Early George School Rail Infrastructure

Early George School Rail Infrastructure. . , COAL DELIVERY , The railroad delivered hopper cars to the coal trestle, and dumped the coal into the pockets below. Approximately 40 cars per year were required to meet the school's needs. A portable conveyor transferred the coal into wagons until the mid 1930s when trucks took over., HEAT AND LIGHTING , Coal was used to heat Main and other early campus buildings. Electricity was provided by the Newtown Electric Company until 1899, when steam-powered generators were added near the boilers to eliminate the company's mandatory electricity shutoff time of 10 p.m., POWERHOUSE FUEL , Completed in 1939, the campus brick powerhouse could use either coal or fuel oil to provide steam for the loops that served the campus buildings. In 1958, a natural gas pipeline was completed along the Newtown Branch and connected to the powerhouse. This eliminated the need for the underground storage tanks and the coal trestle. The railroad removed the tracks and steel superstructure but left the stone and concrete piers in place., DAIRY FARM , The tunnel built for cows to cross under the railroad still exists in one of the bays, a reminder of the dairy herd that provided the campus with one quart of milk per person per day until 1967., RAILWAY RIGHT OF WAY REPURPOSED , The railroad right-of-way still connects George School to the world via fiber-optic cabling for phone and internet service buried next to the tracks. The expansive connections envisioned by the nineteenth century promoters of the Philadelphia, Newtown, and New York Railroad finally came true in the last decades of the twentieth century., COAL DELIVERY BINS REPURPOSED , Since the early 2000s this coal delivery trestle has been the site of composting for the dining hall leftovers for use in the school vegetable garden., [Photo captions, clockwise from bottom left, read] , . Hopper cars are shown on the coal trestle in 1942., . George Hart at his desk inside the station. When his duties as Assistant Business Manager allowed, George would spend time in the station, which enabled him to produce many of the photos used in this project., . Station Agent J. Schmitt in 1942 tagging bicycles for proper delivery to student[s'] homes., . Agent J. Schmitt accepting the final mail delivery to GS by train in 1950. The first one contains the Railway Post Office section, which provided secure mail transport for stations along the Newtown Branch., . Coal being loaded into a GS truck for delivery to the boilers in the basement of Main, December 1941., . This was a typical 2-car weekend train on the Newtown Branch. Note the livestock underpass beneath the locomotive in this 1938 view., . The original station with Main Building in the background., In honor of George Michener Hart '37, who helped document George School history for the fiftieth anniversary in 1943. He later became the first director of the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum in Strasburg and owner of the Stewartstown Railroad in York County.