All Aboard!

The East Broad Top Railroad in Pennsylvania is back in operation, but the iron and coal it once delivered are now being replaced by curious visitors

WRITTEN BY Neil Cotiaux

The hiss of steam. The smell of coal smoke. The blaring of the horn. All are in the air again. The East Broad Top Railroad (EBT) is back on track.

In February, “Number 16” emerged from the repair shop after 67 years in mothballs, ready to resurrect the sights and sounds of narrow-gauge steam railroading. It’s one of six steam locomotives in the roundhouse of the Pennsylvania-based line, the only original narrow-gauge railroad now operating east of the Rocky Mountains.

EBT no longer delivers iron, coal, and limestone as it did, beginning in the 1870s until changing economic conditions forced the line’s closure in 1956. Four years later, a merciful scrap dealer named Nick Kovalchick reopened the steam line to the public and kept it chugging until 2011. Now, the East Broad Top Foundation, a group that includes seasoned railroad executives who purchased the line in 2020, aims to entertain a growing number of visitors, educate them about the heyday of steam, and provide a sustainable jump-start to Central Pennsylvania’s economy.

Ten years after the scrap dealer sold EBT to the foundation, the nonprofit renewed trips for the public down its 9-mile, round-trip tracks, with the hopes of restoring all 33 miles as the public’s interest in “heritage railroading” grows.

“You roll through 9 miles of rolling hills, farms, forests. … You’re going to see, really, just the heart of Pennsylvania. It’s rather beautiful, especially in the fall, with the crops growing and the colors changing,” said Jonathan Smith, director of sales and marketing for the railroad.

The narrow-gauge tracks that EBT runs on are, to rail enthusiasts, just as beautiful as the scenery that visitors pass through. East Broad Top is the oldest operating narrow-gauge railroad in the country, said Smith, who grew up in Colorado near the famed Durango & Silverton line and became smitten with the look and lore of locomotives.

With rails only 3 feet apart instead of the standard four-foot, 8.5 inches used by most of the industry, narrow-gauge cost less to build, and because of its smaller size “you could have sharper curves, which could get you through more difficult terrain for less money,” said Linn Moedinger, a member of EBT’s board of directors. “But that’s pretty much where the economic advantages ended, and which is the reason the narrow-gauge finally failed.”