Delaware, Lackawanna and Western yards (aka; Steamtown) as seen in 1900.

Classic Shorpy - if you have never seen the site, welcome to your weekend!

I believe the inclined spur is now the walkway to the Mall, though I can't quite place any of the buildings in the background to my own photos. Worth a look next trip, for sure!

Shorpy

/Mitch

That inclined track served the coal wharf. Directly ahead, over the coach yard, the building with the tall smokestack and the one next to it now house the Electric City Trolley Museum. All the buildings to the left are gone, I think.

Here's a current photo and a blatant plug. From my new railroad-packed book "Scranton: Then & Now", here is the the "now" image from nearly the same location.

Dave

Also take a look at:
http://www.shorpy.com/node/7364?size=_original

http://www.shorpy.com/node/9335?size=_original

Notice the guy in the white coveralls in 2 of the pics. Neat look at history

Mike Tillger

My first reaction was to say "check out how those boxcars have been tagged."

Is that tagging, or information about cargo and routing?

Bob

I was going to state that those 800 series Camelback's were probably 2-8-0's, but now I see from Mike's posting, that they are Twelve-Wheelers! BTW, I notice that the rope to the bell on #807 isn't attached. Should this have been to the fireman's platform or to the cab for the engineer?

Les

Les,

The 4-8-0's in the picture were built by Brooks, I believe.

The higher numbered ones were built by Dickson in Scranton. Some of the buildings to the left side of the photo Mitch posted belonged to Dickson.

If you are into labor history, Dickson Mfg. played an interesting role.

Rob

801 to 815 (4-8-0W) Built by Brooks in 1899 with the construction numbers of 3304 to 3318. All scraped in 1923

816 to 820 (4-8-0W) Built by Dickson in 1900 with the construction numbers of 1092 to 1096. All scraped by 1929.

Source: The Delaware Lackawanna and Western Railroad In the Twentieth Century.

Daniel Barnett

Rob and Daniel -

Thanks for the info. BTW Daniel, you described these engines as being 4-8-0W's. I would have thought 4-8-0C (for Camelback). What is the W for? Thanks.

Les

If I'm not mistaken the "W" stands for the Wootten firebox that they had.

Daniel Barnett

Daniel -

Thanks for the explanation. I've never seen it done that way before. I guess I'm not too old to learn something new after all!

BTW, according to J. David Conrad, only a handful of locomotives built by Dickson at Scranton still survive; only one when the company was still known as Dickson Manufacturing. The others after Dickson became a part of the American Locomotive Company. The newest one was built in 1908, so I would imagine that Alco closed that plant sometime not long thereafter.

Les

We don't stop learning till we buy the dirt farm. What Dickson engine(s) survive?

Daniel Barnett

SHARP AND FELLOWS #7, a 2-6-2 built in 1902 by Dickson, survives at Travel Town.
http://www.laparks.org/grifmet/tt/htmga ... ellows.htm

Mike Tillger

I am glad Mitch started this thread.

It is easy to lose sight of the history of the Steamtown site among the common discussions of its modern state as a mjseum. The land upon which Steamtown sits, and the area adjacent to the tracks used by the Scranton shuttle trains, has some of the richest industrial heritage of any place in the US.

Captured for eternity as a bucolic scene of trains and hills by George Inness' paint brush in 1855, the land occupied by the DL&W through the Lackawanna Valley was one of the earliest hubs of the industrial revolution. One could argue it was the first great industrial US city not solely reliant upon water-power.

Those few miles the shuttle train covers are not only the scene of Inness' work, they pass the previously mentioned Dickson site (and there are some Dickson bldgs left a few blocks away) and the site of what eventually became Lackawanna Iron & Coal... the first rolling mill in the US to make rail and precurser to America's large steel mills. Unseen below the tracks are the deep grids of tunnels and rooms left behind from the anthracite coal mining.

If you focus on railroad yard history alone, the site is one of the oldest locomotive servicing facilities in the country, and except for the decade or so it sat idle, has had no other purpose in 170-odd years.

A broader study would reveal a booming textile industry that complemented mining across the anthracite regions, as well as some surprises. If you are in the over-55 set it's likely your first Beatles LP was manufactured in Scranton. A bit younger? Chances are you played miniature golf on a course made in Scranton. The great-grandchild of a blue collar worker? You may find they learned their trade via books from ICS, created in Scranton.

Any blue collar workers or union people in your family tree? Scranton was where labor's early battles were fought. Some of the great leaders worked right there by the rail yard.

We won't even discuss trolleys, my iPad battery is on 2%.

I know most folks go to Steamtown to see trains (whether they want to see "choo-choos" or seriously study them) but everytime I roll down the Moosic Mountains into town, I see two centuries of history laid out in a grid before me.

Rob

The sad part is the fact that it's so easy to lose sight of the history of the yard and the city of Scranton itself while walking upon the land Steamtown sits. If I recall, there are pictures INSIDE the museum, but inside the museum there seems to be little connection to the outside where more attention should be directed.

The yard itself could be a major attraction but instead seems most often thought of as simply a way to get to either the "train ride" or the Mall, less a few photographers who walk the yard in search of "buried" or hidden treasures.

/Mitch