(The following story by Al Zagofsky appeared on the Lehighton Times website on June 5.)
LEHIGHTON, Pa. — Twin 1,500-HP orange locomotives, ablaze with the navy blue insignia and striping of their former owner – the Jersey Central Railroad, sit at the bottom of Route 209’s Mansion House Hill welcoming visitors to Jim Thorpe.
Fate, once again has passed its cloud over these locomotives and their owner, the Anthracite Railroads Historic Society (ARHS.) They lease these locomotives to Rail Tours, Inc., the tourist railroad founded by George Hart, and find themselves in a quandary as the Reading Blue Mountain & Northern Railroad moves to take over the Jim Thorpe-based tourist railroad business.
The ARHS presently owns seven locomotives and five pieces of rolling stock. This equipment is spread among five locations in NE Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey. The Society was no permanent site to store or operate its equipment.’
]Recently, Jim Thorpe resident and ARHS vice president Dave Palmer joined members Fred Reilly of Jenkintown, PA and Ross Chapin of ‘Whitehouse Station, N.J. to prepare their 1948 era diesel-electric locomotives for Rail Tours, Inc.’s summer schedule]beginning the first weekend in June.
The twin locomotives, arranged tail to tail, were drained of coolant over the winter. The ARHS team planned to fix what needed repair, then fill the coolant lines and, finally – test the engine. They first had to repair a coolant leak and replace several gaskets. Things became difficult when a gasket bolt froze and needed to be drilled out.
The ARHS, currently has a membership of 1,600 “authors, historians, railroad employees, photographers, model railroaders, and just plain rail fans who share our interest in the railroads that served the anthracite coal mining region of eastern Pennsylvania.” They include the following railroads: Central Railroad of New Jersey, Delaware Lackawanna & Western Railroad, Lehigh Valley Railroad, Reading Company, Lehigh and New England, and the Lehigh and Hudson River Railroad.
“We spend a lot of time and effort to keep them running,” explained Palmer. ”It’s very gratifying to see them in operation.”
One, locomotive 56, they purchased just the body without an engine for $6,000 from the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad in Maine. The second, 57, is on a long tem lease from a New Jersey based railroad historical society.
After the twin locomotives were acquired in 1986, members of the ARHS worked for three years, installing an engine and refurbishing the locomotives inside and out. The work started in the former shops of the Reading Railroad in Reading and was completed in Swedeland, near Norristown]before moving to its current Jim Thorpe location.
Palmer considers 56 and 57, both built in 1948, to be among the oldest, still operating diesel-electric locomotives in the country. The reason they are called diesel-electric is a diesel engine does not directly drive the wheels. It turns a generator that produces 600-volts of power that, in turn, powers a traction motor on each axle.
Fred Reilly, a society member since 1988, helps the ARHS on weekends even though he works full time as an electrician for Norfolk Southern. He has loved diesel-electric railroading since he was four years old. He graduated college in business administration and initially worked as a fleet manager for a trucking company. He switched to the railroad industry, first with the Delaware Lackawanna Railroad and now, with the Norfolk Southern.
Since the age of 16 years old, he’s now 32, Fred’s been helping the ARHS and learning about locomotives. He started removing rust and over the years became their electrical expert. That OJT helped him change careers and get a job that he loves in railroading.
It is anticipated that units #56 and 57 will be in service on Rail Tours Inc.’s tourist trains this summer and fall. They plan for the units to operate on the first two weekends of each month from June through September on the six-mile ride to Nesquehoning, and in October, on all weekends on the Flaming Foliage Rambles. After that, their future is uncertain.