2015 Easter Bunny trains

On Saturday, the 28th of March, #113 had her first outing of the year, heading three trips from Minersville to Schuylkill Haven and back. For the first time, the Easter Bunny came to spend the day aboard our train with kids of all ages, greeting everyone and handing out treats. The Reading & Northern's Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway (the R&N's passenger arm) acted as the trip's sponsor (Project 113 also sold tickets), and the Reading & Northern provided the train: a GP-39RN on the north end, seven coaches, the power car, and a bay-window caboose. 113 pushed it southbound and pulled it northbound, with the diesel between her and the coaches; the photographers all hoped the diesel would get put on the south end of the train, so 113 would have only coaches behind her within camera range, but that didn't to pass -- perhaps next time! In any event, the diesel did only a little bit of the work here and there . . .

The trains would not run without the help of the Reading & Northern, and without the MANY people who put in countless hours as volunteers. You don't think we would have to pay the Easter Bunny to come, do you?

Two photos and video © Ed Kapriskie

Photo © Bernard Krebs

Photo © Oren B. Helbok

First thing in the morning, 113 had to move the CNJ #98 business car off the siding at the depot in Minersville and move it to another siding north of the Sunbury Street crossing (top).

On the 11 a.m. trip later that morning, she put on a fine show for the photo line at West Cressona

(left). The sun shone intermittently during the day, coming out for the southbound trip crossing the West Branch of the Schuylkill (top right).

Crewmen Jim Garraway (in the gangway) and Jesse Dorn (in the cab) have worked long and hard to make days like this one success-ful: a HUGE thank you to them and MANY others!

113 put on quite a show lifting the train through the yard at West Cressona at the end of the day, passing an old Reading Company gondola now owned by the Reading Company Technical & Historical Society.