In the holiday season of 1985, the Blue Mountain & Reading Railroad ran several “shoppers special” steam excursions from Hamburg and Temple to Philadelphia. The BM&R equipment operated over Conrail from Temple to Norristown, where passengers transferred to a SEPTA MU train for the ride to Market East. Here, with an unorthodox consist of three RDC’s and an observation car, 4-6-2 425 crosses under Swede Street and over the Schuylkill River as it makes its way from Barbadoes Island to Norristown.
