This view shows the Atglen & Susquehanna branch tracks in the process of relocation prior to electrification through Columbia in 1938. Scene is looking north fromLocust Street. "LG-42" tower is in the distance.
Provenance
From box labeled Pennsylvania RR Main Line, Columbia Br., A & S Br.
The almost forgotten era of steam returned momentarily when a fan trip out of Baltimore powered by two former Canadian Pacific steam locomotives puased at the Locust Street crossing in Columbia in May of 1969
Provenance
From box labeled Pennsylvania RR Main Line, Columbia Br., A & S Br.
Pictures aren't always what they seem to be. Looking for all the world like the old "York-Philadelphia Express" of years gone by, it is in truth the Strasburg's former P. R. R. classic #7002 at Columbi's Front Street crossing on November 11, 1988 being towed westward to Gettysburg to participate in a reinactment of Lincoln's trip to Gettysburg. A diesel at the other end of the train is providing the power.
As long as the baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia outshopped locomotives for western roads, Columbia usually had a grand stand seat to see the new locomotives en route. An early Southern Pacific "Cab-in-Front" mallet #4017 lays over on Manor Siding in Columbia in 1911. The man by the cabin si the "escort" who accompanied the engine to California.
The Pennsylvania Railroad was wont to refer to its signal towers as "Block Stations." Columbia's "COLA" block station controlled operations on three busy lines. It was closed in February 1987 when dispatching was moved to Harrisburg. This interior scene during "COLA's" last days show left to right Gordon Peters, retired long time operator observingoperator Joseph Sacrepont registering a passing train.
This copy of a 1908 view card shows a Philadelphia & Reading "camel-back" type locomotive blowing off steam along the side of the ornate passenger station that graced the entrance to Lititz Springs Park. The plant of the old Ideal Cocoa & Chocolate Company is in the background. The station was later demolished but years later historic-minded Lititz buildt an accurate reproduction on almost the same site.
A trainman waves from the baggage door of the Pennsylvania's York - Lancaster, one car gas-electric run during one of its last evening departures from Front and Walnut Street in Columbia. A few days later on January 4, 1954, the car made its final farewll trip from Lancaster to York.
The Philadelphia & Reading hauled a considerable volume of anthracite coal from up-state Pennsylvania mines to Columbia where it was trans-shipped to the canal boats of the Susquehanna & Tidewater Canal which reached Havre De Grace, Maryland where ocean going tugs pulled the canal boats down the bay to Baltimore and as far as the coal bunkers of the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. This stereo scene shows at P&R locomotive switching at the coal wharf in the 1880's.
Any visit of "top-brass" railroad officials usually produced shock waves of paranoia among the station staff. When the Reading's president Ravelle W. Brown made a March 1944 inspection of the Reading & Columbia branch, a Reading Baldwin-built ten wheeler No. 602 did the honors. The official train consisting of a crew coach and business car No. 156 is shown by the Reading freight station in Columbia. As soon as the train pulled out of town there was a collective sigh of "Good God... they're gone!"
"Zeamer the Druggist," was an early producer of Columbia view cards. This late 1890's view shows the commercial center at Front and Walnut Streets. From left to right is the gabled Adams Express office, the stone Pennsylvania Railroad station and the imposing columned Tremont House. The Tremont as a hostelry in its grander days was known throughout the Philadelphia Division for its planked shad dinners and the potency of its Christmas Wassail bowl.
This view card was obviously made from a photo dating back to 1872 when Columbia's large round house at Front & Bridge Street was under construction. It replaced the earlier "East Columbia" roundhouse. ti was opened on April 28, 18 74 when the large engine "Romeo" was stalled in the new structure. It was reported that 16 engines were stalled on that far off day. Little is known of the ancestry of the "Romeo."
A long gone engine from a long gone scene. The Reading's 4-4-0 type camelback built in 1883 stands on the turntable at the Reading's engine facility in Columbia in September of 1928. The engine was scrapped a year later and the Reading turntable near Columbia's South Fourth Street has been gone since the 1930's and is almost forgotten in local memory.
Few would recognize this to-day as the site of what remains of the Norfolk Southern's trackage through Columbia. This view from the mid 1880's near Walnut Street near the river front shows a passenger car in the center of teh scene in of Civil War vintage or earlier. The trestle in the righ background leads to Reading & Columbia's coal wharf at the canal. The substantial building at the near right is believed to be the Columbia Water Company. Photo, late Earl Strickler.
A view from the passengers side of a car waiting to come off the old Columbia Bridge. it is 1930 and the new Lincoln Highway Bridge (now Route 462) is still under construction. A Pennsy clas M-1 heads a passing freight. To the right is "LG-42" block station. The curving tracks in the foreground are those of the Frederick Division coming off the Columbia Bridge which was shared with auto traffic. John Kendig, photo.
When in 1874, the P. R. R. opened its vast locomotive facility at Columbia's Front & Bridge Street it supplanted the original "East End" roundhouse. This rare view of the Columbia yards from about 1890 taken from a hill north of town gives an amazing over-view of the roundhouse, transfer tracks as well as the still intact terminus of the Pennsylvania Canal.
Workmen are putting the finishing touches to the new Lancaster - York Intercounty Bridge in the background as a southbound Pennsy "M-1" steams by the old "LG-42" block station in Columbia during the summer of 1930. Photo was taken from the window of an auto waiting for the crossing to clear after exiting the old combination auto and railroad bridge over the Susquehanna at Columbia.
While delayed passengers were being soothed with libations in the bar lounge car, a long train of coaches and Pullmans up from Philadelphia hours off its schedule negotiates the tracks into Columbia yards. An October 1965 freight derailment sent all of the Pennsy's New York - Washington passenger fleet up the main line to Lancaster the over to Columbia. After GG-1 electric No. 4909 was reversed and placed on the other end of the train it headed south over the tediously slow "Port Road," to Perryvill and then to Baltimore and Washington.
