https://gettysburgexcursion.com/



Technically the Gettysburg & Northern Railroad........

I'm happy they didn't say "the historic Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus train cars:... as I confess I'd have been tempted to do.

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who visibly grimaced when the title of this thread was read. But it is a completely new operation. No mention of power, though.

There are FP9s (and a B unit) listed on the roster from 2023, so I'm assuming that.
It's good to see the circus cars found a home.

I wonder if steam could return in the future with these excursions

The late Richard Adams produced a huge Excel spreadsheet covering northeast USA short lines and commuter railroads and it included the Gettysburg & Northern. His last update in early May 2024 showed only three geeps on the roster and no FP9s or B units: GP10s 1000 and 1001 and GP38-2 numbered 3833. I visited the line myself on May 21, 2024 and confirmed those three were the only locomotives on the roster. No. 1001 was out of service inside the enginehouse due to an electrical fire, No. 1000 was also parked inside the enginehouse and No. 3833 was working the line to the north.

I recall seeing other locomotives years ago but they're long gone.

The picture below shows the FPA7 No. 1755 inside the enginehouse in early 2020 where it was "stored serviceable." That's how I last saw it.

https://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showP ... id=5266313

This picture of No. 1755 taken a month later indicates it was sold to the Potomac Eagle:

https://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showP ... id=5301901

During my visit last year I asked the employees at the enginehouse about plans to restart excursion service but they said they had no idea and that it was all being handled well above them at the corporate level. No equipment for the new operation had arrived and they had no idea when it would come to Gettysburg. Until then they remained strictly in the freight business.

I visited the station Gettysburg too and it needed a lot of work. The track in front of the station was being used for storing tank cars and that had been the case for a number of years.

So many years ago, I grew up in the Gettysburg area and frequently visited this station when it was the home of Tommy’s Pizza. Assuming this is the old Reading Station being mentioned. 45 years ago, remembered very significant Chessie System trains rolling by there on the old Western Maryland.

Cheers!

Randy

The planned G&N excursions are listed on the Patriot Rail website alongside Blue Ridge Scenic and Granite State Scenic operations, which apparently use freight units painted nice, but capable of handling freight also: https://patriotrail.com/services/scenic ... xcursions/
Patriot Rail owns around two dozen short lines, so you would imagine that they have dozens of units to choose from. (Yard engine is Granite State Scenic, the rebuilt Geep is Blue Ridge Scenic).

By far No. 3833 is the sharpest-looking locomotive on the line now and you can watch it in action at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kklcU3FN0VE

It wouldn't look bad leading an excursion train.

That's a bit garish for my tastes.

Unless Patriot Rail sends another locomotive, these are the two other alternatives:

https://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showP ... id=5816773

https://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showP ... id=5871325

That looks incredibly tacky and try-hard, to be frank.

Graham Chapman said it best in this clip from Monty Python's Life of Brian:

https://youtu.be/P6OjA1Pd0uQ?si=fKPN1rU5JXNuIKIu

A couple comments that may still apply, maybe not.....

One of the Cornell family told me once that their best method of advertising in the steam days was to wait until about 11AM, then simply get the locomotive outside and blow the whistle so it could be heard all over the Park. People wandering around looking at monuments and cannons would hear it and ask 'where the train was?' and show up later in the day.

The other thing I've personally observed is that the visitor center in the park itself shuts down at 5PM. In the summer, it gets hot and humid, people are tired and hungry, about battled out, and looking for some cool place to sit down and eat. There aren't that many non-fast food places to go when I've been there. I always thought that was a prime opportunity for a dinner train or an early evening train rather than competing against the park in prime visit hours. We'll see what they do.

Some of the most epic critical TripAdvisor posts were levelled at them the last time they ran, so it's a pretty low bar to clear this time. The ridership during the Cornell years was surprisingly good, not since.

I visited Gettysburg last week and found construction taking place at the train station, both inside and out. The dilapidated addition on the station's west side has been removed and a new structure is being added, plus a new, extended concrete pad has been put down on the west side as well. The platform on the front of the station has been torn up and is likely to be replaced too. On the east side of the station, facing the street, is a sign with the name of the construction contractor: Gettysburg Construction Company. Its website is

https://gettysburgconstruction.com/

The parking lot on the west side of the station is still a mix of gravel and, due to melting snow that day, slippery mud. There was a large pile of fresh gravel in the parking lot and a new, paved parking lot would be a nice improvement, but I didn't ask the company if that's part of the plan.

I asked railroad employees about when excursion service would start and they still don't know, but they anticipate it will be in the fall. When will the passenger cars arrive and will there be a new locomotive to pull them, or will the railroad use existing motive power? They don't know those answers yet either. Stay tuned for further developments.