The 1988 NRHS convention featured two excursions with Nickel Plate 765 making forays from northern New Jersey into eastern Pennsylvania. The first, on July 24, 1988, ran down Conrail’s West Trenton line to West Falls, Pennsylvania, and then west on the former Reading main line to Reading, and to a stop at the Blue Mountain & Reading, with a return via Allentown. Here the westbound portion of the trip rolls through Birdsboro, Pennsylvania.
The Van Swearingen Brothers standarized freight power for their railroads with nearly identical 2-8-4 Berkshires. Two of these engines are still in excursion service.
