Summit Hill group rebuilds a Switchback rail car

The Switchback Railroad was an important segment to Summit Hill’s history.

As a way of preserving its legacy, a group of residents in the borough have constructed a replica passenger car of the Switchback. The car will be formally presented in front of the public on Monday during Summit Hill’s Memorial Day Parade.

The car was constructed by a group of men consisting of David Hiles, Louis Vermillion, Bobby Henninger, Tom Midas and John Kupec. Lettering was done by Gerri Gardiner. The project began last fall.

Hiles said the car is a replica of an early passenger car on the Switchback and was built off pictures contained in a book by Vincent Hydro titled “The Mauch Chunk Switchback: America’s Pioneer Railroad.” It was built from plywood, with a steel frame containing angle wire.

After the parade, the car will be placed in the yard of Vermillion Dental Office, 39 W. Ludlow St., Summit Hill, which is the site of the original Switchback Station where people boarded and departed the rail cars.

Tracks have already been installed where the car will be placed.

Hiles said the car is about 8 feet long and 4 feet wide.

“It’s slightly smaller than the original Switchback cars,” said Vermillion. He said some of the earlier cars on the Switchback Railroad were converted coal cars.

One of the people riding in the car on Monday will be Robert Gormley, a Summit Hill High School graduate in his 80s who has always had an interest in the Switchback.

Several years ago he had begun restoration of the Switchback’s “Barney Pit” at the bottom of White Bear Hill (Route 902).

Vermillion said Gormley had access to a passenger car “which somehow disappeared.” He said that car had disputed ownership.

He said, “Collectively we thought we could build it.”

Barney Pit was crucial to the operation of the Switchback because it is where barney cars pushed the train up hill from White Bear to Summit Hill.

The car also holds special importance to Henninger.

He said his father, the late Gordon Henninger, helped to tear up the tracks of the railroad after it shut down in 1932.

“If he were here, he’d be smiling,” Henninger said of his father.

He said the metal from the Switchback was sold as scrap to the former Weiner Scrapyard in Pottsville, and then sold to Japan. Japan used scrap metal to build its war machine that attacked the United States in 1941.

“We got it back at Pearl Harbor,” he said.

The elder Henninger was at one time interviewed about the topic by radio personality Bob Gormley.

“I have the tape that was made of the interview,” Henninger said.

Vermillion said Ludlow Street, which is the widest street in Summit Hill, was at one time called Railroad Street. He said the trains were used to carry coal and passengers from Summit Hill to Mauch Chunk.

Wheels for the Switchback car were donated for the project by Andy Muller, owner of the Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad, after being contacted by Kupec.

The Switchback is considered Pennsylvania’s first railway and the nation’s second. It was used for hauling coal from 1827 to 1932, with its length being nine miles.

The Great Depression is blamed for the demise of the Switchback.

A coal car replica, not connected with this project, sits at the corner of Ludlow Street and Pine Street.