Schuylkill County's only Easter Bunny trains of 2017 operated from Minersville on Saturday, the 8th of April. Three trips traveled from the Minersville Station to Schuylkill Haven, a 70-minute, fifteen-mile round-trip, with departures at 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 and 3:00 p.m., powered by steam locomotive #113. The Easter Bunny rode every train and visited with every child.
Railway Restoration Project 113 maintains and operates the steam locomotive that pulled the trains, and our volunteers shoveled coal into the firebox, while the Reading & Northern Railroad provided the coaches, engineer, conductor, and car hosts.
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The locomotive ran as C.N.J. #115, using the front headlight from that long-scrapped sister; for information about how that came to pass, click here.
Reading & Northern engineer Christopher Bost switches our ex-CNJ office car onto the siding on the north side of Minersville first thing in the morning on Saturday, the 8th of April.
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Photo © Oren B. Helbok
This excellent video mixes lineside vantage points with aerial drone footage to document the full day of trips, edited into a single northbound trip from Schuylkill Haven to Minersville.
Video © Matthew Flanagan
In these two photos by good friend Ed Kapriske, the 3 p.m. train heads northbound through Cressona, with a crowd of our volunteers enjoying the ride on the tender.
Photos © Edward Kapriske