Day 2 (Morning) - Steamtown National Historic Site May 12, 2009

Sarah writing in white.
Jason writing in blue.

Well…Jackson survived his night of camping!!! He slept all night and didn’t wake up until 7:30am! What a sleepy head! After packing all of our gear and things, we started our trek up toward Scranton. We took small “back-roads” the entire way and arrived in Scranton to see the Steamtown National Historic Site (http://www.nps.gov/stea/). There was a large museum that highlighted the people and the history of steam railroading in the United States. There was essentially a timeline that emphasized key moments in the history of railroading from the early 19th to the mid-20th century. Scranton was once a major locomotive builder and transportation hub.

Jackson with his Conductor's Cap

The museum included visitor center, a history museum, and a large area where they keep, maintain, and store old engines and cars. The nice museum building is a refurbished roundhouse which nearly surrounds a "turntable", which is kind of like a merry-go-round for steam engines, that allows them to be pulled into sheds for maintenance. They still use parts of the roundhouse for maintenance of the engines. You could walk through some of the trains and watch engineers working on the engines. There was a 90-foot turntable which was used for turning engines toward the round house.

A few of the engines near the turntable in the middle of the roundhouse.

It was really cool to see how big the engines are and to see the inside of some of the oldest trains.

Sarah standing in front of a model 4-8-8-4 "Big Boy" engine. These "Big Boys" were the longest, and among the largest and most powerful steam engines ever. This one is over 132 feet long, and when its tender was full (the coal carrier attached to the engine), it weighed almost 1.2 million pounds.

One of the things that made Steamtown different from other railroads was that most other railways used coal as their source of fuel, which made travel inherently dirty for passengers. The DL&W (Delaware, Lackawanna & Western) railroad started using anthracite coal as fuel which created less smoke, soot and cinders. This was advertised as the “clean coal”. Unfortunately, this was not the 1st time unscrupulous business people lied to the public about the "benefits" of "clean coal", something that didn't exist then, nor now.

Jackson looking somewhat worriedly at one of the manikins in the museum.

One of the cars in the museum was a mail car from a train line that was headquartered in Tennessee. The workmen would sort the mail while on route. There were several mail slots for Huntsville, Montgomery, and Birmingham, AL.

The timeline of railroads:
1804: Great Britain successfully built a steam locomotive.
1829: D&H Canal Company Railroad tests the first real steam locomotive (“Stroubridge Lion”) in the United States.
1849-1853: DL&W Railroad (Delaware, Lackawanna & Western) was formed from Delaware Gap railroad
1869: The transcontinental railroad is completed between Omaha NE, and Sacramento, CA.
1904: The first promotion of travel on the DL&W railroad.
1949: The diesel-powered luxury train “Phoebe Snow” is introduced and the Scranton locomotive shops close.
1960: The DL&W and Erie railroads merge to form the Erie-Lackawanna Rail Road.
1976: Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) is formed by merging numerous railroads.
1986: Congress establishes Steamtown a National Historic Site.
1995: Steamtown was restored and recreated and open to the public.

We spent several hours at the museum and ate lunch on the tailgate of the truck (peanut butter sandwiches and Cheezits…..Jackson ate peach applesauce and oatmeal). After lunch we walked up a ramp over the rail yard where they store dozens more engines and cars waiting to be refurbished. The ramp connects the historic site to the Steamtown Mall, where we got some icecream.

The view of a small part of the rail yard from the ramp to Steamtown Mall. The buildig in the background is part of the refurbished roundhouse / park museum. The strange engine in front of the building is a giant train snowblower used for clearing tracks of snow in the winter. It is probaly 15 feet high or more.

This park was really fantastic. One of my favorite National Historic Sites and one of, if not my favorite stop on our trip. I love old steam engines, and it really reminded me of dad's old electric train set that Josh and I used to pull out and set up every few years when we were kids. It is just unbelievable how big some of these engines are. The Museum facility if VERY nice - they obviously put some money into it and it is great. A very nice theater and tons of museum exhibits. My only critique of the place is that the exhibits have A LOT of text, which I've learned is a no-no. Even if I were by myself, it would take all day to read everything there.

Steamtown also has train rides. You can go for very short rides on the premises, or long, all day trips through the region. We really want to go on the all day trip through the Delaware Water Gap, which we drove through on the way to Scranton and it was just beautiful.

Another gorgeous day - clear blue skies, windy, cool but warm in the sun. Just beautiful!

Get out of our way!!!!!!

Jackson and I driving the train.