http://www.gettysburgrail.com/

You get a "placeholder".

A "blank" website such as this does completely signal that the railroad is done... someone with the website might have slipped up...

Yes, I agree that a website problem doesn't mean the railroad has gone out of business.

On the other hand, I can't be the only one who strongly suspects that the "One year suspension of passenger service due to trackwork" or whatever it was they said will in fact be permanent.

It depends what the definition of "is" is!!! They just got the following money according to a PennDOT press release. That is on top of the money they got last year for "trackwork". Evidently freight is doing fine.

Adams County: Gettysburg & Northern Railroad Company -- $247,842 to extend two tracks at the Green Mountain Road Property to expand rail business and transloading opportunities.

I'll put this up with a disclaimer that most excursion railroads that do get 'reviews' seem to get unfairly beat up on Trip Advisor ("we came back on the same track we left on!") but this is particularly painful...

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_R ... ml#REVIEWS

We took a break from the 2008 Gettysburg Civil War reenactment and rode Saturday's "Ghost Train" . I have to say that I was underwhelmed. The reviews were pretty much dead on the money. Junk equipment, boring narration, "tree tunnel" scenery, indifferent crew, and operating practices that made me cringe. The really sad part is that with Gettysburg being the tourist destination that it is, a well run and properly funded operation could probably shine here and be able to support steam operation with little trouble economically.

I've gotten the impression that their safety record is pretty horrible actually.

Didn't they just recently have a boiler explosion??

Those reviews are pretty funny. Poor "Ann the storyteller" really takes a beating.

The boiler explosion was more than a decade ago and that organization has long since departed. Word on the street has not been to favorable but I have not been there in years so I am unable to comment on the current operator.

Well, if "just recently" includes 1995, then yes. Otherwise no. I wouldn't consider it to be a boiler explosion at least as it's traditionally thought of, and the NTSB called it a "firebox explosion" (whatever that is). A "crownsheet failure" would probably be the most common term for it. Alternately, I suppose you could call it "Coming as close as possible to blowing up the boiler without actually having it launch off the frame and land in a nearby cornfield..." No matter what you call it, crewmembers were severly injured and they came very close to a full fledged explosion that would have possibly killed the crew and/or passengers and certainly would have had a serious negative impact on the industry, even worse than this incident did.

The NTSB report is here: http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/1996/SIR9605.pdf

Short version - Water glasses are you friend, learn how to properly use them and keep them clean. Training your crew is a good idea too.

However... That was a different operator. The railroad is run by a different company, and operates all diesel powered trains due to obvious bad PR in the local area. After that incident, steam train rides would have probably been about as popular as "run-away stage coach rides, with nitoglycerin on board for added fun!"

It's really not fair to hold any of that against the current operator.

On the other hand, I will say that the last time I rode the train I did notice certain areas that could have possibly stood improvement in quality and/or safety. The "H.E.P." for example, was, well, let's just say, "creative".

It's reviews like this that make me wonder:



What part of Strasburg did they not understand? The fact the steam locomotives are in immaculate condition? The fact the cars look like they're nearly new? That nearly everything is clean and painted and in first rate condition, and the few projects that aren't there yet aren't parked next to the parking lot amongst weeds looking like a scrapyard?

Did they visit the same Stasburg I did? Was the only thing they noticed that the train only went 15 mph and the ride wasn't very long? (::shaking head::)

Ummm............ maybe the Strasburg whistles hurt the kids' ears, and/or the Gettysburg didn't spit cinders into their eyes or onto the nice clothes?

You've heard the old saying "one man's meat is another's poison"? It can currently be used to explain just about everything from "reality TV" to the current American political landscape.......

To be accurate, this is now 2.5 operators removed from the incident. It was sold to Rail America, Rail America spun it off to the local management, the owners sold it to Pioneer.

Yeah, if you ever want to see a railroad from a complete non-railroad customer perspective, I highly recommend Trip Advisor. It tends to be pretty polarized in the upper and lower stratosphere (you only take the time to post if you really liked it or really hated it) but it can be pretty brutal. And you really need to pay attention, because unlike "forum" content posting, these things tend to stick around.

The worst one I see (unfortunately, over and over) is the 'returned the way we came' and 'boring'. That speaks of the audience that really hasn't a clue of what's going on here.

If I have people here now checking themselves out, yeah, that's intentional. As "management" you can also respond, too.

And you'd be amazed how people can tank some of the best operators out there for some of the darndest reasons. I'm not picking on them, but this is representative of what I meant.....

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_R ... laska.html

Makes you really wonder what people expected!

I'll add this last one to the 'ya just can't win' group: Cass Scenic Railroad "No Cell Service - Restaurant 5 PM Close - No Nightlife" closely followed by "I'd read about the Amish Bakery up the road and we planned to eat there, but it's closed on Sunday "

Their working on the site, based on that screenie. Someone has to upload content to replace that screen, so something must be gurgling.

The domain is registered to GLB Technologies, a company that does website design. One could guess that it is being developed for the newest operator. Did anyone think about giving them a call on the phone and asking what's up?