1920 Reading railroad fill on theCatasauqua and Fogelsville railroad. Lehigh county PA.

[@Cseidelmann6770]

Great documentary! Keeping history alive!

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Thank you kindly. If they would have taught this in high school I would have done quite well lol.

[@Cseidelmann6770]

@ me too! Would have gone a long way to making class interesting!

[@stephenlineman]

great vid

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Thank you Stephen!

[@patricksparks6631]

Very cool - Railroads were so plentyful up in that region, all chasing the coal, ore, cement and steel business. Great stuff.

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Thank you Patrick. I could spend the rest of my life doing this and still not cover everything.

[@gregggoss2210]

Another great location sir. You are lucky in a way. The locations close to you are much more scenic than my locals. 👍

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Thank you Gregg. I definitely live in a great area if you’re into this stuff.

[@dogman8436]

Plank roads were actually made from longitudinally sawed logs laid flat side up from left to right across the roadway. Kept wheels from sinking into mud until they rotted out. “Corduroy” roads were likely unsawed log roads. Rough ride!

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Thank you very much. Sounds like a pain. I can imagine the heavy ore carts were chewing those roads up pretty quickly.

[@nickcef]

Cool video! You know, the LVT trolley still lives on today kind of in a way. SEPTA's Norristown Hi-speed Line ( the old P&W trolley company) was the same line the LVT used to get to 69th Street in Philadelphia. I can remember riding that line as a kid when I visited my cousins down there, those trolleys really flew along those stops through suburban Philly.

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Good morning Nick. When I was born we lived in Northeast Philadelphia. Up at the end of Castor avenue there was a trolley turn around that I was always fascinated with. I also remember tracks in the Mayfair section. Can’t remember if I actually rode the trolley or if it was all busses by that point.

[@bobgolfs4432]

Thank you for doing this Kevin - I was sorry to hear that rail service stopped last summer. I often heard the engine horn in the distance, but it pains me that rails continue to disappear. The Lehigh Valley has become absolutely littered with semi-truck traffic and that continues to expand. Why can’t we get expanded rail use instead of trucks. It is not uncommon that trucks outnumber passenger vehicles on the highways and now even local roads.

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Good evening Bob. I’m in complete agreement with you. I work in Fogelsville so I see the incredible amount of trucks that you speak of. The Catasauqua and Fogelsville still serves a ton of industry in the Iron Run industrial area but over by Nestle where I work they do nothing. They have tracks in the area but I’ve yet to see any switching done. It’s a bummer.

[@caslvrr428]

Kevin, This was one of our playgrounds when we were alot younger. Yes, we crawled through the small tunnel on top of the road span. I just can’t remember other than metal racks in there. I’m suspecting they were support of utility lines. We used to wade in the Jordan creek under Cedar Crest Blvd and it was just a great place to cool off and explore that area. The large plant east of Cedar Crest Blvd. was home to Trojan Powder Co. and during the summer months they occasionally shot off powder. It sounded like cannons going off. But the big thrill of that area, was riding our bikes down the big hill on Cedar Crest Blvd. We all attended the Troxell School nearby. Thanx for the memories.

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Thank you very much for sharing this with me. I really enjoy hearing about the great times people have had a various places I have visited. Now that the line is not running this far down I want to climb up and see what is up there. When I was younger we had a spot in Bucks County under the Reading Newton branch. This was in Tamanend park. There is a great three tunnel culvert with a nice drop off. We would swim there as youngsters. Good times.

[@samuelt2072]

Quite the construction. And another interesting video... And story. If they ever have to replace that it's going to cost a bundle.

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Thank you Samuel. The line is temporarily dormant. If service is not restored then I don’t know what the future holds for it. I believe a structure like this isn’t going anywhere soon though.

[@nickmad887]

Thank you Kevin.

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

You’re very welcome Nick.

[@merccadoosis8847]

Very interesting history. Marvelous construction. Must confess that I was a bit distracted by the creative graffiti on the walls. I've watched some videos of the old Pennsylvania inter-urban trolleys. Fascinating stuff, indeed. Keep up the good work.

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Thank you. The trolleys are such a neat topic. Only around for a little while but they left a lasting history.

[@ocsrc]

It is amazing how much they were able to do without electricity or machines

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Couldn’t agree more Bill.

