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11 Most Endangered
East Broad Top Railroad
Year Listed: 1996
Location: , Pennsylvania
Current Status: Favorable
Threat: Deterioration
Significance
Winding through 31 miles of Pennsylvania's western mountains, East Broad Top Railroad includes locomotives and cars, narrow-gauge rail lines, bridges and tunnels, a repair shop complex, depots and even a company town. Also nestled in the remarkably unchanged landscape are many of the villages and towns which sprang up during East Broad Top's early years of operation. Today, the railroad transports tourists back in tome in some of America's oldest and most authentic passenger cars. But the buildings are deteriorating at a rapid rate while the railroad awaits funding release.
Updates
The Allegheny Ridge State Park has expanded to incorporate a portion of Huntington County that includes the historic East Broad Top Railroad. As part of the state heritage park, East Broad Top will now be eligible for heritage park funding. Hope remains high that the current efforts will result in the preservation of this unmatched example of living history.
Preservation Magazine featured East Broad Top Railroad in its March/April 2008 issue, detailing its long history and describing a site that remains mostly unchanged. Brenda Barrett, a former Pennsylvania historic preservation official who is now director of the state's Bureau of Recreation & Conservation, is quoted in the article saying "Unequivocally, everyone agrees this is a nationally important site." Linn Moedinger, a railroad-preservation and steam-operation expert who is president of the Strasburg Rail Road, in Strasburg, Pa., goes even further. "The East Broad Top in my opinion may well be the largest historic artifact in the United States," says Moedinger. "There may not be certain aspects that would pass museum white-glove standards, but there's more honest fabric, more historic essence, than just about any place I've been to. Six Baldwin engines that have known no other home? Excuse me, but it doesn't get any better than that."
In December of 2008, Friends of the East Broad Top reported that East Broad Top president and owner Joseph Kovalchick is exploring the possibility of selling East Broad Top to a not-for-profit corporation organized to preserve and operate the railroad. Though there are no plans to shut down the Railroad and liquidate its equipment and other assets, he Kocalchick could not yet confirm if EBT would operate in 2009 as it has in recent years.
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