Ride A Secret Haunted Rail Car for Hallowen

Photos courtesy of the Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust.

A Halloween ride on a haunted train car can be an exciting experience.

Blogger's Note: The following was provided by the Colebrookdale Railroad.

The Colebrookdale Railroad will be offering a unique way to celebrate this Halloween -- a spooky

Or perhaps an open car hayride
is more to your liking

nighttime run to a bonfire at the old site of Colebrookdale village through the dark woods of the Secret Valley.

Passengers will be treated to s'mores and hot spiced cider around the fire.

Trains leave Boyertown at 6:30, 7:30, and 8:30 Friday evening and 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday evening for a 2-mile trek, leaving plenty of time to fit in trick-or-treating!

You can depart on any train and return on any later train, staying at the fire as long as you like.

Each child in costume will receive candy and small gift. 

Fare: Adults $18; Children (2-12) $10; Toddlers (under 2) $2.

Ride in the caboose, haunted coach, or hayride car.

Helpful conductors will ensure your ride is enjoyable.

The railroad will also be running leaf-peeping hayride trains each Saturday and Sunday through the fall.

Ride on the hayride car, the haunted coach, or the caboose.

The coach and caboose are heated in case the hayride car becomes chilly.

Tasty autumn treats available on board!

Tickets, full schedule and fares at www.colebrookdalerailroad.com for all trains.

Check back in November for dining trains and in December for Santa!

You'll Be Riding on the Railroad

The unofficial opening of the Secret Valley Line of the Colebrookdale Railroad begins next weekend when rides on the train will begin.

Called "Hayride on the Rails," the rides available, starting Oct. 18, will leave from Boyertown and be undertaken in the restored "1910-era open car;" the circa-1941 caboose and the circa 1927 coach.

"This is very exciting, a big moment for the Colebrookdale, and we want you to be part of it," said Colebrookdale Preservation Trust Executive Director Nathaniel Guest.

A typical schedule will see every Saturday and Sunday (and selected Friday evenings) and will depart at 10:30 a.m., 1 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 6 p.m., but would-be riders are advised to check www.colebrookdalerailroad.com for daily schedule and special events.

Mercury Photo by John Strickler

The cars in which rides will be offered are shown here.

Ticket prices are as follows:

• Adults: $25 on-line, $27 walk-up;
• Children: $18 online or $24 walk-up;
• Under 2: $5 on-line or $10 for walk-up.

So obviously, the folks at the railroad want to encourage people to buy their tickets on-line.

For those who eschew electronic commerce, tickets can be purchased at the gatehouse on Philadelphia Avenue in Boyertown on ride days.

The three-hour rides along the nine-mile line, completed in 1868, will depart only from Boyertown this year, where a boarding platform is now being constructed and given that there is no station facility yet in Pottstown.

The Frank Furness train station in Birdsboro that

is to be moved to Memorial Park in Pottstown.

That station, a Frank Furness design now in Birdsboro, cannot be established in Pottstown without $250,000 being raised. a goal these ticket sales will help fund.

The money will be a match for the $676,000 grant the railroad has received from the state.

The start of that capital effort occurred recently at the State Theater in Boyertown where more than 200 people filled the seats for a special entertainment event, featuring an auction and the showing of a silent film.

But even without platforms, the trains will run because, as Guest put it, "the beauty of the Secret Valley, here along the Colebrookdale, needs no adornment and we've had many, many requests to see the line in its fall splendor and we don't want to disappoint."

The official opening of the rail line is still scheduled for next year.

Of Pipes, Rails, Meters and Stations

Photo by Evan Brandt

A slide from Nathaniel Gust's presentation to the
Pottstown Borough Authority.

So it's not too often that you go to a water and sewer authority meeting and end up talking about an historic railroad.

But in Pottstown, anything can happen.

So who was at last night's Pottstown Borough Authority Meeting but Nathaniel Guest, the unsleeping champion of the Colebrokdale Railroad.

He was there with a problem.

To make the whole project work, the railroad needs to establish ts historic train station in Memorial Park in a location visible from High Street.

The problem is the best site is right on top of a sewer line that runs through Memorial Park.

He came to the Borough Authority with a request.

Read the Tweets below to find out what happened, as well as a $3 million project to help water meters get read remotely and $6 million in pending water and sewer projects in the borough.

Cabin Car on Track to Return to PA

Photo courtesy of Rivanna Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society

Pennsylvania Railroad Cabin Car No. 477768

Blogger's Note: Children's literature has given us a pleasant new Christmas tradition, that of "The Polar Express," forever cementing the connection in our minds between trains and Christmas time.

To be sure it was well-worn ground. 

Many a Christmas tree has been graced with a train making its circular route around the base.

But this is a different kind of Christmas train story, one that involves a real train and news that is an early Christmas present.

It involves a Pennsylvania-built caboose (or "cabin car" in the Pennsylvania tradition) and the efforts to establish a steam excursion train between Pottstown and Boyertown.

A release from the folks over at the Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust tells the story:

A trestle along the Colebrookdale Railroad

A relic from the golden age of Pennsylvania’s railroading past is coming home.

Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) cabin car (known as a “caboose” on other railroads) #477768 was built in Altoona in 1941. 

