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Minersville Revisited

On our Saturday drive, Kris and I paused at Reading & Northern’s station at Minersville, Pa. This is home to the preserved Central Railroad of New Jersey 0-6-0 number 113.

On several occasions in year’s gone by, I’ve photographed 113 under steam at Minersville. On those occasions the station has been alive with visitors, who had flocked to the railroad for annual Santa Train excursions.

Saturday’s visit was a complete contrast to my earlier visits. Old 113 was cold, and the rails were rusted. The station was locked up tight and not a wheel was turning. Elsewhere trains were on the move, but not here.

For me Minersville is like Brigadoon, and someday, it will come to life again.

CNJ 113. Photo exposed in NEF RAW and converted to PNG format using DxO Pure Raw software, then adjusted with Lightroom for presentation here.

These photos were exposed using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm lens.

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2023, King Coal and Co., at Bloom

The maze of trackage in the Scranton-Wilkes Barre area has always fascinated me.

No less than eight railroads once built into this anthracite rich region. While coal ceased to be a primary source of revenue decades ago, numerous lines remain as a legacy of this once intensive railroad traffic.

Kris and I followed Reading & Northern’s Pittston-Jim Thorpe excursion. Not far from Pittston, I pulled over at the location known as ‘Bloom’ where tracks remain on two levels, and here I exposed this series of photographs.

I can only wonder what this place may have looked like in decades gone by. I was delighted that only minutes passed from the moment of my ‘discovery’ until the passage of this train. ‘King Coal’ is Reading & Northern’s round-end observation car on the tail end of the excursion.

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Foray to Lykens, PA.

Early in the winter, we drove north into coal country.

I was curious to visit Lykens, a comparatively remote Pennsylvania town, that was once at the end of a Reading Company line which had included a switchback near Tower City.

Upon reaching Lykens, we found little evidence of the old Reading, now many decades gone. However, we located the old Pennsylvania Railroad station and yard.

The station is now a museum, although it was closed on the afternoon of our visit.

Market Street in Lykens, where a branch of the PRR once crossed.
The tracks were lifted a long time ago, but the old PRR station at Lykens survives.

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