The rail yard here sits 0.04 miles from the centre of this borough, recorded under Norfolk Southern in the North American Rail Network maintained by the Federal Railroad Administration and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The yard and the town centre are the same point for any practical purpose.
Six yards inside eight miles, nearly all of them west
Those tracks do not stop at the borough line. West down the valley the Conemaugh yards lie about 5.7, 6.0 and 6.4 miles out, the Johnstown yard at Clinton Street about 7.1 miles, the Minersville yard about 7.6 miles at Brownstown, and Hornerstown about 7.4 miles south-west.
So a day cab working out of this borough had six yards inside eight miles and almost all of them in one direction, down the river rather than over the ridge.
That is an unusually concentrated piece of railway for a borough this size, and it shapes what a truck here was bought to do: short repeated runs on valley roads rather than long hauls.
And working coal on the ridges above it
Those valley lanes climb quickly. The Madison Mine lies about 7.6 miles north-west at Parkhill with 69 people on the books, the Vintondale Quarry about 7.6 miles north-west with 15, and Laurel Sand and Stone about 8.2 miles north-west at Mundys Corner with ten.
East it is the Portage Plant about 7.4 miles with 19 people, which puts the borough between a coal operation on one side and a run of yards on the other.
The Cresson yard at Sankertown lies about 12.5 miles north-east of here, which is the same pairing seen from the other end: a rail town and a coal town within a quarter of an hour of each other.
A truck working five- and seven-mile hauls loaded, over and over, on valley grades wears by cycles rather than by distance. Brakes, clutch and cooling go first, and the odometer usually reads low against the hours on it.
- I am up on the ridge, not in the valley.