For the last six years, members of the Rivanna Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society (NRHS) have been restoring it at a location in Virginia, far from the car’s home. Now it is being donated to the non-profit Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust in Boyertown. There it will be maintained and kept in operation on tourist trains that will begin running on the eight mile track between Boyertown and Pottstown in the fall of 2014.

"We restored PRR No. 477768 from being a virtual wreck to nearly its original condition so that it could be seen and enjoyed. It does not belong on an isolated siding in central Virginia," said John Pfaltz, one of the restoration team leaders.

The old Barto station on the Colebrookdale.

The caboose has left its Red Hill, Va., siding for two brief trips: in 2010 it went to Steamtown in Scranton, where it was on display, and in 2012 it went to Harrisburg, to be displayed at the Amtrak station. 

These moves were made possible by Norfolk Southern, which picked up and delivered the caboose. This time, however, the move will be for good.

The NRHS Rivanna Chapter is planning a farewell ceremony at the caboose in Red Hill, this afternoon. 

Chapter members, friends, and families will attend the event along with dignitaries from
Boyertown, the Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust, and the NRHS national organization.

During the ceremony, the “Keys to the Cabin Car” will be handed off to the Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust.

Until the 1980's, all freight trains had the familiar red caboose at the rear end. Usually a conductor, brakeman and flagman rode there; it became their home away from home. 

The Colebrookdale has many unexpected vistas.

Consequently, this N5b caboose has a work table, bunks, ice box, sink with running water, toilet, and potbellied coal stove. 

Everything except the toilet has been restored to the way it was when No. 477768 was first built in July, 1941 in the PRR shops in Altoona.

The cabin car will find new life on the Colebrookdale Railroad, a new tourist excursion railroad running through the beautiful and forgotten “Secret Valley”— the oldest iron making corridor in the nation. 

According to a recently-completed report funded by local municipalities and businesses, the Colebrookdale will be an engine of economic renewal for the region. 

“There is a strong community commitment to making this railroad a central theme in the continuing revitalization of Boyertown and Pottstown,” said Pfaltz. 

(A video explaining the Secret Valley Line project:)

“The cabin car is part of the continuing commitment on behalf of civic and business leaders to the place they call home, said Nathaniel Guest, president of the Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust. 

“The Boyertown Rotary and Lions Clubs contributed $15,000 to the Trust to bring the car home. 

Of that contribution, $5,000 will go to the NRHS’s Heritage Grants fund (which had supported the car’s restoration with a $5,000 grant a number of years ago), and the rest will go toward the car’s shipment, inspection, maintenance, and operation,” said Guest.

The car’s arrival date in Pennsylvania has yet to be determined.

Further information can be found at www.colebrookdalerailroad.com.

Historic Colebrookdale Railroad Project Not So Secret Anymore

Could Boyertown soon have a new train station?

BOYERTOWN -- You can add Boyertown Borough to the list of places that support the proposal to run an historic tourist train on the old Colebrookdale Railroad line between Pottstown and Boyertown.

The tentative name for the line is The Secret Valley Railroad.

Nathaniel Guest, the Pottsgrove native who is heading up the effort, recently asked Boyertown Borough Council to consider looking into using a grant to study the possibility of making a station part of a downtown plan.

The borough has a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development to plan a parking lot on borough property by the rail yard at East Third and Washington streets where the rail line ends.

The plans included a 20,000 square-foot building, for which a community center, library and home for the historical society are being considered.

The Colebrookdale Line entering downtown Boyertown.

Guest made a presentation to borough council, which agreed to ask DCED if the funds also could be used to study the property to include whether a station of some sort might be located and DCED agreed.

The group and the borough are waiting for DCED to grant a time extension on the grant so the borough can consider final action on the study.

If you would like to know more about the project, a presentation by the Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust will be held tonight at the Boyertown Historical Society, 43 Chestnut St. in Boyertown, at 7 p.m.

According to it's web site, the CRPT is "a non-profit organization dedicated to establishing an on-going tourist passenger operation on the Colebrookdale Railroad. The Trust will assist the line's designated operator, the Eastern Berks Gateway Railroad, and the line's owner, Berks County, to restore and enhance this remarkable resource for the benefit of the people of Southeastern Pennsylvania now and into the future."

Berks County purchased the 8.6-mile line in 2009 for $1.35 million.

Primarily now a freight line, the CRPT wants to establish an historic tourist line much like lines in New Hope and Strasburg.

The idea has drawn enthusiastic support from a wide variety of entities.

One of several scenic bridges along the Colebrookdale line

They include: Pottstown Borough, the Pottstown School District, the Pottstown Metropolitan Regional Planning Committee, the Schuylkill River National and State Heritage Area, the Schuylkill Highlands Conservation Landscape Initiative, the Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles, the Reading Company Technical and Historical Society, the Valley Forge Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Pottstown Downtown Improvement District Authority, the Greater Reading Convention and visitors Bureau, the TriCounty Area Chamber of Commerce. Building a Better Boyertown to name a few.

The CRPT has a web site here with more information, including a draft prospectus of the project.

Below is a YouTube video produced to introduce people to the Colebrookdale Line and how it could become a tourist attraction.