Then and Now. In the first photo taken from the 11th Street Bridge in Reading, PA, SD45-2 #6655 is pushing an eastbound up the Temple Hill Track towards Blandon on the old former Reading East Penn Branch in the fall of 1984. The Hill Track was slated to have been removed by mid-1984, but was given a short reprieve from abandonment that year when the preferred parallel routing via the Blandon Low Grade had part of its right of way collapse into an adjacent quarry. Through the summer and fall of 1984, the Hill Track saw heavy use with many trains getting pushers for the 1.1 percent grade. With repairs completed on the Low Grade, the Hill Track was again taken out of service this time for good on December 28, 1984. It was finally ripped out and abandoned in the spring of 1989.
The second photo taken from the same location in March of 2019.
Photographer
