STEAM TRAINS! Let's Visit Steamtown National Historic Site!

On Friday morning, 6/6, we arrived at Steamtown National Historic Site, to see the largest museum of its type in the country, celebrating trains of all types, but particularly steam powered trains. Just pulling into the parking lot, you immediately feel like a kid in a candy store!  There are trains everywhere, yard diesel locomotives moving cars, many steam locomotives and tenders, a 1941 Union Pacific "big boy" steam locomotive 132' long!, all types of rail freight and passenger cars and best of all--- the Sights and Sounds of Railroading---locomotive whistles and horns, the crash of coupling cars together, hissing of steam, engineers and conductors at work and the heavy vibrations of moving trains!     

Steamtown NHS opened in 1995 and is located in Scranton, PA on 40 acres of the old railroad yard of the pioneer Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. The DL&W was founded in 1853 to haul anthracite coal from the many local coal mines. The National Park Visitor Center has excellent displays and a timeline by decade of the development of railroading and the DL&W.

 Just outside is the roundhouse built in 1902 and enlarged in 1937 with individual stalls for servicing as many as 46 locomotives at a time with all the shops and huge machinery for rebuilding locomotives, their boilers and their wheels. A 90 foot turntable outside is currently being rebuilt and when completed will allow locomotives to move into the correct shop or maintenance area in the roundhouse.

The history of U.S. railroading is fascinating.  The first steam-powered railroad in America, the South Carolina Railroad, began in 1830!  By 1852, over 9000 miles of track had been laid, mostly in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.  By the 1860s, a network of over 30,000 miles was serving all the states east of the Mississippi River.  During the Civil War, the railroads moved troops and supplies on both sides.  By 1900, 193,000 miles of track was in operation.  In 1918, there were 65,000 steam locomotives and 254,000 miles of track around the country!  The explosion of growth of the railroads followed the historic transformation of the United States from an agricultural to a manufacturing economy.

Railroads carried raw materials like coal, oil, cotton and iron ore and the finished products like steel, cloth and machines.  They carried livestock, grain and produce from farms to cities.  Railroads made possible the settlement of the West and many other areas of the U.S. carrying immigrants from the Northeast.  Movement of goods and people was quicker and more reliable than ever before.

After World War I, the railroads got major competition from automobiles and trucks. In 1925, the diesel electric locomotive was introduced, greatly reducing the labor needs of railroads.  Ultimately, steam locomotives were reduced to museum status and diesel had fully taken over.  But by the 1950s the railroads were hauling less freight and passengers leading to the abandonment of some rail lines and many rail company mergers. Rail transportation is still the least expensive land mode of transportation to get goods to market.  Many innovations, like containers on flatcars, dedicated coal trains, special automobile transport cars, system-wide computerization controlling all trains to reduce collisions and derailments, have helped railroads survive and thrive today.  Passenger service has moved from private railroad control to a government corporation, AMTRAC, to continue to provide reliable passenger service across the country.

Like most National Parks, the starting point for Steamtown is the Visitor Center and its excellent 18 minute orientation film "Steel and Steam."  The History Museum in the Visitor Center with its railroad timeline sets the stage for you.  Then out in the original part of the 1902 roundhouse there is a railroad Technology Museum with a cutaway steam locomotive showing the boiler and all the gears and levers that allow the wheels to turn.  Railroad signaling and communication, different types of rail freight cars, how a steam engine makes steam and how the fireman and engineer control it, railway safety and a comparison between a steam locomotive and a modern 16 cylinder diesel locomotive and much more are all found in this museum.

There is a free 1-1/2 hour docent-led tour of the roundhouse and the adjacent repair shops that is fascinating.  The enormous size of presses, lathes, overhead cranes and other equipment used in the daily, weekly and monthly required maintenance of the steam locomotives is impressive!   At least 7-8 locomotives are in the process of being brought back to life in the shops. Another dozen or more older neglected locomotives sit around the yard awaiting their turn at restoration. The Federal Railroad Administration has very strict requirements for operating steam-powered locomotives to prevent boiler explosions so constant maintenance is required to pass periodic inspections.

An option that we wanted to experience was a train ride around the yard area lasting about 30 minutes costing only $5 per person.  The train is composed of 2- 1920s vintage passenger cars pulled by an older Nickel Plate Line diesel yard engine.  Before boarding the engineer and conductor conduct a little ceremony with all the young boys in the crowd of passenger, rehearsing them in yelling out "All Aboard!"  After that, we could all find our seats and the train ride began!  We went out onto the mainline into Scranton after being cleared by the control tower that regulates all the train traffic in Scranton.  This particular engine has a very loud deep horn, that sounded more like a steamship, and that horn was sounded before each crossing. It was exciting hearing the click-clacks and squeals, the car swaying and the locomotive's loud horn!

After our train ride, we left the yard and drove to adjacent downtown Scranton,  We wanted to see the ornate Lackawanna County Courthouse built in 1884, the Veteran's Memorial in front of the Courthouse, an 1893 statue of George Washington and their Civil War Memorial, the 104 foot high Soldiers and Sailors Monument with a bronze Goddess of Victory at the top dedicated in 1900, all on the Courthouse grounds.

Across from the Courthouse on Linden Street is the Beaux-Arts style Scranton Electric Building built in 1896 with a huge iconic lighted sign on top "Electric City" that was restored in 1904.

There is much more to see in Scranton but it was time for us to move on.

Coming soon--Connecticut's Capitol---Hartford