I'm finally going to make the trek to strasburg in 2 weeks. it's about 4 hour drive for me and i want to make the most of it, i have 3 days down there. what other railroad sites are there in the vicinity? ? i know of strasburg RR and the muesame across the street.

B&O Museum in Baltimore....about 2 hours south. Kind of a rough neighborhood.

Wilmington & Western RR. About an hour east.

East Broad Top....maybe 2 hours west.

Blue Mountain and Reading? Are they still operating?

BLW #60,000 at the Franklin Institute in Philly.

I am sure there are more.

Andy Pullen

Wilmington & Western is about 45 miles away
Wanamaker, Kempton & Southern is about 65 miles (not currently running steam)
New Hope & Ivyland is 80 miles
Black River & Western is 91 miles (sometimes running steam)
Lehigh Gorge Scenic is about 96 miles
Steamtown 140 miles

and the Reading & Northern runs trips across different areas of it's lines on occasion with steam

I currently cannot confirm steam on any of these lines but you have a few lines to look up on your own.

Andy,
Blue Mountain is now Reading & Northern and yes they run the 425 a few times per year on different branches of his many lines he now owns.

Oh, good Lord........


No more than any other American city, and if you're only coming in to see it and nothing else, not a worry about the neighborhood. If on a Saturday or Sunday, the Baltimore Streetcar Museum is worth the quick stopover en route to and from.


Southeast, actually. 741 east to Gap, then southeast on 41. Pretty straight shot.


Ummmmm....... have you forgotten the railroad isn't operating at all???? Still worth seeing if you're driving through the area, but don't plan on riding. The Rockhill Trolley Museum, on the other hand, will welcome your patronage.....


Not for, like twenty years now........ but if you're headed that way, there's a low-key "museum" of Reading rolling stock at Hamburg. Much more worth your effort: the Wanamaker, Kempton & Southern, or the Lehigh Scenic Gorge Railway at Jim Thorpe.


Worth it IF you have time to kill in Philly, not worth the extra effort JUST for it unless those kind of locos are "your thing."


West Chester RR.....
Steam Into History, New Freedom, Pa.
Harris Tower, Harrisburg
Steamtown NHS and Electric City Trolley, Scranton

This all becomes a matter of your preferences and priorities.

BLW 60,000 a good visit, theres more to see in the museum anyways. Story is the engineer who was to test run it saw the steam pressure 600 PSI, got off and walked away... (water tube boiler) (well the wiki shows 350psi but I swear...heh)

at least hit a ride on SEPTA and the Red Arrow line. 69th street terminal is still a busy spot with trackwork galore.

I thought there was another electric line museum out there somewhere, have to poke around..

Alexander,

Please....I worked not far from the B&O Museum a number of years ago and driving home on Pratt Street several blocks west of the museum one day there was police activity on Pratt Street....A man was pinned down on the street and the officer was pounding the man's face. Several officers were standing around the scene. This was in broad daylight.

Friends from Ohio came to visit this past spring and they went to the museum and didn't feel comfortable in Baltimore on a Saturday morning. You just need to stay alert.

I know that EBT isn't running. You can certainly go walk around....

I don't have the time to be a foamer and know every detail about every train related location. I was just making some suggestions.

Andy Pullen

Would be helpful knowing the direction from whence you come. Be it northeast, other rail related industrial sites along the way include: The Anthracite Heritage Museum and Mine Tour at Scranton; Pioneer Tunnel coal mine and narrow gauge and the Anthracite Mining Museum at Ashland; and No 9 Coal Mine at Lansford – all mines are accessed via rail. There’s also the lore of the Mollies at Eckley Miner’s Village and the old Lehigh Valley shops at Weatherly – home of one of four remaining LV 50-ton 2-bay coalies. Lots of rail-related history remain in the anthracite coal regions.

Yes, personal comfort level is a personal thing. And, yes, go substantially west of the B&O Museum and you're in the very neighborhood that inspired and starred in David Simon's HBO series The Wire.

What I object to is characterizing this city, and seemingly every other one, as havens of Wild-West-style lawlwessness. The allegations of kids having fire-hydrant-eating contests are false. The fact remains that if you are not actively involved in the drug trade (either as a seller or a buyer/user) and/or don't choose to be in a violent domestic relationship, your odds of being a victim of violent crime in this city are comparable to being in the suburbs or exburbs. And a simple application of common sense--don't leave your laptop case and camera bag in the car in open sight, don't walk like a clueless Disney tourist in strange neighborhoods with flashy stuff like your smart phone or cameras openly visible, don't go getting $400 cash out of an isolated ATM after dark in a strange area, etc.--will avoid almost any other such pitfalls. If you act like a potential victim, you'll probably be one given long enough.

