Grant it, different time, location and economic climates, but isn't this how the Strasburg Railroad as we know it today, started out some 50+ years ago?

Not saying this little railroad will ever become as popular, but it is possible to rebuild a business like this, and I'm sure they could have by now had this issue of the back debt not been at hand.

If the stockholders/board received a legitimate offer for their shares by someone also willing to pay the debt, this could be ended tomorrow (figuratively). Or, if an intrepid group cares to organize and pool their monies (as was done with the 40 or so Vice-Presidents of the SRR), they could also come to the rescue. It's just a bad time to be asking for funds or help, and it doesn't seem too many people have the resources to buy a railroad that needs work, has debt, no freight, no live connection to the outside worlds, etc..

It could be turned around, but it's an incredible long shot.

-Micah

It doesn't seem likely that freight is in the future for this line - but even 60 pound rail can carry light comuter cars. Is there any economic need to use this line as a residential development tool? I'm not too familiar with the area, and the bit of travelling I've done through the area was on somewhat crowded 2 lane roads. Is this area close enough to major urban centers that commuter rail instead of highways might be a useful purpose and reason to preserve it?

dave

I'm sorry, I just hurt myself laughing. No offence, mate.

In a slightly more serious answer, there has been at least a token nod to transport-corridor preservation with the entire York-Baltimore ex-Northern Central/PRR route, although even the most determined fanatics don't realistically see a transit line on any more of the route for several decades or a government revolution, at least.

The Stewartstown is another matter. Its "charm" stems from the fact that, seemingly more so than any other surviving branch like save for a few other preserved lines, it twists and curves to follow the lay of the land and seemingly to stop at every house along the way. (My father told me of a trip home after the Second World War that entailed, in part, a train between Baltimore and Harrisburg that "stopped at every house along the way--and at a duplex it stopped twice!" That description seems to indicate a trip on the "Ma & Pa," and fits the Stewartstown even better.) The curves on this line would be more apt for stretcars or trolleys than the former Reading cars the excursion used--and excursions in the 1950s used gondola cars as passenger carriers for just this reason.

Would YOU want to commute on the "Toonerville Trolley" in 2011?

[quote="Alexander D. Mitchell IVWould YOU want to commute on the "Toonerville Trolley" in 2011?[/quote]

Well, yes, but I'm hardly the kind of demographic you want to make a useful commuter service. I''d much rather ride a time machine than a commuter train.

No offense taken, I'm certainly ignorant of the particulars of the area, just seemed like a possibility.

Just because the line was run like the Ma and Pa back in the day doesn't mean it would HAVE to be run that way today. Instead of every house, maybe every village collection point would do.

dave

You are correct. The 24 investors rounded-up by Henry Long back in 1958 to purchase the Strasburg Rail Road started out with a lot less infrastructure than the Stewartstown Railroad has today. Remember, everything at Strasburg, except the right-of-way, has been created post-1958. And, for all practical purposes, it was the Strasburg that "taught" rail preservationists that saving and operating a railroad as a self-supporting living museum could be done.

Many of the short lines in the northeast didn't think they would be in a area of a natural gas boom, either. Now, many of those lines are involved with moving drilling equipment and fracking sand. We basically have no planning for rail, except to rip up lines that don't make money NOW. Commuter service? Who knows what the future holds? We don't rip up roads with low traffic or NO traffic on them, only railroads. The line the Stewartstown connects with should be a MAJOR passenger rail corridor. Baltimore-York-Harrisburg are major cities and don't have direct passenger rail service! No one wants to go to Philly and then lay over to catch a train to Baltimore, or visa versa. The government knows it's a major corridor, because it has spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars on Interstate 83. The only thing for sure is $10 a gallon gas. It's just a matter of when. At that point, how attractive will I-83 be? But in the USA, we have oil companies, paving companies, foreign lobbyists and convenience stores that sell gas running the transportation policy for the country; and the average American who lives outside of some rail corridors sees only car commericals, dozens every day. It's, like, "What's a train? Oh, those things. They're in museums, right?"

The Codorus Creek valley south of York and north of the state line is 'the land that time forgot'. The roads are narrow and twisty. It's farmland, much of it with civil-war era barns and structures still around, with small communities dotted around. There isn't any heavy industry until you get into the York area. That's the "Northern Central" ex-PRR Baltimore-York-Harrisburg main line that was severed in 1972 with Hurricane Agnes. While York County at least kept the ex-PRR rail in to the state line parallel to the bike trail, it's long gone to trail south of the PA state line. It is the very definition of a 'linear park' stretched over the entire York-Baltimore corridor.
http://www.dnr.state.md.us/greenways/ncrt_trail.html

While it runs parallel to I-83, it may as well be 100 miles away. There is residential development pressure for sure, but even the local roads are slow enough as to restrict easy access.

These are pretty rural communities that have no intention of joining suburbia - including supporting much of anything that resembles a commuter service. Just further west - Hanover, PA - the residential development pushing south is very noticeable.

That's been the blessing and the curse for the railroad. It has kept itself pretty much isolated from development, and the only real pockets of development pressure are those with easy access to I-83. One of those just happens to be near the railroad, but overall, it's incredibly isolated for the area it is in. York is a real hotbed of transportation and distribution facilities, rail included, today, but it's the exception in the area. Because of those existing distribution facilities and transloads, it's hard for a shortline to make a go of it unless you can find a leftover niche too small for anybody else. There's no underlying industry right there that really needs direct rail in volume, and there hasn't been - which is why the local railroads have been struggling for so long all the way back to the Ma & Pa.

