Pup Power
Reading and Northern train PNPV (Port Clinton to Pottsville) is doing a bit of switching on the west end of West Cressona Yard at about MP 1.1 on what is now known as the RBMN's Minersville Branch.
The rails through here are among the oldest in the country having opened around 1831 as the Mine Hill and Schuylkill Haven Railroad. Built to haul caul from above Minersville to a connection with the Schuylkill Canal it was animal powered until 1847 and then ultimately fell into the fold of the expanding Philadelphia and Reading in 1864. For the next 112 years this was the property of the Reading until that bankrupt road was folded into Conrail which operated this trackage for 14 years until selling it to the expanding Reading Blue, Mountain and Northern Railroad in 1990.
The town of Cressona was laid out as a railroad town in the 1840s and remains an important hub of operations for the RBMN to this day. The brick depot in the background was built by the RDG around 1911 and remains in railroad use as an office for the railroad's signal department, though I'm not sure when the last regular passenger train called here, but my guess would be sometime in the early 1930s.
Leading the train are two EMD end cab switchers from decidedly different eras, RBMN 1542 (MP15DC blt. Apr. 1982 as Southern 2426) and 803 (SW8 blt. Sep. 1951 as Lehigh Valley 270)
Cressona, Pennsylvania
Monday July 3, 2023
Pup Power
Reading and Northern train PNPV (Port Clinton to Pottsville) is doing a bit of switching on the west end of West Cressona Yard at about MP 1.1 on what is now known as the RBMN's Minersville Branch.
The rails through here are among the oldest in the country having opened around 1831 as the Mine Hill and Schuylkill Haven Railroad. Built to haul caul from above Minersville to a connection with the Schuylkill Canal it was animal powered until 1847 and then ultimately fell into the fold of the expanding Philadelphia and Reading in 1864. For the next 112 years this was the property of the Reading until that bankrupt road was folded into Conrail which operated this trackage for 14 years until selling it to the expanding Reading Blue, Mountain and Northern Railroad in 1990.
The town of Cressona was laid out as a railroad town in the 1840s and remains an important hub of operations for the RBMN to this day. The brick depot in the background was built by the RDG around 1911 and remains in railroad use as an office for the railroad's signal department, though I'm not sure when the last regular passenger train called here, but my guess would be sometime in the early 1930s.
Leading the train are two EMD end cab switchers from decidedly different eras, RBMN 1542 (MP15DC blt. Apr. 1982 as Southern 2426) and 803 (SW8 blt. Sep. 1951 as Lehigh Valley 270)
Cressona, Pennsylvania
Monday July 3, 2023