Reading, Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad

Feed Notes

The Reading, Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad was formed in 1983 primarily as an Anthracite Coal Hauling Short Line Railroad. Today RBMN’s system has expanded to over 300 miles of track on two divisions and includes a roster of over 20 locomotives and in excess of 1000 cars. Headquartered out of Port Clinton, PA, Reading and Northern has become one of the larger and well run Regional Railroads in the country. The RBMN connects with 6 railroads which include Class I’s Canadian Pacific at Taylor, PA and Norfolk Southern at Lehighton, PA and Reading, PA, as well as short line and regional railroad’s Lehigh Railway, Luzerne & Susquehanna, Shamokin Valley Railroad and Delaware Lackawanna. The railroads Reading Division which includes trackage between Reading, PA and Lehighton, PA is primarily utilized as a vital transportation link to the Anthracite Coal Region of Pennsylvania. The RBMN Reading Division is host to over 50 customers and is served by numerous RBMN unit trains, road trains, locals and yard jobs each and every day. The other division on the RBMN system is known as the Lehigh Division (commonly referred to as the “Northern Division”) which runs between Lehighton, PA and Mehoopany, PA and operates primarily on ex. Lehigh Valley trackage. The Lehigh Division also services dozens of customers through 3 daily road locals, a daily pair of road trains and 2 scheduled yard jobs at both Penobscot Yard near Mountain Top, PA and Pittston Yard in Duryea, PA. The Lehigh Division also hosts 4-6 run through trains per day from both Norfolk Southern and Canadian Pacific, operating between the Canadian Pacific Sunbury Subdivision connecter at Dupont, PA and NS’s Allentown Terminal in Allentown, PA. Freight Operations are not RBMN’s only business, as recently passenger operations have become a very busy and lucrative business for Reading and Northern. Through the acquisition and creation of the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway (a subsidiary of the RBMN), Reading and Northern operates scheduled passenger operations based out of Jim Thorpe, PA and into the Lehigh Gorge State Park. In addition to the LGSR operations, RBMN also hosts dozens of other very popular long distance passenger trips across their system. RBMN rosters a large fleet of passenger equipment ranging from Office Cars, to Coaches and even RDC (Rail Diesel Cars). Additionally, the RBMN also rosters and operates 4-6-2 Pacific Class # 425 which commonly pulls a number of RBMN’s excursions and passenger trips throughout the year RBMN is a very active railroad and most of their system operates off of AAR Radio Channel 44 (160.770). This radio feed will give you the opportunity to listen in on RBMN’s operations on both the Lehigh Division and the Northern portion of the Reading Division on their system by monitoring transmissions on AAR Channel 44. There will be numerous trains heard throughout the day on the radio feed including RBMN jobs QAMC/MCQA, QAJT/JTQA, PIME/MEPI, PISB/SBPI, PILE/LEPI, YJPI and various other local and unit trains, as well as CP trains 258/259 and NS trains 12/13T. For additional information on the radio feed and the train operations covered by this feed, a yahoo group dedicated to this coverage can be found at the following link: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/RBMNRR/conversations/messages Our reciever for the feed is located in Bear Creek Twp, 2100ft above sea level, equipment is Motorola Quanter Base station, connected to PD-220 station master antenna atop 180ft tower. Equipment is connected to site generator and backup UPS. Expected little or NO down time. 24/7 feed.