Dual-Gauge Concrete Crossing - East Broad Top RR, Mt. Union, PA

Recent photo (yes, mine) of the above:

“Looking southeast 5:00 PM Thurs. 18 August 2011 - road is “new” Rt. 522 Bypass, “Croghan Pike”. Southeast side of Mt. Union, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, at approx. these Lat./ Long. coords.:
N 40.37632 - W 77.87160”

I have a few other photos of it, but I believe they wouldn’t add much more information.

More information from another thread here - “Cities closing grade crossings without railroad permission” - see post dated 06-15-2010, at:

http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/175330.aspx?PageIndex=1

[quote user=“Paul_D_North_Jr”]

TomDiehl:
Oddly, in Mount Union PA we had the opposite happen. A new cutoff for PA Route 522 bypassing Mount Union was put in several years ago. At one point, it crossed the approach to the East Broad Top yards (dual gauge) and there was debate about what to do. Two factors came into play: 1) The East Broad Top is a registered National Historic Landmark, and 2) A small upstart, called the Mount Union Connecting Railroad, was attempting to reopen rail service to an industrial park in Allenport to a connection with the former Pennsy, now Norfolk Southern. Probably the newest rail on the East Broad Top and one of the most modern dual gauge crossings around.

This is to the southeast side of Mount Union, where that new bypass down the east side - E. Chestnut St. - drops down from 22/ 522 on the north side, and ties into ‘old’ 522 / E. Shirley St., with a ‘Y’ type intersection - right

Most interesting. I’m certain that our Australian and Brazilian forum members are quite familiar with an arrangement like this.

East Broad Top RR…Surprised it’s still together and running. Remember some time ago it seemed to have rather difficult financial problems. Hope it can continue on.

Would be nice if it could be reworked to have more mileage to run on. Rehab {what I believe is still in place}, and allow longer rides.

Rode that route back 50 years ago…In the passenger car with the wicker chairs. It was the last car on the train.

Is either set of tracks in use? It looks like asphalt or something is covering part of both, and the rails have no shine.

For some reason, I keep coming back and looking at this photo…not sure why, but it is compelling none the less.

Makes me wonder what the equipment back then would have looked like…