The Cresson yard sits 0.41 miles from the centre of this borough, recorded under R. J. Corman Railroad Company in the North American Rail Network maintained by the Federal Railroad Administration and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. That puts it effectively at the end of the street.
What is around it is unmistakably coal
Those workings are close and they are not small. The Cresson mine lies about 2.1 miles south with 69 people on the books, RES Cresson about 2.9 miles with 20, the Sonman Refuse Site about 3.4 miles at Portage with four, and the Portage Plant about 6.4 miles with 19.
West and north-west it carries on: Robindale Energy Mine 33 about 5.5 miles west at Ebensburg with eight, the Colver Refuse Site about 12.5 miles north-west with nine, and Laurel Sand and Stone about 15.1 miles west at Mundys Corner with ten.
So inside six miles of this borough there are four working coal operations and a rail yard, and three of the four are within three and a half.
And a railway town over the mountain
Beyond the coal it turns to rail engineering. The Juniata Shops lie about 11.5 miles east at Altoona, the Samuel Rea Shops about 11.7 miles east at Loop, the Altoona yard about 11.9 miles east at East Altoona and the Rose yard about 12.6 miles north-east.
South-west the South Fork yard is about 12.9 miles out, and the stone starts at about 13.1 miles south-east with the Roaring Spring Quarry and its 47 people. The Hollidaysburg readiness centre is about 9.6 miles east at Fort Fetter.
That is the shape of the work here: coal loaded close in, and shops and yards a quarter of an hour away over the mountain.
A truck working two and three mile hauls loaded, over and over, on mountain grades, wears by cycles rather than by distance. Brakes, clutch and cooling go first, and the odometer usually reads low against the hours.