The Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad operates 317.6 miles of track from its southernmost terminal at Reading to its northernmost terminal at Mehoopany, above Scranton. Branch lines peel off to the east to service the anthracite coal mines and to the west to load materials from their original corporate customers in the Hamburg area.

With trackage on both sides of the Lehigh River, RBM&N wanted a direct connection across the Lehigh at the Nesquehoning Junction. Prior to the opening of the bridge, RBM&N had to send their trains south through Jim Thorpe to access the Packerton Junction Bridge.

Originally founded as the Blue Mountain & Reading Railroad, the company began acquiring trackage to the north and renamed itself the Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad.

RBM&N has been bucking a soft economy and growing at an average 20% per year since its founding in 1983. This year, it celebrated its twentieth anniversary.

Al Luedtke of Jim Thorpe is retiring as the vice president – mechanical at Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad. The mechanical shop is refurbishing a domed passenger car that was used for the inaugural run across the Nesquehoning Bridge.

Mechanical V.P, Al Luedtke (left) and mechanic, Albert Seiler, provide federally mandated inspections of the trucks, brakes, and wheel assemblies every 92 days.

Twentieth anniversary locomotive rests outside Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad’s Locomotive Repair Building. The first building constructed at the railroad’s current location, it has capacity to house up to ten locomotives.

Workmen install timbers on Nesquehoning Junction Bridge north of Jim Thorpe in preparation for Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad’s new line across the Lehigh River. The new bridge crossing will save up to two hours per trip.

The Railroad Resurrection of Eastern Pennsylvania

Railroading is alive and growing in Eastern Pennsylvania. The once failing industry has reinvented itself, and a local short line railroad, the Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad (RBM&N,) is leading the way.

Chosen as the 2002 Regional Railroad of the Year by Railway Age, RBM&N has been bucking a soft economy and growing at an average 20% per year since its founding in 1983. In 2003, it celebrated its twentieth anniversary.

The most visible sign of RBM&N’s progress has been its renovation of the Nesquehoning Junction Bridge across the Lehigh River, between Jim Thorpe and Glen Onoko. The Nesquehoning and the connecting Coalport Truss Bridge are now fully operational with new heavy-duty timbers, new rail and stoning. With the upgrades, trains can cross the bridge without speed restrictions.

RBM&N operates 317.6 miles of track from its southernmost terminal at Reading to its northernmost terminal at Meehoopany, above Scranton. Branch lines peel off to the east and west to service the anthracite coal mines and their original corporate customers in the Hamburg area.

With trackage on both sides of the Lehigh River, RBM&N wanted a direct connection across the Lehigh at the Nesquehoning Junction. Prior to the opening of the bridge, RBM&N had to direct their trains south through Jim Thorpe to access the Packerton Junction Bridge.

Besides being several miles out of the way, RBM&N required permission to use the tracks to, from, and across the Packerton Junction Bridge. This led to delays of up to two hours. RBM&N saw renovation of the Nesquehoning Bridge as a way to keep their trains on track that they controlled—thus eliminating inter railroad delays.

RBM&N transports anthracite coal, lumber, plastics and other bulk materials in trains of up to 120 rail cars. As the RBM&N trains approach from the north, the locomotives must pull the entire train past the bridge, then the locomotives must disconnect, move to a parallel track, travel to the opposite side of the train, move back to the main track and reconnect. This is not a change as a similar procedure was required at the Packerton Junction.

The Nesquehoning Junction crossing allows RBM&N to connect to the eastmost track, track #1, on the east side of the Lehigh River. The Coalport Truss Bridge allows the train to cross over track #2 of CONRAIL/Northfork Southern.

Renovations to the Glen Onoko entrance road were completed in 2003 to provide a sufficient radius for the tracks coming over the bridge to turn and tie into track #1. The Nesquehoning Bridge was originally designed for two lanes of traffic. RBM&N currently plans one run per day over the bridge and did not foresee the need for a second track. An agreement between the State Park and RBM&N allows for the second right-of-way to be developed into a hike/bike crossing that will become part of the Delaware and Lehigh Corridor Trail.

Reading Blue Mountain and Northern

To find out more about RBM&N, TIMES NEWS visited RBM&N headquarters in Port Clinton and spoke with Marketing and Customer Service Representative, Ed Heck.

It all began after CONRAIL, the dominant railroad in Schuylkill, Carbon, Monroe, and northeast Pennsylvania, began spinning off marginal lines. “We had been fortunate to purchase several of those spin-off lines at different stages throughout the 1980s and 90s,” said Ed.

Two segments of their railroad were purchased at different times and weren’t physically connected. “To get from one railroad to another, we had to run on other railroad tracks,” he explained. “We used the Carbon Schuylkill - the jointly county-owned line that runs from roughly Barnesville/Hometown to Jim Thorpe, and the Northfork Southern.”

“We had been granted by agreement, trackage rights to run on these railroads, but it involved a lengthy process of calls to the dispatchers of the other railroads to secure permission,” he continued. “The Nesquehoning Bridge allowed us to connect our two divisions, the Reading and the Lehigh Divisions, with our own track on our own property.”

Creation of RBM&N

In 1983, after CONRAIL abandoned a line in Berks County between Reading and Hamburg, several shippers were left without rail service. A consortium of these shippers, which included Glen-Gery Brick and Eagle Chemical, approached Andy Muller, Jr., a long time railroad buff and a local entrepreneur and coin dealer, with a proposal to create a short line railroad to provide service on the abandoned line.

They formed a rail consortium group run by Berks County. “We got a diesel locomotive in 1983 and ran eighty cars that first year,” remembered Ed. “We worked out of the F&F Coin Shop in Hamburg.”

They started with 13 miles of track on the east side of the Schuylkill River from Temple above Reading to Hamburg. Initially, RBM&N acted as a broker to rent and lease railroad cars.

They began growing. Now they own thirty locomotives. They moved to Port Clinton and in 1990, built a Maintenance Building to service the engines. When the railroads “cleaned house” in the 1980s and 1990s, RBM&N acquired a fleet of coal cars. They currently have 600.

Although a freight railroad from the start, RBM&N runs excursions to the Jim Thorpe area in the fall foliage season. “It’s been a great ride on this railroad,” Ed noted.

Keeping the Engines Running

Al Luedtke of Jim Thorpe heads the mechanical department at RBM&N. He is responsible for the inspection and repair of RBM&N’s fleet of locomotives.

After retiring from a career in railroading that included work with Amtrak and managing his own locomotives, he took a job with RBM&N as a conductor and engineer. As the company grew, Al became the mechanical vice president. He will be taking a second retirement in January of 2004 and expects to do some consulting.

The eight man mechanical shop provides Federal inspections and takes care of the mechanical work on the power assemblies, brakes and wheels of the locomotives. Electrical work is contracted outside.

Federal inspections are required every 92 days. At that time, Al’s group routinely changes filters, and checks fluid levels.

As an example of the size of the locomotives, the mechanical shop is currently working on 16-cylinder 2,500 HP and a 20-cylinder, 3,200 HP diesels. The 20-cylinder locomotive has a 4,000-gallon tank. Under full load, it burns 190 gpm.

Al enjoys railroading as a hobby. He is completing a 750-foot track for a 1/12th scale steam engine powered train. He hopes to have it operational by the spring.