Spotlight: Lehigh Valley visitors express awe over private Tamaqua attractions

Two busloads of visitors from the Lehigh Valley spent Sunday in the Tamaqua area to experience something they said is extremely rare: a visit to two private full-size backyard railroads.

The Bethlehem-based National Museum of Industrial History crafted the first-ever tour to test waters. It was a way, they said, to give members, guests and the general public a chance to witness what can happen when two separate railfans devote their lives to a passion for trains.

The organizer said the tour was a hit.

“We have a mix of members and nonmembers. This is working out nicely,” said Mike Piersa, NMIH historian, who handled all details of the trip to the coal region town.

Individual ticket prices were $30 for members, $35 for nonmembers.

“We’ll give them their money’s worth,” said host Dave Frederick of West Penn Township as the buses arrived.

Frederick’s Chain Circle Short Line, located off Mush Dahl Road near Clamtown, and Warren Speegle’s Tamaqua Rolling Mill Avenue Tunnel Railway anchored the seven-hour excursion.

The group divided into two sections to alternate between sites.

Also on the itinerary were visits to the Tamaqua Anthracite Model Railroad Club, Tamaqua Historical Society Museum and local shops and restaurants.

But the main attractions were the two private backyards.

Standard gauge

Visitors expressed awe and excitement in seeing the detail to which Frederick and Speegle crafted their elaborate displays.

Frederick’s yard includes standard-gauge track, two cabooses, a speeder car, pump car display and 35-ton industrial diesel locomotive built in 1942.

The entire Chain Circle Shortline evolved through a single purpose.

“I built it with the intention of rebuilding wood cabooses,” he said.

Visitors expressed amazement at the scope of the project, some having a hard time understanding that a man can construct a full railroad on his property.

One even asked, “Where did this railroad go originally,” not realizing it never existed until Frederick and his family and friends created it over decades.

Like Frederick, Speegle spent decades, 43 years, setting up a private, working, 36-watt overhead trolley system that runs industrial engines from the front foundation wall of his 1854 Federal style house on Pine Street, then heading west to Rolling Mill Avenue.

“The rails are 24 gauge,” said Speegle, a retired signal maintainer with Philadelphia’s subway and elevated railway.

His railroad includes two New Jersey Zinc Company mine locomotives, one from 1923, the other 1946. They run on 240 feet of track.

They’re so rare that “they’re the only two known to operate.”

His railroad, the Tamaqua Rolling Mill Avenue Tunnel Railway, is meant to emulate the famous Chicago Tunnel Railway which hauled freight underneath the city for the first half of the 20th century.

Speegle’s setup includes an 1898 Helios arc streetlight, Philadelphia gas light, and 1919 signals from the Frankford elevated rail system, signal tower, and exact duplicate of the emergency telephone house, and other rail artifacts.

Ray Mercado of New York City, a transit authority employee, assists Speegle in maintaining the operation, along with help from several Tamaqua residents.

“I’ve had visitors from England and Australia,” said Speegle, a United States Marine Corps veteran.

Rave reviews

“I’m enjoying every minute of this,” said visitor Jean West of Annandale, New Jersey. “This is a great opportunity to see what people are up to.”

“It’s a chance for me to come back home,” said Tom Sabol of Catasauqua, a Coaldale native.

“This is something I’ve never seen before,” said Todd Messner of Lower Macungie Township. “I like the uniqueness.”

Messner said he also had another reason to check out the tour.

He said he belongs to the Lionel Collectors Club of America and it’s possible the national group would be interested in sponsoring a similar tour to town. It would also include local mine attractions such as the Number 9 Mine and Museum, potentially bringing to Tamaqua and Lansford hundreds of visitors on chartered buses.

Full day

Guests arrived in a pair of Steel Street Tour buses and first visited the industrial engine housed at the West Penn Township Municipal Building. There, Kermit Geary Jr. of Little Gap, board member of the Anthracite Railroad Historical Society, welcomed the group.

Guests also viewed a 1943 PPL fireless engine at the Tamaqua train station, along with a vintage Atlas Powder Company industrial engine, two cabooses, and an 1870s Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company watchbox believed to be the only one of its kind in Pennsylvania.