The Blandon Low Grade bypass of Reading, Pennsylvania runs adjacent to the Berks Products limestone quarry at Temple, Pennsylvania. On June 24, 1984, the wall of the quarry nest to the low grade collapsed as Conrail train OIIN was passing, taking several hundred yards of the track and the train with it. The original line from Reading to Blandon, by then known as the Hill track, was out of service, and the equipment to rip it up was in Reading, ready to start the following week. This created an operational bottleneck for Conrail’s main east-west artery, due to the Hill Track’s 1.1% ruling grade, and slow orders over its entire length This situation endured until December, when the realignment of the low grade was completed. Here several cars of OIIN remain hanging over the quarry on August 25, 1984.
