The Nittany and Bald Eagle RR that runs near my house in Blair, Centre, and Clinton Counties in PA.
Found the company site, but does anyone else model this RR?
Where should I start collecting info on it? I guess I’ll have to get out and do some railfanning!
It’s a cool little shortline and I think it would be great Proto-type to model?
Anyone have any input or comments.
I grew up in Lemont (just outside State College) and have noticed the emergence of the Nittany and Bald Eagle with interest. About 3 years ago, I took my sister in law to the train station in Tyrone, and spent about two hours watching a N&BE switcher make up a train. They have a small yard right behind the station. Unfortuantely, I didn’t take my camera.
Do you subscribe to Trains Magazine? There was a feature on Short Lines about a year ago that had some information on the N&BE. There is also a book about central PA railroads that will give you some ideas (more Pennsy and Lewisburg & Tyrone, but still). I can go find the Trains article, but you’ll have to dig for the book (unfortunately, I paged through it a the Barnes & Noble in State College, and don’t remember the title – it might still be there, though).
My gut feeling is that you’ve carved out your own niche here, and you’re not going to find a whole lot of people doing the same thing. Good luck, though… an post some pix when you get it up and running. I’d love to see your representation of my home turf.
FWIW, Laser-Art Structures makes a model kit of the Centre Hall station, which was about 5 miles away from where I grew up. Walthers Catalog # 181-663.
Thanks for the info CTValley. It may be quite some time before I start on this build, just scratching the surface right now, gathering info, stuff like that.
If memory serves me correctly a couple of months back Trains and Locomotives had a feature on an excursion up that line; this was a feature on 3751(?)–the Horseshoe Curve engine, anyway–operations in the '90s.
The book CTValley is thinking of is about the Bellefonte Central almost exclusively. Titled Rails to Penn State. Its a pretty neat book. Unless theres some other book about railroads in Centre County on the loose out there.
During my time out there, I only saw one train ever in the vicinity of Milesburg if I recall correctly. Corning shut down their plant out there while I was in college (can’t blame them, they made the tape that goes into VHS tapes or something equally obselete) and there weren’t much else around that had any reason to get deliveries by rail.
I have followed this line on trips to Altoona, only saw a train at once by their terminus near Bellefonte. I believe NS uses this line as a bypass occasionally. The one train I saw with my friends hit the back of a pick- up parked too close to the tracks on a curve. Don’t see that too often.