Nostalgia & History > Big Blue Monday

This train, symbol unknown, was long enough that the crew pulled down as far as possible on what was left of the former Reading Bethlehem Branch.  After cutting off the power they ran back west on the former westbound main.  Location is Hellertown, PA, just south of the Bethlehem Steel Plant.  As you can see things had deteriorated to the point that this was the end of the line.  These tracks were eventually removed, starting from the south end of the steel plant to as far as Coopersburg.  It is September 25, 1994 and the steel plant has only a few more months to live.
 

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Ist shot on the right, good looking track, awful looking ties.

The northbound main had heavier rail with 6 bolt fish plates to support the weight of loaded ore trains. Southbound was much lighter with 4 bolt plates and the heaviest trains it saw other than the daily local freight was two car RDC commuter trains. By this time there was no regular maintenance above Lansdale on the Bethelehem Branch as the through freights and ore traffic was rerouted using the mainline to Reading and then across the Reading Line to Bethlehem. It was sad to witness as I lived by the Branch and witnessed the daily northbound freight, the heavy ore trains, the southbound caboose hops after dropping the ore at Bethlehem (the empty hoppers went to the coal fields to return to Philadelphia loaded with Antrhacite via the Mainline.) the RDCs ran every few hours and the daily local from Lansdale to Quakertown and back. The last through train was a northbound RBB&B circus train according to my then, father-in-law, who witnessed it.
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