trains and trolleys at orbisonia pa

Trains & Trolleys at Orbisonia, PA - August 23, 2008

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From my motel north of Chambersburg I avoided major highways by taking PA997 to PA533 to PA522. That worked for the trip to Orbisonia, so I used the same route to return to Chambersburg.

I love these old stone arch bridges that still carry traffic on some of Pennsylvania's byways.

Fannettsburg, where PA533 intersects PA75 south of Turnpike Exit 189

Probably pushing 40 years old, this Diamond Reo doesn't look bad for a working dump truck.

This old Reo Gold Comet needs a bit of work

I stopped here on the return trip for some refreshment. I don't think we can get Hershey's Ice Cream at home; now that I've tasted it, I'll lament that Hoosier shortcoming for a while.

I overshot my turn in Orbisonia and followed the East Broad Top tracks about six miles north to the Borough of Shirleysburg, which stands where Fort Shirley was built c. 1755 during the French and Indian War to provide refuge for settlers against Indian scalping parties that roamed the area.

East Broad Top Railroad

East Broad Top Railroad was founded in 1856 to haul coal from company mines and freight and passengers to and from on-line communities. The narrow-gauge railroad operated for a hundred years before shutting down due to falling demand for coal and increased competition from trucks and automobiles. The Kovalchick Salvage Company of Indiana, PA, purchased the line and chose to preserve it. The first tourist train on the line ran in 1960, and since then, with the aid of many volunteers it has survived as the most intact historic railroad property in North America.

Motor Car M-3 was built in the East Broad Top shops using a Maxwell automobile engine. In 1926 it was rebuilt using a Nash automobile drive train.

East Broad Top is able to turn trains on a wye at each end of the run, eliminating backups and runarounds.

Rockhill Trolley Museum

Rockhill Trolley Museum is adjacent to East Broad Top Railroad and operates over the former Shade Gap branch of the EBT, converted to standard gauge track.

St. Louis Car Company built city car 355 in 1926 for Johnstown Traction Company.

Car 1875, built in 1912 by Brill for Rio de Janeiro Tramways in Brazil, is the only open trolley operating in Pennsylvania.

Place names including "Furnace" grew up around early iron blast furnaces. Rockhill Furnace produced iron from local ore, charcoal from local forests and lime from nearby quarries. As local forests were cut over and no longer able to provide charcoal, the process evolved to use coke made from locally-mined coal.

The small furnaces were inefficient compared with the larger iron-making complexes that grew up nearer sources of high-quality raw materials, and the implementation of the Bessemer and Open-Hearth processes made efficent production of large quantities of steel and brought an end to the small local furnaces early in the 20th century.

The partial brick walls of what was once the power house are all that remains of Rockhill Furnace.

This first registered with my brain as a generator, and it wasn't until I was looking at the photo at home that it dawned on me that it's probably a rotary converter.

Early on, most streetcar and interurban ("traction") systems generated their own electric power. Large systems distributed power over long distances using alternating current because they could use transformers to step up the voltage, reducing line losses. Contemporary high-capacity rectifiers and solid-state controllers didn't exist then, so at various points along the line, typically every 25 miles or so on interurban lines, rotary converters, or rotaries, converted the power to direct current to boost the voltage in the catenary (overhead trolley wire) that powered the cars.

I returned to Chambersburg following the same route I had taken to Orbisonia. On the way up I had seen this fixer-upper, but waited until the return trip for better light to take photos.

Narrow bridge coming up. I think this is the same one I photographed on my trip up.

Back at my motel north of Chambersburg; from one end of the motel hallway I had this view:

From the other end, I-81 and a PennDOT facility. It was really nice when they loaded crushed stone at 10:30p.m.