Quite notable in this article is this line

I'm still surprised more people aren't excited over that particular passage and the implications it gives.

There was some talk on the one Facebook group with a lot of "But they don't own to Mount Union."

If I had to guess, either Salone is throwing in the towel on whatever he was trying to do up there, or he sees an opportunity to make a quick buck by selling back to EBT Foundation.

My outsider's opinion is that it will involve trackage rights, one way or t'other.

Anything I’ve seen on the Facebook group, the implication I’ve heard is that EBTF does have trackage rights into Mount Union. I’m not saying they do but I’ve heard it multiple times, and I don’t know where it originated from.

There’s a few problems going into there right now unfortunately, even if the ownership stuff wasn’t a factor.

1. The concrete bridge at Aughwick looks in bad shape. I don’t know what the condition is of the bridge but at a glance, it doesn’t look good. May take a lot to restore, if it even can be restored.

2. Several washouts between the concrete bridge and Shirleysburg. This is a part of the EBTF trackage, so there’s no ownership schism here, but this is damage that occurred because of Agnes over 50 years ago. It couldn’t have gotten better since then.

3. No place to turn the locomotives. The wye was cut out and a McDonald’s and dollar general are taking the land close to where the wye was. Gotta fix that.

4. Some criticisms I’ve heard of travelling north to Mount Union is that the ride wouldn’t be particularly scenic. I don’t think this is a problem personally, but who knows.

5. As established by the article, there isn’t too much of a presence of the EBT in Mount Union as of now. No museums, no buildings, not much of anything left from those days apart from a couple trestles and the now unfortunately vacant engine shed. Gotta develop some things and have a presence there before you go there. You gotta build another station, have something there people might want to see.

So we’ll see. Mount Union isn’t a bad idea after they (hopefully) get to Robertsdale and cultivate that campus as well as their presence in the other communities south of Orbisonia/Rockhill Furnace. But to me, looks like it might be a while.

My (probably faulty) recollection is that the short leg of the Mount Union wye was on the east side of the Dollar General.

If you look at the Dollar General on google maps, you'll see (1) that the building is not parallel with East Shirley Street and (2) there is a triangle-shaped area of grass on the east side of the building. I think the wye's switch was in that triangle-shaped grassy area. The wye stopped before it reached the road because it was only used to turn engines and M-1.

I'm not sure where it would go, but having an amtrak station not far from an EBT station would a selling point. It's a shame there is no way to make a connection from the original PRR route to the east.

I would caution against being overly optimistic about "cross-platform" connections to excursion operations. After decades, one has never been established at Leaman Place at the Strasburg RR; I don't think the one at Old Saybrook for the Valley RR is functioning or sees much traffic; Amtrak no longer stops at Williams Junction, Az. on account of low usage of the van shuttle; I don't hear of connections being promoted for the Green Mountain operation at the joint Bellows Falls, Vt. station for the Vermonter; etc. etc.

Further, Mount Union sees only ONE Amtrak train each way a day (proposed/planned to be expanded to two in the future). Experience in places like the UK and Switzerland will tell you that cross-platform connections to tourist lines work when there is frequent service to the terminal, but dies off when we're talking a mere couple trains a day. (Examples of both: Keighley, West Yorkshire for the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway versus Aviemore on the Strathspey Railway.)

Sandy's right about that. There really is nothing except the interchange at Lehman Place for the Strasburg, and the East and Westbound Pennsylvanians often pass at that point, so there would be no time to come in from the West, ride the train and go back. You need far more convenient and reasonable connections to make Amtrak-tourist railroad connections work. You would think that if the CVSR could get into downtown Cleveland they would be able to tap into the four Amtrak trains stopping there daily, but Amtrak stops there in the middle of the night for all trains, leaving potential passengers with a 4 to 8 hour predawn wait before they could catch a train to Akron. Same for the Western Maryland Scenic and the soon-to-be former Capitol Ltd. at Cumberland, MD, requiring an overnight stay to take the excursion train.

I thought about the Amtrak connection (probably via shuttle van) but most of the service terminates at Harrisburg, beyond 'shuttle bus' distance even if there wasn't a colossal mountain grade to climb and descend on the way in from I-81...

Yeah, it would be nice to have a special Amtrak rate between Leaman Place and Mt. Union... except, as noted, there's already little enough traffic to and from Leaman Place just to ride the Strasburg and sample the adjacent joys and then bop over to Orbisonia.

Personally, I think the big advantage of Mt. Union is that it is a place reasonably close to a sensible highway, without the fun involved in driving up and over to Orbisonia and then try to find local parking or lodging. It might be interesting to see what bus arrangements might be practical for a Mt. Union extension that doubles as a shuttle to the Harrisburg area...

I was under the impression the local amish wanted to build a station there, but were refused as it'd not be ADA accessible, and on a curve.

Last I saw, there was a proposal to build station roughly next to where the new transfer yard went in.

If MDOT ever runs an additional train to Cumberland, they could stop at the WM station, instead of amtrak, and have it connect with both WMSR, and a bus to Frostburg, for students.

As for mount union, more frequent passenger station would be nice, but large road access better, in short term.

And I've done both - Keighley and Aviemore.

Besides the joint station, both also provide facilities for the travelers with plans for their luggage storage, cafes, and other services - far more than most Amtrak stations provide their regular passengers.

Bart

What could work well would be to build a dual gauge wye at Mt. Union and extend the dual gauge into town where there would be a transfer platform where folks coming into town on a standard gauge steam excursion from Harrisburg ( approx. 80 miles east ) or Altoona ( approx. 45 miles west ) could cross platform transfer to a waiting EBT train which would take them to Rockhill for a tour of the shop complex and then to the Colgate Grove for luncheon.

It would be a full day of steam in 2 gauges with lots to experience.

Dream no small dreams...they fail to stir men's souls !!

Ross Rowland

a Standard Gauge Wye or a Narrow Gauge Wye would work

but a Dual Gauge would not match up correctly as a 3 rail system

it would be simpler if you were going to need to turn Narrow Gauge and Standard Gauge Loco's to just Acquire a large enough turntable that would suit any visitor

a 4 rail dual gauge wye would work. you would just be at the constraints of minimum degree turning radius for any visitor and tightness of having the narrow gauge track sitting inside the standard gauge track and 6 frogs involved