Colebrrokdale Railroad

[cdc43]

I am looking for any information on the Colebrookdale Railroad, also known as the Colebrookdale Branch or the Boyertown Branch of the Reading RR.  It currently runs from Pottstown, PA, to Boyertown, PA, but at one time extended to Barto, PA.  I find it mentioned in some of the Reading RR books, but can only find a few pictures of some of the stations.  I am particularly interested in operation details, past and present, as well as industries served, equipment used, etc.  It is currently served by East Penn Rail Lines.

[Anonymous]

Try ebay for timetables, local historical societies, and look for Reading historical societies through google.  Also try googling railserve.  I don't know what's out there...I'm not a Reading fan...but I've chased down some obscure stuff before, and any scrap of info can be helpful.

Good luck!

[cdc43]

Thanks for the tips, but I have already tried most of that.  The Reading RR Historical Society has a great web page, (www.readingrailroad.org) but only a short mention of this branch.  I have Googled lots of variations and come up mostly blank.  Lots of mentions of Colebrookdale, but little useful for my purposes.  I haven't tried ebay, but it's worth a shot.

[Conrail6370]

For information on the Colebrookdale Railroad check out this website http://www.colebrookdalerailroad.com/

Have fun,

Len.

[dehusman]

You need to find a copy of Benjamin Bernhart's "Reading Railroad Station Pictorial, Lines A-H" (there are 4 volumes in the series).  It has pictures of Pine Forge, Colebrookdale, Boyertown, Betchtelsville and Barto stations. Pine Forge, Colebrookdale and Barto were the same design, it looked like a 2 story farm house.

According the the Reading Cabooses book by John W. Hall, in 1960 caboose class NMo 94017 was assigned to Pottstown for the Colebrookdale traveling switch engine.  In addition cab NMg 92808 was assigned to pottstown as an extra cab and NMh 92820 was assigned to the Royersford TS.

Based on the caboose assignments there was one train that operated on the branch, a traveling switch engine.

In 1893 the branch had Psgr trains leaving Pottstown for Barto at  600a, 940a, 125p, 415p, 600p and psgr trains leaving Barto at 510a, 615a, 715a, 1105a, 240p.

in 1927 the branch had several 1st class trains 607, 633 NWD, 600, 602,632,610 SWD, 2nd class trains 601, 603, 605 NWD, 606 SWD and a 4th class pair of 648-649.  All these trains operated daily ex Sun.  The first class trains went out and the 2nd class trains came back in, that was a trick used by railroads to keep a turn schedule from delaying itself.

By 1941-1946 it was down to just two 2nd class trains, 605-632.

Keep in mind that the "two trains" was really one train that ran out and back (same with the 1927 trains).