The wooden, open-platform passenger equipment of the Philadelphia & Reading form a background for this view of Ephrata's "Mountain Springs Rifles." the destination of the local militia group is not known, but possibly it was summer training at the military reserveation at Moutn Gretna, Pennsylvania. Photo, Historical Society of the Cocalico Valley, Ephrata, Pa.
The old Toledo & Ohio Central was still a corporate entity when this scene was made of loading Lancaster County's "cash crop," tobacco at the Reading & Columbia's freight platform in Ephrata. In the right background is what appears to be the battery operated street car of the Ephrata & Lebanon Street Railway. Photo, Historical Society of the Cocalico Valley, Ephrata, Pa.
The date is not known, but obviously it was one of the snows of yesteryear that did in the Reading's camelback No. 1577 when it hit the snow packed crossing at Main Street in Ephrata. A goodly number of overcoated "sidewalk superintendents," are on hand awaiting the "wrecker," already dispatched out of Reading to get the 1577 back on its normal path down to Lancaster.
A cut of box cars occupy the "house track," and baggage trucks await the next passenger arrival in this photo of the Reading station at Ephrata made in the late 1920's. Ephrata, in railroad palance, was known as "F-Office," the telegraphic designation of the station. Photo, Historical Society of the Cocalico Valley, Ephrata.
