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"Chartered in 1856, the East Broad Top Railroad began operating in 1873 through scenic Huntingdon County in south-central Pennsylvania. This well-managed narrow-gauge railroad connected the isolated Broad Top Mountain coal field with the Pennsylvania Railroad at Mount Union. With a decline in the hauling of coal, service ended in 1956. Nick Kovalchick, president of the Kovalchick Salvage Company of Indiana, Pennsylvania, purchased the railroad and reopened a portion of it as a tourist line in 1960. Through vintage photographs, East Broad Top Railroad showcases the steam locomotives, rolling stock, and railroad yard at Rockhill Furnace, which is the most historic railroad yard in North America."
"In 1865, as the Civil War was drawing to a close, plans were underway in Boston for a railroad construction project to begin in Greenup County, Kentucky. Eventually the Eastern Kentucky Railway Company would extend its main track through two more counties, Carter and Lawrence. Spanning just 36 miles of main track from Riverton to Webbville, the
Eastern Kentucky Railway became a lifeline for the economic and social activities of the people of northeastern Kentucky. Even though the original plan of extending the railway much farther south and bridging the Ohio River to the north never came about, the railway struggled along for more than 65 years."
"In 1884, the Joliet, Aurora and Northern Railroad was formed to connect the growing industrial cities of Joliet and Aurora. This system evolved into the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway. By 1893, it encircled Chicago from Waukegan, via Joliet, to Porter, Indiana. The railroad developed into a prosperous subsidiary of U.S. Steel at the beginning of the 20th century. It primarily served the steel mills and facilities of its parent company and as a bridge route between the many Chicago railroads it crossed. It has also been an industry innovator. It was one of the first Class 1 railroads to completely convert to diesel locomotive power in 1949 and the first in the world to install an automatic, electrically operated car retarder yard in 1952."
"On the morning of May 10, 1869, a gang of Irish immigrants met a party of Chinese laborers on a windy bluff northwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. Tired to the bone, the two groups laid down the last of countless wooden ties, bought at the exorbitant cost of six dollars apiece, and thus joined two great rail lines, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, to form a single transcontinental route. That rail line made possible the mass settlement of the West, and, as those who conceived it well knew, it changed the course of American history." ~ Empire Express - Building The First Transcontinental Railroad
"An illustrated history of Washington State's Everett & Monte Cristo Railway, a spectacular, interesting, yet troubled line that left a lasting impression on the area" ~ The Everett & Monte Cristo Railway