Anyone know where I can find pictures of Birdsboro Steel around 1955-1965?
Also looking for how facility was serviced by rail, track layouts, any maps, etc. Thanks!

The 1947 USGS 7.5-minute Birdsboro quadrangle shows a good overview of the railroads and buildings around Birdsboro. There is one large building northeast between the town and the river that the 1947 map shows was served by PRR (alas). There are other buildings close to the Reading Belt Line bridge, however, that show connection to the Belt Line. While the same map has a 1950 edition, there appear to be no others at that scale until 1999.

There are some Reading 30 x 60 quads available in the era of interest but they lack the level of detail.

I will check some of the books I have. It was an interesting conglomeration of facilities that were related. Birdsboro Steel, Amorcast and E.G. Brooks Iron Works. I am too young to have seen it in full production, but it must have been quite the site.

Correct me if I'm wrong, the Strasburg #4 camelback came through E.G. Brookes and was recorded while on duty there in a whistle off with the T-1 on a ramble passing through Birdsboro on the mainline. I think there are photos in one of Pennypacker's books of that. #4 was Reading #1187.

The Reading had a small locomotive facility at Birdsboro with unusual round silo type coal bins (steam era). I think that was just off the one leg of the south wye (southwest side of the river.) It makes an interesting place to model with the mainline running down the northeast shore of the river and the W&N on the southwest side and a wye on both sides of the river and then the Pennsy kind of splits the whole thing. It would be awesome to see a map of switching trackage running around town between mills in the 40's and 50's, I believe even into the early 60's when Amorcast was churning out tanks. And there had to be loads of tanks departing the facility. I had always heard the tracks and building of Amorcast could not be removed due to Dept. of Defense holds. Of course Birdsboro Steel Castings should jump out as the manufacturer of the Birdsboro trucks that the Reading used on many freight cars.

This is another one of those articles waiting to happen! We could really dig into this one guys.

The foundations of the tile coaling towers are still visible on Google maps. The west leg of the wye at Birdsboro is still in use. If you follow it and right about were Adams St. would intersect the wye there is a faint circle visible on the ground, that is the coaling tower. There was an engine house, but it blew down in a storm back in the 1890's.

One the RCT&HS Bee Line magazines had RDG track diagrams of Birdsboro that had detailed tracks for the various mills. in the area.

The iron foundry was on the south/west bank in the 1800's and the steel mill was on the east/north bank of the Schyulkill, along the Main Line. That was the Brooke Works which is why the W&N Birdsboro was "BE" (BrookE). the industry South/east of the wye has been may things, mostly making various types of industrial machinery (it was the Diamond Drill Co back in the 1890's.) There was also a foundry south/east of FM Brown. I believe that was called Armorcast back in the late 40's and 1950's. It made tank turrets and hulls.

The PRR freight house and passenger stations still stand, the RDG passenger station, freight house and BE tower are gone.

The Armorcast building was huge. I believe most of it has been demolished however there are four huge smokestacks still standing. They can be seen ion Google earth also.

Many of the buildings of Birdsboro Steel have been repurposed, but are still standing and can be seen on Google earth. even to the north of the wye track there were long sheds used for storage of parts and casting molds.

Rob

If anyone knows the issue number for the Bee Line that contains the track plan for Birdsboro, please post it. This will likely be one of the areas featured on my “someday” layout. Also, there is a youtube video of number 1187 switching cars around the wye at Birdsboro (probably taken in the late 40’s judging by the condition of the engine and surrounding structures).
Mark

PS: Penn Pilot also has some aerial views from different eras of Birdsboro. Unfortunately, the photos don't have enough resolution to see fine details, but you can get a feel for the layout of the structures.

I recall reading that there was a turn table in use at Birdsboro. However that must have been in the 1800s.