[@bobjohnston8316]

Judging from the two trucks involved the construction picture, I’d say the construction date was no later than 1925 and likely earlier. Truck and car technology really advanced rapidly from 1925 on these trucks would have been really outdated by 1930. Kevin, you have got to get your hands on a set of the small spiral bound books covering railroads and trolleys in the Lehigh River Valley. They turn up at every train show and you can still get brand new copies from the Anthracite Railroads Historical Society. One of them goes into detail on the Crane Iron Works in Catty and the railroads that serviced it.

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Good evening Bob. I was just on the Anthracite Railroads Historical Society site the other day. I could drain my bank account there if it wouldn’t cost me my marriage lol. I’m putting this on the list for sure. Thank you for everything you provide Bob. It is greatly appreciated. I’m pretty sure those trucks are 1918 at the latest.

[@paulbergen9114]

Looking at the construction scene it is possible that part of that bridge was left in place to stabilize such a fill. One has to wonder how many tons of Earth and Cinders Etc were placed in there is it almost appears to be three or four tracks wide when you're underneath in the tunnel section but probably is only one or two tracks today at best. On an old section of Soo lLine where a location called High Bridge WI exists they gradually filled in between the pilings of a virtual Forest that was used. Sadly in the last decade they had several substantial washouts and the Canadian National embargoed it and the size of it is mesmerizing from the adjacent Highway. When you look at the construction photos with all the clean Stone and concrete versus today 100 years later it has aged pretty well. Far and away it's got to be the truck with the roof extension which no doubt is for the crew to install the wiring for the streetcar. Truly a great scene with a really great history

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Hi Paul. The Reading was doing this all over the place but I guess all the roads were. This is around the same time the DL&W was building all there viaducts. Money must have been good for the various roads and I would assume concrete made things easier and cheaper. It took close to four years to fill this particular area. I should have seen if there is a number of cubic yards dumped to fill. I bet it’s a high number.

[@ShawnD1027]

Neat video, as always! What do you suppose the things sticking up out of the ice on the opposite side at 7:45 are? I wouldn't expect them to be the remains of any falsework from construction, which would probably be long gone.

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Shawn you have a great eye. I saw those the week before and completely forgot to mention it in this video. While I’m not one hundred percent certain I do believe it is the framing from the construction. I’m going back to check out a trolley bridge right down the road from here. I’ll go back and check.

[@ShawnD1027]

@ , thanks for the compliment! Sometimes I notice too much! 😄

[@brianhanley1903]

Cool idea for modeling.Out BH.

[@lelkotube]

You might want to check out a few Eric Sloane books as he writes and illustrates about things like plank roads and how they were built back in the day

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Haven’t heard from you in a while. Got a new phone so the picture should be a whole lot better. Thank you for the lead. I will certainly use it.

[@christine_penn]

Looked like an 18 in that diamond to me.

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Good morning Christine. It is very possible it is an 18. They started filling the area in 1916 so by 1918 there could have been some concrete in place. Thank you and have a wonderful day.

[@johntitterton4840]

Contact Reading Company Technical and Historical Society on line. They likely have the plans for this structure and maybe even the names of the employees who built it.

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Good morning John. I am actually a contributing member of the RCTHS. I don’t know why I don’t take advantage of that more often. You are right though. If anyone has that kind of information it would be them. Thank you John.

[@DWH072]

Have you seen any remnants of the Lehigh Valley Transit Co. ?

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Yes. There is an old trolley bridge that crosses Trout Creek up in Emerald PA. You can get to by driving there or you can park in Slatington and walk the Slate Heritage trail to it. There is also bridge remains right down the road from this location Crossing the Jordan Creek. I just received a tip about this one and will be checking it out soon.

[@garylnii]

Interesting video. The only thing is you left a "u" out of Catasauqua in the title 🤦‍♂

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Sorry and thank you. Just fixed it.

[@DanielUnger-gn9ct]

I paused the video on my phone n I zoomed in on my phone it looks like that part got chipped away by the weather couldn't see any date in the diamond

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

Good evening Daniel. The consensus is 1920 which makes sense because they were filling the area between 1916 through 1919.

[@johnnicoline7632]

Yeah man you have to get up there and see what that is for sure. We have to know buddy. Be carful though, might be a doorway to another dimension. You don’t want to come out on Uranus.

[@gregggoss2210]

It might be a tunnel to another country such as Mai Wang!.🙄

[@kevinsalsbury2118]

That would really screw up the space time continuum lol.