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EBT East Coast Narrow Gauge has been bought

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  • Member since
    December 2015
  • From: Shenandoah Valley
  • 9,094 posts
EBT East Coast Narrow Gauge has been bought
Posted by BigDaddy on Sunday, February 23, 2020 4:24 PM

I visited EBT years ago, not knowing it was no longer operational.  I was able to walk right in and peer into windows, but not much more.  MR's Facebook page linked to a Trains article on the news of the purchase.

Here

 

Henry

COB Potomac & Northern

Shenandoah Valley

  • Member since
    January 2004
  • From: Canada, eh?
  • 13,375 posts
Posted by doctorwayne on Sunday, February 23, 2020 8:26 PM

Yeah, I heard the good news from a friend, over a week ago.  It's always been one of my favourite places to visit, even when the trains weren't running.

The group that's bought it has deep pockets and some big plans, so it's some of the best news I've heard about the EBT.

Wayne

  • Member since
    December 2015
  • From: Shenandoah Valley
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Posted by BigDaddy on Sunday, February 23, 2020 8:54 PM

Friends of EBT come to Timonium.  I never got a sense of why a deal hadn't been made earlier.  I suppose it was about the price, but I'm not sure it increased in value all those years it just sat there. 

They better have deep pockets because it takes a lot of money to restore one of those puppies and they have 6, not that I expect they will ever restore all, but it probably needs 2 to run a tourist operation.

 

Henry

COB Potomac & Northern

Shenandoah Valley

  • Member since
    August 2003
  • From: Collinwood, Ohio, USA
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Posted by gmpullman on Sunday, February 23, 2020 9:18 PM

I, too, heard the news about two weeks ago. Best news I've heard in a while.

Here I am at one of my first visits to the EBT. Aboard the Orbisonia:

 EJT_EBT by Edmund, on Flickr

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lrmyers/albums/72157713172782647

Cheers, Ed

  • Member since
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  • From: Duluth, MN
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Posted by OT Dean on Monday, February 24, 2020 12:38 AM

That IS good news, BigDaddy!  The EBT was one of the best-run shortlines, let alone narrow gauge shortlines, in the US.  It was professional all the way.  It's probably not going to happen, but wouldn't it be great if they brought all 33 miles back into service?  That being said, my only regret is that there's so little photographic evidence of it available online (and I lost(sob) my copy of the Carstens book during one of my recent moves).  I hope they'll post photos while they restore it!  Thanks for letting us know, BD.

Deano

  • Member since
    December 2015
  • From: Shenandoah Valley
  • 9,094 posts
Posted by BigDaddy on Monday, February 24, 2020 4:47 AM

This is the Friends of EBT page and their restoration projects.

Henry

COB Potomac & Northern

Shenandoah Valley

  • Member since
    March 2012
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Posted by PC101 on Monday, March 2, 2020 10:38 PM

OT Dean

That IS good news, BigDaddy!  The EBT was one of the best-run shortlines, let alone narrow gauge shortlines, in the US.  It was professional all the way.  It's probably not going to happen, but wouldn't it be great if they brought all 33 miles back into service?  That being said, my only regret is that there's so little photographic evidence of it available online (and I lost(sob) my copy of the Carstens book during one of my recent moves).  I hope they'll post photos while they restore it!  Thanks for letting us know, BD.

Deano

 

You guys are so wonderful on this MR forum. You make me think of stuff I forgot I had. I have faint remnants enter my mind of some things brought up here. The item starts to faintly come out of the fog in my head and off I go to the train room or the book cases or the garage or the shop. I root, I dig, I move, some items are found quickly, some may take days, some never found. It becomes a game for me, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH.

It didn't take long looking in three different places till I found my ''EAST BROAD TOP, TO THE MINES AND BACK'' By Ross Grenard and Frederick A. Kramer, Carstens Publications book. My Shade Gap Electric Railway ticket is stamped ''SEP 23 1988''. 

In the past 10+ years the wife and I would pass though Orbisonia once or twice a year and have a picnic at that table under that sap dripping pine tree then walk around awhile. It would be nice to smell that stinking burning coal again.  

  • Member since
    August 2003
  • From: Collinwood, Ohio, USA
  • 16,367 posts
Posted by gmpullman on Monday, March 2, 2020 11:35 PM

Here's one for you, PC

 East Broad Top, March 1971 by Edmund, on Flickr

Cheers, Ed

  • Member since
    March 2012
  • 1,162 posts
Posted by PC101 on Tuesday, March 3, 2020 11:21 PM

Excellent, Thanks Ed, I think I can hear the stack and the steam.

  • Member since
    February 2002
  • From: Reading, PA
  • 30,002 posts
Posted by rrinker on Wednesday, March 4, 2020 9:56 AM

 And the group that is doing this has some serious railroad power behind it. Wick Mooreman, formerly of NS and Amtrak, Bennett Levin, who owns and runs the Pennsy E8's, and Henry Posner, chairman of RDC, which runs Iowa Interstate among others.

 I will definitely be making the trip once they are up and running.

                                 --Randy

 


Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's

 

Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.

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