This Yard is tough and on tough geography…The yard us narrow and little walking room beween cars and is between a canal and cliffs…Why here?
Well, there is this government operation called Amtrak that “cut off” Conrail access to the old PRR main line into Philadelphia. Conrail decided to do the logical thing and use a line it had, the Reading Lebanon Valley line (east-west main) through Reading to Allentown.( Which had a recently-1973- refurbished yard) From there the best way into Metro New York/New Jersey was on the Lehigh Valley, since that route had no commuter traffic on it west of Aldene! And there was a good yard in Oak Island(after rebuilding, that is) with little Commuter interference! AND it was theirs, not Amtrak’s, thus saving on trackage rights payments. This, however, put an end to Electric freight operations, and that was it for the GG1 survivors, E33s and E44s.
Lack of other options combined with a “gotta get it done” mentality conrail started with.
Adrianspeeder
So how much time did conrail add on north/south routes? Vs The Amtrak Line
Add to that the Oak Island-Allentown-Reading-Harrisburg line was historically mostly a freight route to begin with. Further, it might have been a little bit shorter than the Pennsylvania’s line via the Trenton Cutoff and their line to Enola through Columbia and Marietta.