The East Broad Top Railroad

A number of innovations, ranging from modern rolling stock and motive power to value-adding processes to the coal during interchange, ensured the EBT's survival until it was the last narrow gauge operating east of the Mississippi. The EBT was unique among narrow gauge railroads for its heavy construction, steel rolling stock, and modern steam locomotives. But the post-WW II shift from coal to oil and natural gas as domestic fuel eliminated many markets for Broad Top coal, and the EBT ceased operations in April 1956.

The 32-mile mainline, with bridges, track, tunnels, and structures avoided the scrapper. From 1960 through 2011, the Kovalchick family, of Indiana, Pennsylvania, operated a fouir mile stretch north of Orbisonia Station as a tourist operation. Most of the rest of the line is intact but heavily overgrown and rapidly deteriorating. Until recently, most of the rolling stock was left to slowly rust away in the undergrowth covering the sprawling dual gauge yard at Mt. Union and on the storage tracks at the vintage Turn-of-the-Century shops complex in Rockhill, next to the Orbisonia Station, which, itself, dates from 1906. But the priceless shops complex, with belt-driven machine tools, 8-stall brick roundhouse and steel turntable has been preserved and the nonprofit FEBT has been undertaking restoration projects there since the late 1990s.  

In the early 2000's a non-profit EBT Preservation Association purchased the line north of the Lower Aughwick bridge through the Mt. Union Yard and the standard gauge connection to Norfolk Southern.  But little work has been accomplished toward preservation, and the operation seems to be moribund as of this time (2024).  

In 2020, the EBT south of Aughwick Mills all the way to the end of the line south of Woodvale was purchased by the nonprofit EBT Foundation, and much money and restoration work has been done in conjunction with the volunteers of FEBT.  EBTF returned 2-8-2 "Mikado" No. 16 to service in February 2023, and tourist operations returned with gusto on the 4-mile tourist line on heavily restored and upgraded roadbed and track.  As of 2024, work on the long-neglected mainline south of Rockhill has extended approximately 1 mile south of the yard, and grade clearing in preparation for track restoration is continuing to the Upper Aughwick bridge at Pogue.  At the south end, the track has been rehabilitated to support speeder, handcar, and rail pedal car rides to within 1/4 mile of Woodvale.