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Proof of this region’s highly significant industrial history is in its national historic landmarks.

The Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown was one of the nation’s first integrated steel works, the world’s leading steel producer in the 1870s and the site of several technical innovations that helped to develop the industry.

Horseshoe Curve near Altoona is an engineering marvel that continues to do the job it was constructed for in the early 1850s: enabling massive freight and passenger trains to surmount the Allegheny Front.

Then there’s the East Broad Top Railroad near Huntingdon, which, frankly, was nothing unusual when it first started to service the Broad Top of southern Huntingdon County in the 1870s – just another narrow-gauge steam-powered common carrier of freight and passengers.

Today, however, the EBT is the only one left east of the Rocky Mountains. Adding to its significance are its cluster of original industrial shops that operated via an overhead belt system powered by a stationary steam engine.

Memories of those shops, with their webs of belts and spinning flywheels, operating a variety of specialized machines, impressed me more than the steam locomotive did when I first experienced the EBT complex in the late 1990s.

At that time the East Broad Top was a tourist railroad, providing excursioners with a steam-railroad experience and pleasant outing through a bucolic landscape to a picnic grove and back.

In those days operations were made possible by the Kovalchick family of Indiana County, who acquired the narrow-gauge railroad complex in 1956 and began operating it as a tourist railroad in the 1960s. Maintenance burdens and rising operating costs eventually closed the operation in 2011.

For the rest of the decade, the EBT’s future was clouded. However in 2020 a newly formed nonprofit organization, The EBT Foundation, Inc., acquired the complex.

By May of 2021, track had been restored, some rolling stock was back in operating condition, and the East Broad Top Railroad once again was carrying passengers on a one-hour, nine-mile ride. Just as significantly, shop tours once again became available, enabling visitors to see the freight office, roundhouse and machine shop complex that kept the EBT in operation, during its 80-year history as a working railroad.

The distinctive qualities of the EBT’s story and resources, combined with a highly credentialed EBT Foundation Board of Directors, have attracted about $4.4 million in federal, state and private grants since 2020 – a very impressive piece of fund-raising in such a short period of time.

Equally significant are the volunteer resources of two “public partners.” A group known as the Friends of the East Broad Top has been working to preserve and restore EBT resources for 20 years, committing over 60,000 hours during that period and raising badly needed funds through special events.

Another partner is the nonprofit, volunteer organization, “Railways to Yesterday,” which operates the adjacent Rockhill Trolley Museum. Both volunteer groups work with the EBT to schedule special events, family-oriented excursions and holiday-themed experiences.

Considering the expertise, hands-on experience, financial resources, volunteers and partners that have been assembled, it shouldn’t be surprising to learn that the EBT Foundation has some very ambitious plans in place for both the near- and more-distant future.

The vision is to preserve and operate the EBT’s steam locomotives and to use the railroad as an educational, interpretive and economic development resource – not just for the immediate Orbisonia and Rockhill area but for much of southern Huntingdon County.

May is Historic Preservation Month. Those who wonder about the value of such a thing needn’t look any further for an answer than the East Broad Top Railroad. Fired by fresh preservation efforts, the EBT appears to be under a full-head of steam.

To participate in a free webinar on the EBT’s revival, at 7:00 p.m. on May 25, go to PreservationPA.org. Learn more about the EBT at EBTFoundation.org.

To respond to this column – or read other columns by Dave Hurst – visit www.hurstmediaworks.com.

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Scattered thunderstorms early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low 66F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Scattered thunderstorms early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low 66F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

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