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| PHOTOS; Everett at East Freedom (1595620) | |||
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PHOTOS; Everett at East Freedom |
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Posted by kp5308 on Mon Jan 17 21:23:16 2022 I have one customer on Everett Rd. in Blair County that is right across from the Everett Railroad line from Hollidaysburg to Sproul PA.I would call the EV office when I was in the area for an update on train status and was always treated well by Jason Lamb and his staff. This past Thursday I didn't need to bother them because I heard the GP16 honking in the distance when I left Freedom Millwork. Before I get to the images a well written brief history of this line has been provided by Steve Salamon in a thread on the abandonedrails.com message board: The Pennsylvania Railroad called this the Bedford Secondary Track, and it once provided a route from Altoona to Cumberland, Maryland. PRR ownership ended at the PA / MD state line, where PRR met the Western Maryland's four-mile long State Line Branch. PRR (and later PC) had trackage rights over the WM State Line Branch to Georges Creek Junction at the west end of Cumberland Narrows, where the State Line Branch met the Connellsville Subdivision main line of the WM. PRR and PC crews had rights on the WM Connellsville Subdivision to City Junction in Cumberland, where interchange was made with the WM. PRR and WM once interchanged a lot of coal traffic, but by 1972, traffic had fallen to the point that PC was making the trip to Cumberland only two or three times a week, usually with a single GP7 or GP9 with a handful of cars. Service between Bedford and Cumberland ceased after Hurricane Agnes damaged the line in June 1972. Service continued to Bedford another 10 years, until 1982. There were several customers in Bedford, and there was also the connection with the Mount Dallas Secondary Track, a 6.9 mile line from Creek (on east side of Bedford) to Mount Dallas. At Mount Dallas, PRR and later PC connected with the Everett Railroad, which was founded after the 1954 abandonment of the Huntington & Broad Top Mountain. The Everett Railroad operated the southern four miles of the H&BTM, and was formed to preserve rail service to Everett. Conrail ended service on the Bedford Secondary and the Mount Dallas Secondary lines in 1982. The Staggers Act of 1980 gave Conrail the ability to abandon money-losing branch lines, and there was not enough traffic to support continued maintenance and operation on these lines. The Everett Railroad also ceased operations at the same time, as it had no other connection. The Everett Railroad, under new management, took over the eight mile portion of the Bedford Secondary between Brook Mills and Sproul in 1984, and continues to operate this portion today. In PRR days the route was 30MPH track between the Mount Dallas switch at Brook (Mills) and State Line. Everett runs at a maximum of 20MPH and crosses plenty of little bridges and culverts on the few miles that I cover around the village of East Freedom. Today it is an empty boxcar move from McCabe Trucking which I catch up to near Claysburg:  First little span is across Pole Cat Run:  That blob at the upper left is the sun:  No name streams like this one can quickly become a headache...my customer took some serious water damage from this little back yard waterway a few months back:  Everett Rd. has portions right next to the track so I shoot a few from the Hyundai:  The South Dry Run bridge is 2 short spans, one of which looks to be redundant:  PA 164 is on the left and has a generous shoulder for easy and safe stopping. I'll be turning right in about a quarter mile onto PA 36 to make one more stop before my last customer visit:  An overhead view will end this Informal Chase for today. The 1828 was built as Seaboard Air Line GP7 #1798 in 1952, wrecked 4 years later and rebuilt as a GP9. The locomotive retained quite a few GP7 parts including the 4 original 36" cooling fans:  I didn't know the Pennsy ran to Cumberland Maryland! |
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