Eastern Railroad Discussion > Hollidaysburg, PA

In perusing one's favorite aerial map, I was looking at the short line south of Altoona. It appears there are quite a few customers for such a rural short line. My old map shows it to be the Hollidaysburg & Roaring Spring RR. Does it still go by that name? What are their normal operations? Daily, etc?

Also, it appears the yard in Hollidaysburg is jam packed with old cars. Does anyone have any recent photos of this yard? Is this a repair shop? Cars waiting to be scrapped? Thanks for any info.

Everett Railroad.

This is how the yard at Hollidaysburg looked on 8/10/13 full of old TTX flats and coil cars. If you can get hold of a copy of Sept 2013 Railpace magazine they have a nice write up on the Everett RR with schedules and chase maps.
Steve B.

---

I was by here in early February... you can still see the old hump or what I think was the hump. It was right next to Route22....

Just an FYI about the Everett Railroad, they are in the process of expanding on their excursion train offerings in the near future including a new depot at their facility in Hollidaysburg.

The Hollidaysburg and Roaring Spring is the main out thru Brooks Mills and up the hill to Roaring Spring. The Everett is from Brooks Mills to Sproul on the old Bedford branch. It's all the Everett though. They run Mon-Wed-Fri and I believe the start time is still 7a from Duncansville at the Wye. They jump on NS to go down to the interchange in Hollidaysburg and pull the inbound stuff from NS down to the yard to shift and make up the train for that day. If they have any cars for the Claysburg side, they'll be on the end of the train and get dropped North of the switch at Brooks Mills where the line splits.

They'll head for Martinsburg then and if they have a car for Suburban Propane, they'll work that before heading up the hill at McKee. They'll head to Renaissance nutrition and switch that then wye the train at Martinsburg Jct then start back to work Youngs (Cargill). After the work there, they head for Smith Trucking along Route 36 and switch there then head to the paper mill in Roaring Spring.

After that they head back to Brooks Mills and if they have cars for the Claysburg side, they'll drop the train South of the switch, go up and tie onto the cars then head South to Claysburg, if there are loaded center beams they're for Babcock Lumber and are dropped at the team track by the shops in Claysburg then they'll head for Sproul where they run around the train then switch the brickyard. They'll head back towards Brooks Mills after this. They may also switch McCabes in Claysburg by the baseball fields, they get paper cars, then they pick the rest of the train up at Brooks Mills and head back to Duncansville where they'll shove the outbounds for NS on the North end of the interchange by the Wye, then they tie up.

Posted from Android

Many years ago my now 40 year old red headed step child attended college at Penn State Main Campus. While I have many miles of video of the Conrail mainline I only have a small amount of nighttime footage of the then fledgling Everett Railroad in Duncansville.
On a trip to drop the daughter at State College I also expanded the plans to overnight somewhere in the vicinity of Altoona and take the two young sons about 6 and 3 to Horseshoe Curve for a while. I was there in the Fifties and saw but one train that will forever be stuck in my mind. It was E8 or 9s with a long string of REA green express boxcars being pushed by a trio of Geeps. Was I impressed yes and no. The train was filthy and grungy and a bunch of smoky smelly diesels. They were certainly working hard at getting that express up the mountain but as a kid all trains should have been gleaming, shiny and proud looking. this could have been an ore drag. I digress.
"So anyhow", that was one of my Dad's favorite lines, we bunked down in a roadside motel in Duncansville. While dragging in all the luggage Mom decided was necessary for the flock I heard a diesel horn! Wassup up with that? Then after another load of suitcases I heard crossing bells, not those electronic weenie things but real metal making noise like clang - clang - clang. I grabbed my camcorder and shot a blurry fuzzy in and out of focus diesel pulling a few cars south in the pitch dark just across the road from our motel. A bonus and a preview of the incredible show Conrail would provide the next day.
Funny the next day there was a neat street rod outside our room. Really neat was the trailer. It was an old Coca Cola Cooler like what was found at gas stations in the Fifties but mounted on an axle and held luggage! Too Kewl!
We drove into Altoona for a breakfast at the golden Arches and saw the Railroaders Museum in its infancy but passed on it to get to The Curve.
We arrived and there was a trailer train seemingly miles long crawling up the hill and squealing like a stuck pig.
Long story short we spent about 4 hours in the sometimes pouring rain (doesn't matter if you have a raincoat on) watching and videoing the action. Everyone had a good time, even Mom. The highlight was about 200 ex PRR ore jennies from as far west to as far east as you could see. When they first approached probably the mandated 18 MPH. By the time the hind end passed more like 40MPH! Yes I have a video! The drive home was hours and hours of total rain storms was not my favorite memory but if I can I'd like to get back there again.
Sequel, We did get there again in 2012, all four of us, and watched yet another railroad shove trains up the big hill. This time it was NS.
If I live long enough to get there again who will be shoving tonnage over the hill?
Gonut