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Trackside Reading Anthracite Country with Arch & Bruce Kantner Morning Sun Books
Trackside Reading Anthracite Country with Arch & Bruce Kantner By Jeremy F. Plant
Hard Cover with Dust Jacket Reflection of light on some photos
Copyright 2005
128 Pages
Like many of the smaller Eastern roads, the Reading has attracted devoted fans and historians well beyond its rather modest size. Before the era of mergers and megasystems, the Reading had an importance well beyond its size -around 1,300 route miles. The Reading's good fortunes were based first on hard coal, then on its role in moving raw materials, finished products, and bridge line freight through one of the most industrialized regions in the country. Seen on a map of the U. S. rail system, the Reading didn't look like much: a web of lines that seemed to go from the New York and Philadelphia urban centers to rather unimportant western termini at Newberry, outside Williamsport in the middle of Pennsylvania, and Lurgan, Pennsylvania, a dot on the map west of Harrisburg. Other lines connected Wilmington, Delaware and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with the main lines. In the anthracite region that provided the foundation of the railroad in the middle of the 19th century, the Reading was dominant, its distinctive red hopper logo proclaiming it to be the greatest of the anthracite roads, even after that industry began its precipitous downward plunge in the middle years of the 20th century. Its longest runs were only 200 miles or so; most were shorter, and the road was as much a terminal road in its urban centers as it was a conduit for long-distance, moneymaking freight traffic. Yet in 1950, in the period when the Kantners were shooting the railroad, it ranked fifth among the nation's railroads in annual freight tonnage hauled - a remarkable statistic given its small size and the competition from neighboring railroads in the crowded territory it served.
READING ANTHRACITE COUNTRY WITH ARCH & BRUCE KANTNER 3
THE READING:
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION 4
CONVERSATIONS WITH
BRUCE KANTNER 6
MAIN LINE 10
HAMBURG 12
PORT CLINTON 14
AUBURN 20
ALONGSIDE THE SCHUYLKILL 22
SCHUYLKILL HAVEN 28
BUDD CARS 32
WEST OF THE STATION 34
IMINE HILL CROSSING 36
CONNOR 38
THE LEHIGH VALLEY BRIDGE 41
THE G-3 43
POTTSVILLE 44
MILL CREEK JUNCTION 47
ST. CLAIR 48
FRACKVILLE BRANCH 51
MINE HILL &
SCHUYLKILL HAVEN BRANCH 53
CRESSONA 54
THE MALLETS 56
CONSOLIDATIONS 58
STEAM IN WINTER 60
THE 2-10-2s 62
BALDWIN DIESELS 64
ALCO DIESELS 66
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