East Broad Top eyes restoration of Coles Valley Branch
ROCKHILL FURNACE, Pa. — The nonprofit organization that now owns the East Broad Top Railroad is considering rebuilding a mountainous branch line that’s been inactive since the 1940s, a move that would provide spectacular ridgetop vistas and increase the number of destinations available to visitors.
The nonprofit EBT Foundation, Inc., owner of the historic narrow-gauge line in south-central Pennsylvania, is considering revival of a 2.5-mile-long branch known variously as the Coles Valley Branch, Midvalley Branch, or Joller Branch, Joller being the postal designation for the former mining community at the top of Wrays Hill. Perched at an altitude of 1,600 feet, the town was named for the first and last letters of the name of a mining operator there, John Miller. Both deep and strip mining eventually played out, and reclamation projects have erased most of the evidence of structures that once stood on the site.
East Broad Top eyes restoration of Coles Valley Branch | Trains Magazine
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ROCKHILL FURNACE, Pa. — The nonprofit organization that now owns the East Broad Top Railroad is considering rebuilding a mountainous branch line that’s been inactive since the 1940s, a move that would provide spectacular ridgetop vistas and increase the number of destinations available to visitors.
The nonprofit EBT Foundation, Inc., owner of the historic narrow-gauge line in south-central Pennsylvania, is considering revival of a 2.5-mile-long branch known variously as the Coles Valley Branch, Midvalley Branch, or Joller Branch, Joller being the postal designation for the former mining community at the top of Wrays Hill. Perched at an altitude of 1,600 feet, the town was named for the first and last letters of the name of a mining operator there, John Miller. Both deep and strip mining eventually played out, and reclamation projects have erased most of the evidence of structures that once stood on the site.
