The Secret Valley Line keeps adding more railroad cars and engines to its collection in preparation for its planned fall kick-off of passenger excursions along the 9-mile Colebrookdale Railroad spur between Pottstown and Boyertown.
Most recently, the Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust received new passenger rail cars that were spotted on the spur’s bridge over High Street in Pottstown.
The passenger coaches, which date back to 1919, arrived Monday morning.
They were built for the Adirondack Railway. The cars, No. 5033 and No. 4970, were moved by rail from Saratoga, N.Y., to Pottstown.
When the third coach arrives, they will be moved to Boyertown where the cars will be refurbished by volunteers to their original splendor and used for passengers to enjoy on the new line.
They may just be moved to Boyertown by another new arrival, a pint-sized little locomotive, known as the ‘Plymouth,’ which recently arrived in the rail yard in Boyertown.
It was built in 1964 by the Plymouth Locomotive Works of Plymouth, Ohio, one of the world’s most prolific builders of small industrial locomotives, with over 7,500 constructed.
The locomotive was donated to the Trust by NRG Energy Inc., of Princeton, N.J., operators of the now-decommissioned Titus Generating Station in Cumru Township, Berks County.
While most Plymouth locomotives were very small by comparison to today’s modern diesels – nearly all of them weighed 25 tons or less – the Colebrookdale’s new acquisition tips the scale at 30 tons.
‘It’s just a little baby engine, but it will pull more than you might expect,’ said Nathaniel Guest, president of the Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust non-profit.
‘We’ll use it to shift cars in our yard and to do occasional jaunts down the line,’ he said.
‘We are very happy the Plymouth will have a good home here,’ said Guest. ‘We know it will have a great retirement career hauling tourists. I suspect little kinds will find it just their size.’
The Trust has been leading the effort to restore the Civil War-era Colebrookdale Railroad linking Pottstown and Boyertown and plans to haul both freight and tourist passenger trains starting in the fall.
For more about the Secret Valley Line, www.facebook.com/colebrookdalerailroad
You can watch weekly YouTube updates on the progress of the project on the Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust’s YouTube channel.
