East Broad Top Robertsdale Station, Robertsdale, PA
Exterior Restoration in Progress
Current State of Restoration
The FEBT secured a 50 year lease on the Robertsdale station in 1987 and rapidly restored it to serve as the groups current museum. A few items have to be completed on the interior of the building once the Post Office is ready and some materials can be moved into that building.
The new water and sewer connections also proved to be more difficult than we had hoped last year, when we made our preliminary preparations for these connections. As it turned out, the old sewage connection exited the Depot through a cast-iron soil pipe extending four feet straight down from underneath the toilet to run under the base of the concrete scale pit to . . . who knows where? Thus our contractor was forced to break though the concrete slab bathroom floor to remove the existing pipe and then to excavate a "tunnel" under a corner of the concrete pump base (between the scale pit and the front wall of the building) to install the new sewer service connection to the lateral line we had installed at the end of 1998.
While less complex, another section of the concrete slab floor had to be removed in the utility closet on the opposite side of the Depot so that the service connection to the new water line could be made through a new water meter installed at this location. While Robbie Love completed the sewer connection and floor repairs in the bathroom well before the start of the FEBT Museum's 1999 operating season, the water service connection waited on the acceptance of the new water treatment plant by the local authority. This in turn delayed the final repairs to the concrete floor to early December. The total cost of the work performed by Robbie Love for FEBT in 1999 was $1,500.00.
This winter FEBT member Sherwood Doughman is constructing two exterior benches for the Robertsdale Depot. These simple wood benches will replicate the benches that once supplied outdoor seating on the sidewalk "porch" at the end of the Depot facing Main Street. We invite FEBT members to visit the FEBT Museum this year to "test drive" the new benches.
