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The Redbank coaling tower served as a refueling station by dropping coal into the storage bins of locomotives from 1930 to 1957.

The Armstrong Trail is part of the 270-mile Erie to Pittsburgh Trail that will run from Presque Isle on Lake Erie to Pittsburgh’s connection with the Great Allegheny Passage; it’s also part of the Industrial Heartland Trails Coalition’s developing 1,500-mile trail network through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and New York. In addition, it connects with the Redbank Valley Trail, which runs east from the Armstrong Trail for more than 40 miles and includes a 9-mile spur leading to Sligo.

East Brady is the best place to start for an uninterrupted trip down the trail. A closed tunnel the railroad built as a shortcut across a river bend isolates an orphaned 4.5-mile crushed-stone segment upriver. You’ll travel on short stretches of gravel road as you leave town.

Just past Phillipston in 2 miles, look for an old railroad turntable left over from the days when the railroad serviced locomotives here. In another 1.2 miles, you’ll see the southern entrance to the 0.5-mile 1915 Brady Tunnel; future plans call for renovating and reopening it to connect the northern segment to the rest of the trail. In a little less than 1.5 miles later, you’ll pass the coaling tower used to replenish locomotives from 1930 until 1957, when diesel power replaced steam.