Reading Railroad Heritage Museum (1/8/2022)

Saturday, January 8, 2022 (continued)

On recommendation, we visited the Reading Railroad Heritage Museum in Hamburg, PA.

Since 2008, the Reading Railroad Heritage Museum is
housed in the former Pennsylvania Steel foundry complex
at 500 South Third Street in Hamburg, PA

After an introductory film about the Pennsylvania & Reading Railroad (initially built to replace the Delaware Canal in transporting coal from the Upper Lehigh Valley to Philadelphia), we went outside to see some of the locomotives and rolling stock.

Freight cars were introduced by name and function, from
a hopper car and a covered hopper car (to carry cocao beans
to Hershey!), box cars and a gondola, to passenger cars

EMD GP7 RDG 621 First Generation (1952-1953) with a forward
long hood/rear cab, as denoted by the "F1" at the top of the
forward steps, letting us know this is the front of the locomotive

The first diesel locomotives followed the design of the steam locomotives with the cab (for the engineeer) in the rear, then later the cab was moved to the front of diesels.

EMD FP7A RDG #900 (1950) was used exclusively for
passenger trains; it was noted that a small steam engine was
built in the rear of the hood to supply heat to the passenger cars 

Observation/Business Car RDG #15, the
'Henry E. Huntington' (named for the railroad magnate
who owned the Pacific Electric Railway) was the last
Business Car built for the Reading Railroad by the
Bethlehem Ship Building Company Harlan Plant
in Wilmington Delaware in 1924

RDG #90847 LEMTU (Locomotive Engineer Mobile
Training Unit) was used for air brake instruction and then
training in the operation of diesel locomotives

EMD GP39-2 CSX #4317/RDG #3412 (1974) was one of
the last new locomotives delivered to the Reading Railroad
before the Conrail takeover

Auxiliary Tender RDG #90691 (1901) is a rare surviving
steam tender (most were scrapped); in 1943 it was coverted
into a water car for the Tamaqua (PA) Fire Fighting train

Class NMj RDG #92832 (1937) in a design chosen by the
Reading Railroad that became a standard in the northeast
quadrant of the United States and was thus
nicknamed "the Northeastern caboose"

Coal-fueled heat source and stove on the caboose

Multiple Unit (MU) Power Car RDG #863 (1929-1930)
is an electric-powered commuter car

ALCO C630, Class RSA-14 RDG #5308
(1967) in Reading colors

The C630s were the longest and tallest locomotives
owned by the Reading Railroad 

Back inside the museum:

Lebanon Valley Junction Control Tower console

The O-gauge model train layout

The tunnel portal of the G-gauge layout

The HO-gauge model trail layout

Take note of the table skirting!

The coal mining half of the layout

Coal handling and preparation plant

Strip mining anthracite coal

Waterfalls and river

The town half of the HO-gauge layout

Some familiar rowhouses!

The station is quite large in this town

Yet the power plant in this town is a bit small

A peek into a station agent's office

One of several decorated trees in the museum

Train ornaments

The S-gauge model train layout (where the
locomotives emitted "smoke" or "steam")

The N-gauge model train layout

Poor view of a great mural (2017, by Carrie Kingsbury)