> Are the "site limits" and the
> "Scranton railyard" the same or
> different places?
In short, the "Scranton railyard" is mostly within the "site limits". What the unamed observer in the previous post had to say about LCRA "owning" key tracks within the site is most likely right on.
I was Director of Operations for Steamtown Foundation when Steamtown arrived in Scranton in 1984. At the time Conrail owned all the property and trackage in question; however, both the Delaware & Hudson and the Pocono Northeast had trackage rights within the yard. One of the first real hurdles I had to deal with was getting then Mayor Jim McNulty and other locals familiar with the way railroad agreements work. Yes, the D&H and Pocono Northeast, both very friendly to SF and its move to Scranton, did have rights to use certain tracks within the yard--but they could not originate a train for Steamtown there nor deliver Steamtown equipment. That right was reserved for Conrail--so even though Steamtown equipment arriving from Vermont went right by the south leg of the Scranton wye and the Scranton yard on the D&H mainline, the D&H couldn't deliver it. It had to be taken to Taylor Yard to be officially interchanged to Conrail--after which the Conrail local out of Pittston Jct. would pick it up at Taylor Yard and bring it back to Scranton (right over the same D&H tracks it had moved southward--Conrail had trackage rights over the D&H between those points!). Conrail, as the delivering carrier, of course got its sahre of the revenue--which some of the local folks viewed as being paid for an unnecessary move. However, in the railroad business, one has to understand that there are things like trackage rights and interchange agreements (and union contracts, too) that specify how things must be done. Lots of times they get in the way of common sense.
Shortly after Steamtown arrived in Scranton, the City of Scranton bought the property which is now the NPS site as well as the mainline trackage to Moscow from Conrail. However, and here's the clinker that leads up to today's issues, Conrail retained an easement for it's trackage on two tracks in the railyard as well as what was then referred to as the Brady Lead and the Chamberlain Lead. The latter two are key tracks through the Steamtown site, and were retained by Conrail to serve both sides of the Chamberlain Manufacturing plant as well as a plastics plant at Brady yard on the former Laurel Line trackage. For a year or so, every time SF wanted to have something moved at it's new home, Conrail's local crew had to perform the switching. The bad thing for SF was that it was costly and was done at CR's convenience; the good thing was that moves for SF always caused the local crew to outlaw which the local yardmaster didn't like. Eventually, he made an informal agreement with SF to make it's own moves on the CR-owned tracks--saying basically if you guys go on the ground, you take care of it, and don't do anything to foul up our serving the customers. That's the way it was until SF ceased operations in 1987.
After SF's demise, the City of Scranton turned the Steamtown site over to the NPS--and though I'm not privy to the documents, it's obvious that the CR trackage ownership within the site remained in effect. Lackawanna County Railroad Authority eventually bought out the remaining CR trackage in Scranton (as well as the city-owned trackage to Moscow)--LCRA obviously has mainline easements through the yard to serve the line into the Poconos as well as on the Brady Lead and Chamberlain Lead. Without an agreement with the LCRA and its freight operator to use this trackage, NPS simply can't operate on its own site. NPS can't get out of either the roundhouse or the shops without using the Chamberlain Lead!
The LCRA has always been a big supporter of Steamtown, so let's hope it can work things out between the DL and NPS. There's more been going on than has met the eye recently between DL and NPS; it's not a coincidence than DL dispatchers suddenly moved out of the Bridge 60 Tower.
fred.gracebailey@earthlink.net
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