Cliff, Right of way always remained with the Kovalchic, until transferred to the Foundation, never state owned.
Al P.
OK, thanks Al. I thought the Foundation was a state-owned thing. Guess I need to look up Kovalchic.
The state never took over EBT. Kovalchick bought it for scrap in 1956, and decided not to scrap it in case the coal business improved.
The ROW was bought from various landowners when the railroad was built in the late 1800s. So the track has been sitting in the ROW since 1956. Part of the rebuild involves digging out the rails and moving them to one side, then sending in the earth-movers to re-grade the ROW. Once that is done, the ties can be laid and the rails put back.
And to add to this I’m pretty sure that as long as it is still owned and the track is down the ROW stands as RR property. Almost everything is there to work with which pretty much brings in the donations and grants. Ain’t my cup of tea but it sure is badass especially on the preserving history part. The foundation and friends have done an amazing job in a very short time IMO if it matters!
Just got an earful from WikiP:
The Kovalchick family still owns thousands of acres of land in and around Huntingdon county, including four lots directly behind my house. Much of it is still in the name of East Broad Top Railroad and Coal Co. The operating railroad land is deeded to the East Broad Top Foundation. The foundation purchased a very small part of the Kovalchick holdings in this area.
The railroad was never abandoned, although they had filed for abandonment, that filing was withdrawn when Nick Kovalchick purchased it. The railroad had to prove that it was still a railroad when the Southern Huintingdon County High School was built. They did so by running the M1 self propelled car to the proposed school site. Also, PennDOT was required to replace track when they severed the railroad north of Shirleysburg to upgrade US 522, and had to rebuild the dual gauge crossing of 522 in Mt. Union.
Back to track work: We laid out another 500 feet of track today in Saltillo and much of it was spiked up. Tomorrow afternoon, the first speeders to run in Saltillo since the early 1960’s will happen on the rebuilt track.