, or to allow patrons to poke about and explore on their own.
I spent time docenting in both the Blacksmith Shop and the Roundhouse--an experience I will long remember. The more time I spent in the Blacksmith Shop alone the more there was to see and absorb--layers and layers of small details that made up the whole. The sense of being in a complete time warp is amazing--everything is there, very little changed from the day the last shift put down its tools and locked up the building in 1956. The backsmith's apron hangs on a peg by the door; the calendar is still on the wall; small hand-baskets for carrying castings and forgings are still sitting right where they were put down, the racks on the walls are still filled with the swageing dies and templates, the stock racks are stuffed with flues, tubes, and wire and bar stock. Better than any recreated diorama.
In general news from the property, 2-8-2 No. 15 handled all three trains on Saturday, a nice change from No. 14 which has been the mainstay of the excursion service in recent years. With the weather changeable, the train the first day was made up entirely of closed cars, including one of the two ex-BRB&L combines, ex-BRB&L Coach No. 8, Caboose 28 and private car Orbisonia.
In other news, the Rockhill Trolley Museum, which leases a right-of-way along the former EBT Shade Gap Branch, has just completed a major extension of its standard-gauge track along Blacklog Creek all the way out to Route 522. Track was installed and poles set by professional contractors, but volunteers will string and wire the overhead line for the extension. This will probably be the end of the line for the RTM track, as the state has plans to rebuild Route 522's crossing of Blacklog Creek, a project which will raise the grade of the highway and make any future crossing of the road at grade problematic in the extreme.
On a sad note, many friends of the railroad took time on the opening weekend to give their condolences to the staff of the EBT regarding the death of Mr. Richard H. Morgan, the road's longtime Orbisonia ticket agent, who passed away this past winter. The small paid EBT staff is very much like a family, and Mr. Morgan's death has hit that community very hard.
