There has been a lot of discussion over the last few months about a late fall festival at Steamtown in Scranton. As the details are settling in, one of the planners asked me to promote some of them.

While several groups are involved in this event, it will take place mainly in the Steamtown yard, and on the pocono line on the weekend of Nov 2-4, 2007. Steamtown's two mainline locomotives will be roadworthy by the end of this summer, making a double-header possible. At least one excursion is planned to run to East Stroudsburg to promote the tower society, and their progress. The tower preservation group is one of the lead agents in planning the event. There is talk of photo runs on this weekend.

A day-long trip away from the festivities in Scranton sounds like a bum deal, so shorter train rides will be on the menu, too. Nearly everyone with a locomotive or railroad car in the vicinity has been invited, and many are making serious plans to arrive. Most of the equipment will be routed on the Canadian Pacific line, so it is likely that the CP will lend a diesel or two for the event. The Delaware-Lackawanna and its freight ALCOs will also appear. The ELDCPS "City of Lima" sleeper should be in Scranton, too, so the streamline era is presented.

Much of this will resemble the RailExpo celebrations at Steamtown from the 1998 to 2002. I hesitate to give more details, but at least one inbound excursion is possible to occur. It should also have an outbound once-in-a-lifetime component that will be worth it for some of us. Stay tuned.

Please bear with me. There is still a lot that needs to fall in place.

I think the rare mileage trip can be spelled out since it is being advertised on http://www.highirontravel.com/

Nov. 2-5. ULTRA-RARE-MILEAGE TRIP TO STEAMTOWN
High Iron Travel in cooperation with Bennett Levin's Juniata Terminal Ry. is offering the following trip to help support Steamtown.

Power will be Bennett's E8's.

Friday, Nov. 2: Special leaves Philadelphia for Reading and Allentown via ex-Reading; then on the ex-Lehigh Valley to Easton. At Easton we cross the Delaware river on the Lehigh & Hudson River bridge and continue north to Brairards where we re-cross the Delaware on the ex DL&W, pass through Martins' Creek and continue through Bangor, to Portland where we join the original DL&W mainline. Then up the DL&W main line to Scranton. We lay over at Steamtown.

Saturday, Nov. 3: All day at Steamtown. Admission to the museum the the trolley line is included. Steamtown will be operating a steam excursion today.

Sunday, Nov. 4: Scranton to Binghamton (edx-DL&W; now CP); then west on the "Southern Tier" (ex-Erie) to Olean where we will overnight. Dinner off the train tonight.

Monday, Nov. 5: Today we return to Philadelphia via the ex-PRR Buffalo line over Keating Summit. to Harrisburg.

Equipment: Caritas, open platform business car; Cimarron River (ex-Frisco sleeper).

Fares: Per person, Double occupancy: $4,950. Roometter supplement: $250. Includes all en route meals (except lunch and dinner at Steamtown). Admission to Steamtown, Trolley ride and donation to Steamtown Museum.

Connections: The Caritas and Cimarron River will be coming to Philadelphia from Chicago on October 31; returning on Nov. 6. Space available.

NOTE: This will be an extremely popular trip, traversing rail lines that have never seen a passenger train. Early reservations are recommended.

I will quibble with the line about lines never seeing a passenger train. By my calculations, only the L&HR bridge at Easton and the ex-PRR track from the Bel-Del over the Delaware to the DL&W at Martins Creek (about 2 miles) have never seen a passenger train. Granted, no one is still alive that ever rode a Bangor & Portland passenger train, but it did exist!

Isn't this the same week as the Tourist RR Association convention? I'd hate to have to choose between them.

No, the TRAIN convention is Nov. 6 - 11.

Plus you have the RRMofPA photo session and the CN photo freight on the Strasburg that week!

Rob

There is a slight change in the title to the Nov 2-4 spectacular planned for Scranton. It seems like some invited guests are already trying to come to the 2008 celebration, so it is likely to become an annual event.

The banquet at the Radisson will cost $30, although I am unsure of the cost of the night photo session. Excursion rates are the same for the special trips to East Stroudsburg and Moscow as they would be for any other day, and park admission is still $6.00 per adult. This is becoming a big event.

Diesel fans will see several historic E and F units, plus a few hood units from the 50s through the 80s. Several passenger cars are coming for display, too. I hear that the Pennsylvania E-8 excursion is already sold out. A lot of rare trackage will be used on its roundabout excursion from Philadelphia.

Along with the Electric City trolley and Steamtown's Scranton Ltd trains, this will be quite a busy and colorful weekend. Encourage some of your cheaper friends to buy a ticket. If we get alot of people and not much at the cashbox, it will severely impair a future outing. Hope to see you there.

I applaud this effort and hope it turns out to be a huge success. May I respectfully suggest that the organizers firm up all the loose ends now so that they can publish a definitive menu of the events/participants that are FIRMLY committed and WILL be a part of the weekend.
It appears to me that even at this late date many pieces are still in the "maybe" category and thus questionable as to their likelyhood of actually happenning.
I believe it will greatly help increase participation to publish soon a definitive listing of the entire weekends events based on firm committments.
IMHO-Ross Rowland

Tim,

Do you know when ticket sales for the excursions and banquet will begin? Right now, only the Hilton has my money. ;-)

Rob

Tim,

Glad to see some action, and given the timing right before TRAIN, I think I'll have to make plans to be there!

Maybe I'll see if the Trains magazine office car will be ready by this time ... hmm. (just joking-really!)

Jim

I agree totally with Mr. Rowland on this point. Just this morning, one of the organizers told me that a meeting at the end of August will firm up the details. This gives us Sept and Oct. to promote the event. Good lead time, but not great.

He also told me that the Nov 3 excursion to Delaware Water Gap is planned to be diesel eastbound, very likely D-L's RS-3 combo, with steam heading west. The westward trip is a much steeper climb than Eastbound, and should make for quite a show. Run-by locations are being discussed. Another point of discussion is what one does with potentially dozens of visiting pieces. We only have so many tracks that are in decent shape, plus a working freight railroad and a museum to run. This will be exciting.

Meanwhile, Steamtown's crews are feverishly working at bringing CN 2-8-2 3254 back from some minor repairs, and repairing parts of CP 4-6-2 2317's pony truck.

A steam run, west? Gadzooks! This just gets better. Thank you Tim, good to see you again last week.

Joshua