The B&O Museum has a fenced parking lot. You can get there from I-95 via only four traffic lights, one exit and two left turns total. Yes, I guarantee you will see panhandlers at two of the intersections coming and going. Just ignore them like everyone else who isn't a sucker tourist does--some of them have been working the same corners for years, so it must be a pretty well-paying gig.

The fact remains that the B&O Museum 1) is at one of the most historic sites in railroading history, the very spot where the tracks of the United States' first intercity railroad set up its first terminal; 2) is one of the most significant and historic collections of rolling stock in the world, in spite of its singular focus on one railroad company; and 3) does an amazingly good job of presentation and its mission given the hand they've been dealt (location, inner-city politics, deteriorating infrastructure, that roof collapse, oversized collection, etc.). If that's not enough, as mentioned earlier, there's the Baltimore Streetcar Museum (an excellent one-city collection, with new interlopers from Philly and Newark just added), and also the Baltimore Civil War Museum on the east side of the Inner Harbor, in the oldest American inner-city station structure surviving (yes, beating the present-day Mt. Clare Station at the B&O Museum by a matter of months!).

Now, if your problem is seeing abandoned houses, or people that dress/talk differently than you, or seeing people with somewhat darker skin pigmentation, then you have bigger problems than Baltimore, and most of the other cities, do.

Baltimore is just as bad or worse than many other cities.

You are correct that the museum has a fence. You are correct that you should keep valuables well hidden. You are correct that the B&O museum is reasonably safe. All I was implying was that if visiting, be aware of your surroundings.

A few months ago I went to Sinai Hospital to visit my wife's grandmother and there was a man walking around the parking lot trying to get money from the people going to the hospital. This man gave me a story that he was trying to get to Bel Air up Route 1. He said that he had run out of gas and had driven the wrong way down Route 1 and had ended up in Laurel before realizing that he had gone the wrong way. Route 1 is several miles from Sinai Hospital for those that don't know....why would he be there trying to collect money for "gas"??

I don't have a problem with people of other races. There are malcontents in EVERY ethnic group.

But to single it out and recommend avoiding it entirely because someone came up and talked to you is highly unfair.

80% of the population live in urban areas. I don't think anyone who lives in those urban areas would have any problems visiting the B&O museum (or really any other parts of town that you'd go to).

Like Sandy pointed out, if you're not involved in the trafficking of illicit narcotics, Baltimore is actually a pretty safe place to live, work and visit.

Also, keep in mind, you may hear some bad stories, but "data" is not the plural form of "anecdote".

coming from the western part of pa. Johnstown, to be precise.

If that's the case then a stop over at East Broad Top is highly recommended. It's on the way east towards Strasburg and although the trains aren't running, the entire property is a time capsule being almost undisturbed since 1956. I believe they still allow people to go inside the sheds and see the idle engines.

Of course a visit to the world famous horseshoe curve is also recommended. Plenty of modern rail activity over there.

As for tourist lines, there's the Middlestown and Hummelstown which unfortunately is not running steam and Steam Into History which is about 45 minutes south of Lancaster but well worth the drive to see their beautiful 4-4-0 in action.

OK, so here's some data, as compiled by the FBI.
http://lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/crime/1 ... ous-large/

Baltimore ranks as #7 on the list of most dangerous large cities in the US. That's ahead of New York, Chicago, and Washington DC. There is a high crime rate. As you suggested, if he's not dealing drugs, stealing cars or the like, the risk is pretty low. Going to the museum in daytime is pretty low risk.

However, this is something you should be aware of. If you enjoy street photography and like to visit the "seedy" sides of town for some "artistic" photos, maybe you should think twice before trying it in B'more.

Do all cities have risks? Certainly! But it's good to be aware of just how bad they are.

I DIDN'T recommend not going there. I just said the neighborhood is kind of rough.

I worked in Baltimore for many years. Not always in the best neighborhoods. That is where machine shops tended to be. I have many, many anecdotes from personal experience.

I DIDN'T say I avoid Baltimore. I have been to the B&O Museum many times. I was there 2 months ago. The Streetcar Museum a number of times.

As I said I worked in Baltimore. I was doing overtime on a Saturday night back in 1993 and there was a drive-by shooting 2 blocks over. I've seen kids huffing something from plastic bags in broad daylight. Prostitutes renting themselves out on the parking lot of a former employer...These things go on in most of the big cities. I know where the "bad areas" are and avoid them.

All cities have their seedy underbellies....

Please stop hijacking this thread.

Country Acres asked about what is nearby Strasburg. My statement was only meant as unsolicited advice that if he goes to B'more, to be careful.

Andy Pullen