Steam RETURNS! - A Ride Behind EBT No. 16
Steam has returned to East Broad Top (EBT) Railroad in Rockhill, PA, with the restoration of steam locomotive No. 16! This locomotive was built in 1916 by Baldwin Locomotive Works and last operated in 1956, before it's return to service in February of 2023. In 1916 this was EBT's first of three large Mikados. It came with superheaters, piston valves, and Southern valve gear, capable of pulling much longer trains.
EBT's railroad is the only surviving three-foot gauge common carrier railroad east of the Rocky Mountains. EBT's shops, parts of which date to the 1880s, are among the best-preserved examples in the U.S. of a late-19th-century/early 20th-century industrial complex. The shops are powered by an overhead belt system driven by a stationary steam engine.
The railroad was completed in 1874 to service the iron furnaces and coal mines along a 33-mile corridor in Huntingdon County PA. The railroad was sold in 1956 to the Kovalchick family who reopened the railroad in the 1960s. The EBT foundation, Inc. acquired the railroad in 2020 and immediately began an extensive restoration effort with the goal of returning to regular service. Thank you to all the volunteers of the Friends of the East Broad Top and the Rockhill Trolley Museum and the EBT employees and crew for bringing this amazing steam locomotive to operating condition and allowing us railfans to take a step back into history.