Here are some photos of some of the railroad related items that are being collected for restoration. Ashley was home to the Huber Colliery, (Blue Coal Corporation), the Ashley yard and roundhouse, the New Jersey Central Repair facilities and the Ashley Planes. The initial goal of the former Huber Breaker Preservation Society was to raise awareness and funds to save the Huber Breaker. Since the breaker was razed in April of 2014, the new mission is to preserve the railroad and mining heritage of Ashley. Under construction for several years, is the Ashley Heritage Park. The park is situated on land donated by Earth Conservancy, a mine land reclamation arm of the Federal government, its mission is acquire former mine land, and restore it to its former condition, for development and recreation.
To date, the society has acquired the Blue Coal sign from the entrance gate to the facility, a Jersey Central switching shanty, a tower signal, two wooden mine cars, and other small memorabilia. In the center of the park is a granite monument with a picture of the breaker facility drawn by Bernie Gavlick, a young local artist and friend of my son Mark.
The mine cars, switching shanty and signal tower are in various stages of restoration. My project is the switching shanty. This morning, I pressure washed it, and took several measurements and photographs. During the winter months, I will be making the framing for the doors and windows. I will try to locate appropriately sized window sashes, but I don't expect that to be too fruitful, as there are six windows, requiring specific sized sashes. I will most likely make the sashes. I have a line on a possible door, but again, it is a rather small door, with a rough opening in the structure or twenty two and one half inches wide, by seventy nine inches high. After the frames are fitted and installed, then the task of replacing the damaged concrete begins. Even though the building has been pressure washed, it still requires a scrub with muriatic acid to deep clean the damaged areas to better accept the cement repair.
The signal tower will be primarily the responsibility of some electrician members of the society to restore functionality. The tower will then be cleaned and prepped for re-painting , and will then be erected somewhere in the park.
The two mine cars are being restored by students from the local vocational/technical school, and some members of the society. I had located several feet of mine rail behind my house, which borders the former shop yard. My son Mark and I drug it out from the woods, to be picked up by the society. Unfortunately, thieves stole the rails during the night, sometime before arrangements could be made to move them to the park.
The photos of the shanty and train are from March 1972, when the NJC ceased operations in PA. The short consist of four cabooses, and some type of boxcar was dubbed the "Funeral Train" by locals. A friend of mine was the reporter who covered the story. Union railroad workers would not operate the train, so the task was handled by management.
Don
