From Trains magazine's website:

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... uZxwEzjl5E

Some of us think this is the way we need to go, to get more traffic off roads, reduce pressure on the highway system, and to also help us become less dependent on driving (and less dependent on oil and its price vulnerabilities to us, and indeed the world).

It could also increase opportunities for other heritage operations, including main line services along the lines of the Royal Canadian (I think that's the right name). It's even possible such an operation could be a true heritage service with vintage cars and even steam power (maybe mainline steam would finally have a home, or at least access to trackage that's denied now).

What I think is most interesting is that the parties involved aren't the classic "capitalist" organizations we take so much pride in. Instead, we have a quite short heritage railroad with steam engines--what some would consider "playing with full sized trains" (it's not that, but some will think that)--and a government run "socialist" railroad.

Sadly, this effort will be too small to amount to much. The corporate moneybags who run railroads (and everything else) can't--won't--make any such effort to actually grow the business today.

The freight yard at East Strasburg was crowding out both passenger car storage and visitor parking. Moreover cars consigned in the Leaman Place area do not have to run the length of the RR twice.

Phil Mulligan

On the other hand, I always enjoyed dragging a heavy freight up the hill, steam or diesel. I was always impressed by how much louder the SW8 was in the cab when down on her knees than a steam engine in similar circumstances.

Maybe an off topic question but how does this work financially? I've always heard that adage that you need so many cars per mile of track to make freight viable, but in this case now that SRR is essentially only moving the freight from the interchange to the yard the freight mileage is extremely short. Is the majority of SRR's freight revenue based on the transloading of materials and the added services around the transloading? It just doesn't seem to me that the business case of "moving the freight car 1/2 mile" would be a huge money generator.

I believe that SRC is set up as a "switching" RR partner to NS. As such, they get a fixed amount from NS per car that is interchanged to them, whether they are hauled to Strasburg or left in Leaman Place. That explains the hurry to get empties back to the interchange ASAP, as demurrage comes right off the bottom line. Not certain, but that's my understanding.

Revisiting this thread after something tickled some brain cells, I recall there were plans or proposals some time back--a fairly long time now--to incorporate turning facilities at both ends of the Strasburg, and that a passenger station for a connecting stop with Amtrak was also planned at Leaman Place.

Would Kelly or anybody else be at liberty for an update on those, or have they been permanently set aside for other things like this freight yard?

Interesting, thank you.

I’m a little unsure where this new railyard is? As you are arriving at Leaman Place, is it on the right where the picnic tables were? Or is it on the left where that access road / open lot was?

There are two turntable bridges on hand, across Rt 741 and west of the RRMPA. One was/is planned to be installed at the end of the little spur in LP where #475 took her unauthorized excursion on last fall. There have been several locations discussed on where to install one in Strasburg. Nothing is lacking but a few crates of cubic dollars to see them installed.

I remember Linn speaking to the assembled employees about 1992, replying to a question about the LP Amtrak station, that he expected it to be in service by 1997. I remember thinking as he was saying it, that it seemed like a very long time to install a couple of platforms, open shelters, and a small parking lot, but the wheels of government grind slow.

Since then, the plan was to build the station near where the new freight yard is, but Nimbys in Paradise wanted nothing to do with trains stopping in their town and fought it to a standstill. As one resident said at a public meeting, "Only drug dealers travel by train". I guess that's why we see so many sneakers hanging from the centenary on the Keystone corridor.

Then the idea was to build it adjacent to SRC's curve out of LP, but that got crosswise of the ADA. Late in the process, it was declared that railhead height platforms would discriminate against handicapped people, even if a wheelchair lift was provided, and even though other stations between Harrisburg and Philadelphia have low level platforms. High platforms would have to be too far from the track in order to provide clearance on Amtrak's curve there, so that idea was stillborn as well. Linn tried to push that station through for nearly 30 years, and had PennDOT and Amtrak on board for it, but got nowhere, usually due to Johnny-come-lately's throwing wrenches in the works when it was 80% planned out. And the stretch from Lancaster to Parkesburg remains to this day as the longest gap between stations on the heavily used Keystone corridor.

Can you imagine if we tried to build the transcontinental railroad today?

The answer Kelly is it would be impossible. Darn good thing we built the critical infrastructure before the lawyers, bean counters, NIMBYs and CAVE people took over.

Sad but true. Ross Rowland

True. The only Nimbys in 1869 were the Indians, and their legal representation sucked.

And people wonder why I say this country is weird for being hostile to rail.

Hell, can you imagine it being like 1962, and you are bringing in steam for the first time?

Can you imagine the opposition to the Strasburg at the dawn of the preservation era in 1958 if the people were like that then?

As someone who's been called a Communist for proposing a light rail line instead of highway project, I'm beginning to wonder if my wife is right, that we need to leave the country.

Old, but still current.

https://www.newsweek.com/will-why-liber ... ains-68597

A bit more recent, and if anything, even more strongly worded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Lo0ieyQtQ

Nonsense like this is why I don't call myself conservative out of embarrassment.

I just say I'm old fashioned.
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Cars are freedom? Because you can go where you want and when you want?

Well, that doesn't always hold up. If you have job, you have a guy called a boss. The boss has a lot to say about where you go, when you go there, and what you do when you're there.

That's until you have a day off or retire. Then your wife tells you where to go!
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Thanks anyway, Kelly, even if I don't like what the results have been.

I'll admit that I have looked into emigrating to New Zealand, figuring that it's as far as I can get while staying on the planet. Plus they have great scenery, speak English, and will probably be the among the last places to be overcome by the fallout cloud.

New Zealand also has a 3'6" gauge system, with at least occasional steam operations, with locomotives that were home designed--by engineers who I understand were trained at Baldwin.

Anyway, there is a lot of American influence in the design of NZ steam (particularly the 4-8-2s and 4-8-4s), and there are some American built engines, too.

Oh, my wife and I considered New Zealand, too, but there are restrictions on who can go there. We wouldn't qualify.

Taking liberty and "give me your tired, your poor...." etc. for granted, are we?

I've personally known several people who very loudly proclaimed their plans to emigrate to places like Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan, and the like, largely as what should be called "political protest." This is above and beyond the often-aired threats of rich, grandstanding celebrities that threatened to emigrate "if Bush were elected/re-elected" or "if Trump were elected" but never followed through.

What almost always stopped their plans dead is the HUGE "entry fee" assessed upon such immigrants to make up for the 20-30 years they haven't spent paying into the socialist-style cradle-to-grave "safety net" via extraordinary high levels (by U.S. standards) of taxation. In one case, it was well into six figures in US dollars.

I've known ONE couple personally that did emigrate, a multi-millionaire computer software engineer and his wife that emigrated to the Isle of Man. He had enough money, and he had planned the move for some time, in part for tax purposes, as soon as the three kids were old enough to be self-sufficient. Meanwhile, the ones that actually do leave for "political" reasons don't announce it publicly--they just move themselves and/or the production factory from California, Pennsylvania or Illinois to Arizona, Texas or Florida.