Even Strasburg, bless them, has now found a freight transload niche to fill, so it can't be dismissed. But for this particular area - and this particular situation - this is the evolution and situation that the real world has to deal with to make the railrod survive even as a volunteer organization.

There are other factors at play as well.
*The Strasburg, at the time, did not have a massive debt awaiting payment, as I recall--it just had nothing, no money to fill the Plymouth's gas tank or fix the washout.
*In 1958, the Strasburg was a novelty--no WK&S, no Black River & Western tourists, no Steamtown, Reading Rambles just starting, Stewartstown still doing freight, no Ohio Central, no Reading & Northern, no Grand Canyon RR--need I go on?
*In 1958 there was still a functional value to being a "vice-president" of a railroad. It was said around Lancaster at the time (according to my mother, who grew up there) that some of the original investors were not at all interested in the steam preservation aspects of the line. They were instead interested only in the free pass privileges that being a RR VP could snag from the likes of the PRR, Reading, and other railroads. I believe that the one private car that was painted "Strasburg" (probably the former Reading one that now resides on one of the side tracks at Strasburg and has probably paid for itself in tour admissions since) was in part operated under that "VP of a railroad" basis on many junkets to the likes of the Kentucky Derby during the 1960s; correct me if I'm wrong. Today, what with Amtrak running passenger trains and overseeing PV operations by default, and few railroads running passenger trains of their own, the ruse of becoming a VP of a railroad to get privileges just doesn't work as well.
*The 1958 investment per share of $450 translates into about $3,400 today. Could I find 50 folks (or, more realistically, benevolent corporate donors) willing to pony up $3500 today? Maybe, but I'd think they'd see more potential in a brewpub or vacation timeshare. Besides, that would only generate $175,000--not even half of the outstanding debt, and maybe the scrap value of the cars and loco, or the worth of a station in critical need of repair.

There are other factors at play as well... that would only generate $175,000--not even half of the outstanding debt, and maybe the scrap value of the cars and loco, or the worth of a station in critical need of repair.[/quote]

I am going to assume that you mean well Alex... but don't you think its about time you gave it a rest? Speaking for myself, the know-it-all attitude and acerbic comments in this and almost every other post, do nothing more than chase away folks that are interested in the preservation movement.

Early on in my limited experience in preservation, comments of a similar vein did nothing more than turn off the casual people interested in helping out. I can respect the accomplishments that you have accomplished in the preservation field, but have been soured by the lack of people skills exhibited in this forum.

Sincerely,

Romi Romano

http://www.stewartstownrailroad.com/

they are accepting donations and they are now an established non-profit, so your donations can be tax credited.

http://www.kickstarter.com/

I suggest they latch onto this site as well.

keeping the convo's pro and con and whatever keep attention on the line, keep it up Alex.

Declaring the line a historical site would also prevent any abandoning.
Stewartstown is a 7 mile line, compare that to the North Shore running 90 miles, freight and passenger and it is gone. The earmarks happening on the Stewartstown is all the same.

This page can be useful to help distinguish what State/National Historic Register nomination and listing reasonably can and can't do.. it's aimed at historic buildings in Pennsylvania but the basics are the same:

http://www.conservemontco.org/historic- ... tion-faqs/

We've typically recommended and performed Register nomination to achieve eligibility for grants. There are several railroads, including well-known tourist railroads, have have the entire property nominated in order to receive track rehab funding.

In various states, it's been a reasonably effective tool to help prevent government-funded (if not private) demolition or removal of historic assets, historic railroads included. But by itself, it's not a magic shield.

The Stewartstown station was already listed in 1997, according to the website.

A.D.M.

How about a straw poll here to see if there is sufficient interest on the part of investors to be a "vice president" for that $3500 ?

R.L.K.

A poll here is largely irrelevant. What IS relevant is whether or not such "VP's" can be found in York County, Pennsylvania. If the Stewartstown RR ended up with a whole bunch of shareholders scattered across the nation/world, two things not healthy to the railroad would happen: 1) the railroad would end up increasingly administered by a select few that could be there on a regular basis, no matter how many WW&F-style "track parties" and "member's weekends" you would hold; and 2) local resentment would grow over a railroad/attraction owned/run by "outsiders."

Some folks would say that by this point in the subject thread we're beating a dead horse, or mercilessly bad-mouthing the future prospects of the railroad. Maybe optimism should be balancing my hardened cynicism, but we all need to be learning the lessons from this unfolding drama.

Lesson #1: You cannot assume that someone who has been "loaning" you his equipment, expertise, real estate, labor, or other resources for years is simply going to "give" it to you when he dies. Secure a future plan in writing. There have been variations of this scenario in the past--a widow reclaiming a locomotive to sell as "life insurance," for example--and with the economy looking like it has and probably will be for the next decade, money is likely to overrule heartstrings for a good while.

Yes, a lesson to be learned. We have had two good lessons within the past year, both at the expense of two preserved short lines. The first lesson, provided by the Southern Michigan Railroad, taught us the importance of having a good set of bylaws to protect you from a hostile takeover attempt. The second lesson is as ADM has just stated. Don't get too far in debt with anyone without the means to either repay it, a structure in place to repay it or agreement where the debt would be forgiven when the individual passes away.