This photo was taken from the 1864 Arch Bridge to show the grade that continues up the Big Shanty line to the coal mines. Can you imagine the old Orange chugging its way up the grade. Though the grade does not seem that steep, it created a lot of trouble for the Erie locomotives over the years.

In Big Shanty, the Erie had to build what is called a “switch track”. The switch track was a short length of track that was used to leave half of the freight cars sitting because the hill was to steep and dangerous for the locomotives to pull a full load up and down the Big Shanty hill area. Little can be seen of the switch track today, an occasional mound here and there, if you look close enough, it ran along the right side of the 1864 Arch Bridge grade.

One Big Shanty hill story that was told by G. L. Reed, a conductor on the line was that they had to contend with about 5 runaways every month on the hill, even though they set the brakes tight on the cars. One day they had 28 cars connected up and knowing it was too heavy to make the climb up the hill, they tried it anyway, but stalled at the 1864 Arch Culvert Bridge and had to double. Double meaning either, add another locomotive or leave half the freight cars on the switch track and coming back later to connect them.

In 1875, The Buffalo, Bradford, & Pittsburgh Railroad Company came to an end as an independent corporation with its consolidation with the Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Rochester Railway and the Brandy Camp railroad company. The agreement was officially filed on July 20, 1875, under the name of the Pennsylvania & Erie Coal & Railway Company.

May of 1893, a Buffalo, Pittsburgh, & Rochester coal train was coming down the steep grade at Big Shanty and smashed into a work train that was standing at a cut. Falicia, who was the foreman of the construction gang work train, was killed and two other Italians injured one of them fatally. Engineer McClary of the work train jumped and sustained a broken shoulder.

This “cut” part of the line could be the actual spot of the wreck of the coal and work train on the 1864 Arch Bridge Big Shanty grade. Just up from this area there is a curve and a blind spot to the “cut”. It’s located a few hundred yards down grade from the 1864 Arch Bridge.

There are many reports of people and rail workers being killed in the early days of the railroad lines. Safety was not an issue, as it is today.