Where Rails Met the Juniata

Railroads & Bridges

The Transportation Crossroads

Mount Union’s industrial rise depended on the Pennsylvania Railroad, the East Broad Top Railroad, bridges across the Juniata and sidings that connected factories, quarries and coal fields to national markets.

1850
First PRR Locomotive
1873
EBT Reached Orbisonia
1907
Elevated Station Opened
June 6, 1850

The centennial edition placed the first Pennsylvania Railroad locomotive through Mount Union on the date seventeen years before borough incorporation. Joseph C. Sechler was identified as the first local railroad agent.

1848–1874

The East Broad Top Railroad was chartered in 1848. Construction began in September 1872, service reached Orbisonia on August 30, 1873, and the line extended to Robertsdale on November 1, 1874.

1906

A stone-arch railroad bridge was completed late in the year. The newspaper credited Mount Union resident George Radle as rigger and carpenter foreman and said the project removed two dangerous curves while relocating about 3,000 feet of the Juniata River channel.

December 15, 1907

The elevated Pennsylvania Railroad station opened, replacing the earlier station and reshaping passenger movement through town.

1909

The East Broad Top system was described as roughly fifty miles of line, employing about 850 men and carrying approximately 1,400 tons of coal daily. These figures are the 1967 newspaper’s retrospective estimates.

March 1936

Floodwaters severed rail and road access, damaged the country-club area and swept away the Harbison-Walker dinky bridge across the Juniata. See the complete flood history and photographs.

2026

Preservation Pennsylvania selected the East Broad Top Railroad and EBT Foundation Inc. for its Henry A. Jordon Award, recognizing local preservation of the National Historic Landmark railroad, its rolling stock and its intact shop complex. The honor followed the foundation’s stabilization and restoration program, the 2021 return of passenger service and steam locomotive No. 16’s return to service in 2023 after 67 years.

Industry

From Quarry and Coal Field to Main Line

Narrow-gauge cars, industrial sidings and the PRR yard gave brick plants access to ganister rock, coal and customers. This network helps explain why refractory companies concentrated in and around Mount Union.

Explore the brick-industry history

Community Memory

Picnic Trains

Helen T. Bartschat remembered East Broad Top excursion trains carrying local families toward Pogue and Shade Gap for outings. Her recollection records how the railroad served social life as well as industry.

Read the attributed memories

1933 Reminiscence

Rudolph Sechler and the EBT Office

Lola Eberman Fields remembered Rudolph Sechler as the East Broad Top Railroad’s first local agent and yard superintendent. She also recalled the ticket office near Water and Railroad streets and the excitement of picnic trains with distinctive “Dolly Varden” cars. These details are preserved as her attributed community memory.

Canal to Railroad

Bridge, Aqueduct and River Corridor

Fields’s childhood landscape joined the older canal and newer railroad systems: a wooden canal bridge at Water Street, an old aqueduct near the railroad bridge, a deep pool and a shaded spring. Exact present-day placements are not asserted, and active railroad property should never be entered.

Architecture

The Stone Arch Bridge

The surviving bridge story connects engineering, river alteration and the work of local railroad crews. Historic photographs and later records can help identify what remains and what was replaced.

Preservation

Reading the Landscape

Grades, bridge abutments, rail alignments and industrial remains still show how transportation shaped the borough. Visit only places open to the public and respect active railroad property.

Sources

  1. The Daily News, June 6, 1967, viewer pp. 39–42, 62 and 65.
  2. Helen T. Bartschat’s attributed recollections, The Daily News, viewer pp. 68–71.
  3. Mrs. W. O. Fields (Lola Eberman Fields), “Reminiscence of Mount Union,” The Daily News, September 21, 1933, p. 5.
  4. Ron Morgan, “EBT to be honored with preservation award,” The Daily News, August 26, 2026, pp. 1, 3.
Community record · September 2026

Restoration continues

A $1 million grant for the March to Saltillo

The East Broad Top Railroad received a reported $1 million state grant for construction of a replica Three Springs station and repairs to Saltillo’s Tank House Bridge. The new station is to draw on archival plans for the original building, demolished in 1954.

The September report also described contracted clearing and grading toward Three Springs and a $100,000 donation for track materials. These are restoration projects; the announcement did not establish new passenger service to Three Springs, Saltillo or Mount Union.

Source: The Daily News, September 24, 2026, pp. 1, 3.

Stations and daily railroad life

East Broad Top engine No. 6 at Mount Union, identified in the supplied caption. Date unknown.
East Broad Top engine No. 6 at Mount Union, identified in the supplied caption. Date unknown.Photographs submitted by Chris Hughes / Dwight Rittenhouse.Caption and source notes
East Broad Top mail drop at Pennsylvania Avenue and Jefferson Street, identified in the supplied caption. Date unknown.
East Broad Top mail drop at Pennsylvania Avenue and Jefferson Street, identified in the supplied caption. Date unknown.Photographs submitted by Chris Hughes / Dwight Rittenhouse.Caption and source notes
Pennsylvania Railroad mainline station at Mount Union. Date unknown.
Pennsylvania Railroad mainline station at Mount Union. Date unknown.Photographs submitted by Chris Hughes / Dwight Rittenhouse.Caption and source notes
County Bridge. Date unknown.
County Bridge. Date unknown.Photographs submitted by Chris Hughes / Dwight Rittenhouse.Caption and source notes

Explore the Chris Hughes / Dwight Rittenhouse collection →